Parable of the Good Samaritan, Part 1
This Week's Bible Reading: Luke 10:25-37
Supporting Passage: Matthew 5:17-20
In the series finale of the show Seinfeld, Jerry and the gang witness a man getting carjacked. Instead of intervening, they record the crime and make jokes at the man's expense. But when the cops arrive, they are arrested and sent to jail. It turns out the town has a Good Samaritan law on the books. You are held responsible if you see someone in trouble and fail to help them!
As we near the end of our journey through the parables of Jesus, I saved one of my favorite stories for last: The Good Samaritan. It's a well-known tale. Robbers attack a man and leave him for dead at the side of the road. A priest happens to walk by but doesn't do anything to help the man. A Levite also strolls past him but doesn't stop to lend a hand, either. (A Levite was someone who assisted priests in the Temple.) But then, "a despised Samaritan" (v. 33, NLT) comes along and nurses the man back to health.
Jesus' parables are more than moral fables. But out of all his stories, the Good Samaritan is the one most likely to be put in this category. It's easy to oversimplify it and think the main takeaway is to help others even when it is inconvenient. In our modern culture, a Good Samaritan is a person who does exactly that. It's common to hear phrases like, "I was stuck on the side of the road with a flat tire until some Good Samaritan came by and helped."
While it's always good to be aware of the needs of those around us, Jesus was doing something bigger with this story. He was showing us that in God's Kingdom, we do not get to decide who is worthy of our love and who isn't.
The truth is, this parable is not the benign little story many people think it is. Jesus made the hero a Samaritan, a twist that would have shocked and offended the people who heard it. Next week, we'll explore who Samaritans were and why there was bad blood between them and Jewish people. Today, let's look at what prompted Jesus to tell this tale.
In Luke 10, a lawyer comes to Jesus with a question:
One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: "Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?"
Jesus replied, "What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?"
The man answered, "'You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.' And, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
"Right!" Jesus told him. "Do this and you will live!" (Luke 10:25–28, NLT)
Jesus' answer may seem strange. Shouldn't his answer to this question always be, "Believe in me and follow me."?
Remember—Jesus dealt with people as individuals. He was always prodding to get to the real issue behind the question. In this case, the lawyer was trying to "test" Jesus. But what was the test about?
Maybe this lawyer saw Jesus hanging out with sinners and tax collectors. This made him uncomfortable. He wondered if Jesus was a heretic who didn't take Old Testament law (i.e., the law of Moses) seriously. After all, Jesus didn't seem to mind getting his hands dirty. And so the lawyer was trying to get a sense of where Jesus' true loyalty lay.
But surprisingly, Jesus gives the standard answer most rabbis at that time would have given. There was nothing controversial about it. He asks the lawyer what the law of Moses says. (Ironically, the same law that many Pharisees have accused Jesus of breaking!)
This point is crucial as we begin to look at the parable of the Good Samaritan. Sometimes, it's easy to pit the Old Testament and New Testament against each other. The God of the Old Testament is full of wrath, and then Jesus comes along full of love. But when the lawyer answers Jesus’ question with, "Love God and love your neighbor," he quotes from the Old Testament.
The love God part comes from Deuteronomy 6:5 (known as the Shema prayer): "And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength." Jewish males recited this verse twice a day.
And the love your neighbor part comes from Leviticus 19:18: "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD."
God always wanted his people to love their neighbors. The lawyer knew that. The real question (and perhaps the real test he had in mind for Jesus) came next:
The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" (Luke 10:29, NLT)
Jesus responds by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan. With this story, Jesus isn't inventing anything new. Instead, he is showing us how to live out what God has already commanded.
Was Jesus taking the command to love your neighbor too far, as some had suspected?
Jesus' answer could end up offending everyone.
Questions to Ponder:
Take some time to read the parable of the Good Samaritan and write down any initial thoughts you have.
What are some ways our culture uses the phrase "Good Samaritan"? How might the parable's message differ from the way our culture usually interprets it?
In Matthew 5:17, Jesus says, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." How is Jesus fulfilling the Old Testament law to love your neighbor with this parable?
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