Luke 10.25-37.
This is probably Jesus’s best-known story, almost universally called the Good Samaritan. Which… is a problematic name, ’cause I’m not sure how many people realize the reason he’s called the good Samaritan, is because the usual Jewish and gentile presumption is he wouldn’t be good; he’d either
The story begins with a
Luke 10.25-29 KWL - 25 Look, a certain lawyer stands up to examine Jesus,
- saying, “Teacher, what makes me inherit life in the age to come?”
- 26 Jesus tells him, “What’s been written in the Law?
- How are you reading it?
- 27 In reply the lawyer says, “You’ll love your Lord God from your whole heart,
- your whole life, your whole strength, and your whole intellect;
Dt 6.4-5 - and your neighbor same as yourself.”
Lv 19.18 - 28 Jesus tells the lawyer, “Correctly answered.
- Do this and you’ll live.”
- 29 Wanting to make himself righteous,
- the lawyer tells Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
Bibles tend to render what the lawyer was doing as “standing up to test Jesus,” as if he was trying to attack our Lord. In a way he kinda was: Pharisee rabbis taught their students the Socratic method. They’d make statements, and their students were trained to pick apart these statements every which way, to see whether they held up to serious scrutiny. Jesus must’ve made some statement, and this lawyer decided to pick it apart. It feels adversarial ’cause it kinda is, but it was an acceptable form of adversarial dialogue. This lawyer wasn’t doing anything culturally wrong. Or hostile—unless he chose to be hostile, and we’ve no real evidence from the bible that’s what he was up to.
So Jesus must’ve made some statement about what
Jesus asked him a question right back: “You know the Law, so you already know the answer. What’s the Law say you oughta be doing?” And the lawyer’s response is the very same that Jesus of Nazareth, Hillel of Babylon, and most Pharisees recognized were the two greatest commands:
Mark 12.28-31 KWL - 28 One of the scribes, standing there listening to the discussion,
- recognizing how well Jesus answered the Sadducees,
- asked Jesus, “Which command is first of all?”
- 29 Jesus gave this answer: “First is, ‘Listen Israel: Our god is the Lord. The Lord is One.
- 30 You’ll love your Lord God with all your mind, life, thought, and strength.’
Dt 6.4-5 - Second is, ‘Love your neighbor like yourself.’
Lv 19.18 - No command is higher than these.”
Jesus singling out the greatest commands, wasn’t anything new. Really, it’s self-evident. Love God; love your neighbor. Once you recognize
But this lawyer wanted to play around with what Jesus meant by neighbor. Most of us kinda skeptically interpret Luke’s statement that the lawyer was “wanting to make himself righteous”
I figure you already loosely know the Good Samaritan Story; we put the twist ending in the title, for crying out loud. Jesus doesn’t do loopholes, and makes it quite clear that “your neighbor” includes everybody in our homeland. Family members, strangers, the rich, the poor, the unwanted, the folks we imagine ought not be there. Everybody. We’re to love everybody. No exceptions.
So to teach this, Jesus tells a story. Let’s get to it.