Luke 10: 25-36
The Good Samaritan

by Gary DeLashmutt

Introduction

Read 10:30-35 (the parable only). Comment on the normal “lesson” gleaned—we should help people who are stranded on the highway, etc.

There may be some validity to this, which we will explore later.  But it misses the main point of the parable. Read 10:30a—Jesus “replied.” This parable was not told in a vacuum and therefore should not be interpreted in a vacuum. It was a response to very specific issue raised by a very specific type of person. This illustrates the importance of interpreting the Bible in light of its historical setting. Before we ask, “What does this passage teach me or us?” we must first ask, “What did it teach its original audience?”

The Setting

Read 10:25. Notice three important features:

The man initiating this discussion is a “lawyer.” A “lawyer” in this culture was a religious person, one who was an expert on interpreting and applying the law of Moses.

He was asking Jesus this question in order to “put him to the test.” That is, his motive was not really to learn from Jesus, but rather to trap him in an unorthodox response. This is the first of many such tests by the religious leaders on this final trip as they sought opportunity to prosecute Jesus as a false teacher.

He asked Jesus “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” The subject to be discussed is how to gain entry into God’s kingdom, how to be sure you’re admitted into Messiah’s kingdom at the end of the age. The lawyer’s question also assumes (as we shall see) that this is something that we earn rather than something that God gives. His question is, “We know that we must earn our entrance into heaven—what kind of works and how many of them must we perform to get our ticket?”

Since the lawyer is asking a “works” mentality question, Jesus gives him a “works” mentality answer. Read 10:26-28. Jesus says, “What does God say is necessary to earn your way?” He directs the man away from humanly originated rabbinic answers, back to the law of God in the Old Testament.  The man correctly quotes two commandments  that summarize God’s requirements: perfect love (“all”) for God and others. So Jesus says, “That’ll be sufficient—do this and you’ll earn your ticket.”

Read 10:29. The lawyer must have sensed at this point that he was painting himself into a corner, because Luke says his response was motivated by a desire to “justify himself.” In other words, he sensed that God’s Law would condemn him as unworthy. So he did what all “works” mentality people do—he began to dilute the Law. “Who is my neighbor?” introduces a method of diluting God’s Law that had a rich rabbinic legacy by this time.

The Old Testament Law commanded Israelites to love foreigners (Lev. 19:34), and to help even their enemies (Ex. 23:4-5).

The rabbis taught that idolaters are not to be delivered when in imminent danger, and heretics and apostates are to be led into imminent danger.[1] They also taught that a burden is only to be unloaded from a lost beast if it belongs to an Israelite, not if it belongs to a non-Jewish person.[2]

But Jesus refuses to get drawn into such legalistic loopholes. Instead, he tells a story that is designed to keep the standard where God wanted it—and to show the man that he wasn’t meeting it. Now that we understand the setting, let’s take another look at the parable . . . 

The Parable Revisited

Jesus describes a situation in which “loving your neighbor as yourself” clearly calls for giving aid to the man who got mugged. All the lawyer had to do to realize this is put himself in the mugged man’s place. Yet the story contains two twists that are designed to break the lawyer out of his “works” mentality by destroying his confidence that he fulfilled God’s Law.

The acknowledged “ticket-holders” violate the Law.

Priests and Levites were both involved in the worship at the Temple. Their concern for ritual purity would have provided them with a rationalization for not only not helping this man, but also crossing to the other side of the road to avoid contamination. The lawyer would identify with these two, and condemn himself in the process.

The hero of the story was a Samaritan. REMIND OF JEWISH ATTITUDE TOWARD THEM: LAST WEEK’S QUOTE ABOUT NO PLACE IN THE RESURRECTION. Yet, the one he would not have regarded as fully human, let alone a neighbor (and the one he cannot bring himself to name in 10:36), exemplifies what it means to fulfill God’s Law.

The lawyer is asking, “Who do I have to love in order to get my ticket?” Jesus’ answer is, “Everyone, no matter what racial or religious background they come from.” Just as the Samaritan loved this Jewish man, the lawyer would have to be willing to love a Samaritan—something he was repulsed by.

Primary Application

Now we’re ready to understand Jesus’ main point. It is not that we should help people who break down on the freeway, but that the lawyer does not keep God’s Law, and therefore he does not qualify for inheriting eternal life. 

This is why Jesus taught two ways to go to heaven. Sometimes, he taught that eternal life was a free gift from God to be received by simple faith (Jn. 3:16; 6:29; etc.). Sometimes, he taught that you have to earn your way to heaven by doing good works. He didn’t embrace two contradictory soteriologies—he spoke to two different kinds of people.

Whenever Jesus teaches the “earn your way” approach, it’s always to people who think they can (Matt. 5:17-48; Mark 10:17-22; this lawyer). And it’s always so they’ll realize they can’t earn it and humble themselves to receive it as a free gift.

Do you think you’re good enough to earn a ticket to heaven? Before you stake your eternal destiny on “Yes,” you’d better take a closer look at God’s standard for earning it. Do you love all people all the time with all of your being? Then God says you’re not good enough. You deserve his judgment. Thus, the Law is designed to make us aware of our moral guilt before God so that we personally realize our need for his mercy.

Whenever he teaches the “free gift” approach, it’s always to people who realize they can’t earn it (Samaritan woman; etc.). There is no need to convince them of this, so he goes straight to the good news.

Are you ready to admit that you aren’t good enough to earn the ticket, and that you’ll never be good enough? Then God says you qualify for his gift—if you cast yourself on his mercy and trust Jesus to provide it for you.

Secondary Applications

Once we understand the main point, we can also learn some things from this parable about God wants us to relate to other people. But bear in mind that this parable isn’t meant as a total strategy on how to meet human need. If we apply it literalistically, we would spend our entire lives responding to physical needs and never have time for fulfilling the Great Commission. But it does illustrate some principles of biblical love that we need to remember.

Biblical love is active and sacrificial versus passive and selfish. The priest and the Levite could say they didn’t harm the mugged man, but they were still selfish. Hillel had propounded their version of the Golden Rule: “What is hateful to you, that do not to another.” But Jesus’ version leaves no room for selfish omission (Matt. 7:12).

Many evangelical Christians conceive of ethical behavior in terms of avoiding bad behaviors. God doesn’t merely ask you, “Have you harmed anyone today?” He goes beyond that to ask you, “Who have you served today? How have you initiated with out of love?”

Biblical love prioritizes human need over religious ritual. The priest and Levite wrongly used their commitment to ceremonial purity as an excuse to neglect the man.

It’s OK to take communion, get baptized, etc.—but we should beware the tendency to view these things as the heart of what it means to be spiritual. The Bible (both New Testament and Old Testament) always relegates ritual observance to a distant second to other things like learning his Word, cooperating with his character transformation, and serving others in love.

Biblical love reaches out to those beyond our “tribe” versus tribalism. The whole rabbinic re-definition of “neighbor” is a perverse evasion of love.

Most of us have a tendency to initiate love only with those already within our circle, and to rationalize not loving (or even hating and rejecting) those outside our circle. We use the term “tribalism” for this attitude, because most oral tribes’ term for their own tribe is their word for “human being”—which means that others are not really human and therefore have no claim on our love.

There is no place for racial or ethnic or religious hate in Christianity!! Groups like the KKK or Nation of Islam, who use the Bible to justify this attitude, personify what Jesus rebukes in this passage.

Biblical love formulates plans to address both short-term and long-term needs. The Samaritan tended to the man’s immediate needs by dressing his wounds and taking him to the inn. But he also paid for the man’s ongoing return to health (24 DAY STAY).

We should be willing to serve people at the point of their immediate and perceived need. What good does it do to give a gospel tract to someone who is starving? Why insist only on preaching to people in South Linden who need education and job skills help?

But we should also have a plan to address people’s spiritual needs. What ultimate good does it do to feed people, if we don’t also help them to see their need for reconciliation with God and point them to Jesus?

Footnotes

[1] Ab. Zar. 26a, cited in  Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1977), vol. 2, p. 237.

[2] Babba Mets, cited in  Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. 2, p. 237.