PARABLE OF THE GOOD SAMARITAN (LUKE 10:25-37)

Now that we have disposed of the OT parables, the enacted parables, and the very short parables, we at last come to the type of parable most of us think of when we hear the term. Since it is such an important story in the NT even though it only appears in Luke's Gospel, we will devote a whole lesson to it. First, let's look at the purpose of the parable. It is perhaps the only “example parable” in the NT, and its ending “go and do likewise” puts it pretty firmly in the category of an ethical parable rather than a theological or prophetic one. However, we shall see that not everyone agrees with this. There is another unusual thing about this parable. You may recall that I said in an earlier post that Jesus' parables depart from the rabbinical parables in that the rabbis told their stories to explain an existing OT text. By contrast, Jesus' parables created their own sacred text. The Story of the Good Samaritan is an exception to the rule in that it also was a story told to explain an OT teaching. You are all very familiar with this story but I think there will be some rather new insights as we go through it.

NT Background

There are some interesting parallels between this story and three other passages in the NT:

Luke 17:16: This is the miracle of the ten lepers who were healed by Jesus. In our parable the man is walking from Jerusalem whereas Jesus was walking to Jerusalem in the second case; both involve healings, the presence of a priest, the question of ritual purity; and most importantly, in both it was only a Samaritan who was faithful and thankful, compared to the Jews in the stories. This is one example of Luke's interest in relating events and teachings in Jesus' life that show his concern for minorities.

The second parallel is found in Luke 18:9-14, the parable of the Pharisee and tax collector. Both contain an unlikely hero, negative reflection on religious leaders and the use of “justify.”

Lastly, look at James 1:27 with his two-pronged definition of true religion to care for widows and orphans and keep oneself unspotted from the world. We sometimes feel we have to chose among the two options and usually opt not to leave our comfort zone to help others. Kistemaker-- “[This parable] is an indictment against those who had raised protective barriers in order to live a sheltered life.”

Snodgrass says, “Love does not have a boundary where we can say we have loved enough, not does it permit us to choose those we will love, who are 'our kind.'” For the first part of this sentence, see Peter's question (Matthew 18:21-22) to Jesus on how often we need to forgive a brother. This parable deals with the second issue of who we are to love. And of course Jesus' command for us to love even our enemies shatters all boundaries of love.

Verse 25a

Beginning with Luke 10:25 we read: "Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. 'Teacher,' he said, 'What must I do to inherit eternal life?'” The lawyer, probably the same as a scribe, is an example of “the wise and the intelligent” Jesus was talking about a few verses earlier when he said: “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants.” (Luke 10:21)

By the way, we know that v. 25 is where the story starts because of a literary device known as an inclusio. This is when an author uses the same wording at the beginning and end of a passage. In this case it is the particular Greek verb form that means “doing” which appears in verses 25 and 37 to bracket the whole parable.

The lawyer calls Jesus Rabbi, or teacher. This was a sign of respect for Jesus. Other translations say “tempt” instead of “test.” It turns out that the same Greek word can mean either one. In this case, it probably means that he wanted to see how good and orthodox Jesus' teachings were, not that he necessarily wanted to trap Jesus. I once taught a Sunday school lesson in our church where someone in the class interrupted me to ask me questions that had nothing to do with the passage we were studying. It turned out that it wasn't to get any new information (He already knew the answers), but as a test to see if my answers matched up with his. We all do the same thing when we pick apart a sermon to make sure it meets our preconceived ideas (having roast preacher for Sunday supper) or whenever we pick and choose which teachings in the Bible to accept or reject. And the lawyer in this story was apparently doing the same thing. The question he asked Jesus was known to have been a common one in rabbinical circles and even appears several other times in the NT.

Jesus said back to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” Note that Jesus refers the lawyer to the written law, not the oral law. The rich young ruler asked Jesus the identical question. In that case Jesus also referred him to the OT commandments regarding our treatment of others. And since the question seemed to be sincere, Jesus followed up with the one thing missing in the man's life. But with the lawyer, the discussion will take a different tack since the lawyer wants to know where to draw the line on loving his neighbor. I think that one object lesson to us here is that there is no canned response we are to give when talking about spiritual matters with others; we first need to try to find out where they are coming from.

Snodgrass notes that Jesus' answer to both of those questioners is not at all what we in the church are taught to say. We often emphasize belief and downplay any required subsequent actions because of our fear of works-righteousness.

Verse 27 The lawyer replies in verse 27, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

The first part of this reply regarding our attitude toward God is a quote from Deuteronomy 6:5. Some Christians mistakenly feel that the saying to love your neighbor as yourself originates in the NT, but it is actually a direct quotation of Leviticus 19:18.

Verse 28 Jesus' reply is “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.” In a very nice way Jesus is in effect telling the man, “You obviously knew the answer to your own question already. So why are you trying to put me on the spot? Why don't you practice what you preach?”

Verse 29 "But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?'” The lawyer now needs to justify himself in two ways. In the first place, he has been made to look silly in public by Jesus turning the tables on him and having him answer his own question. I have to admit that I practiced a somewhat similar technique years ago in graduate school when I had to give my annual seminar talk in front of the whole chemistry department. There was a fellow graduate student who made it a practice to try to elevate himself above the others students in the presence of the professors. He did it by reading up on the subject of the student's talk ahead of time and noting some tiny detail in one of the published research papers. He would then ask his prepared and totally irrelevant question during their talk just to watch them squirm when they didn't know the answer (which of course he already knew). I had gotten a little tired of seeing him do this. So when it was my time to be asked an unbelievably picky question during my talk, I turned to him and said, “Why in the world would you ever want to know the answer to that question?” It may not have been the most loving way to handle the situation, but it completely shut him up and even stopped him for a while from trying to harass any other students. Of course, the second reason the lawyer needed to justify himself was to excuse his own actions in not practicing the love for others he professed to have.

The question of “Who is my neighbor?” was actually one debated among the rabbis of the time. Going back to Leviticus 19:18, the whole verse reads: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.” The context of this specific verse shows that it was directed only toward fellow Jews. And this was the feeling of most rabbis of the time. But to show the danger of picking and choosing the passages in the Bible that we like and ignoring the ones we don't, look what God says only a few verses later: “The alien who lives among you shall be to you as the citizen; you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” (Leviticus 19:34)   However, if the rabbis discussed this verse at all, they proceeded to define “alien resident” to refer only to Jewish proselytes. Some rabbinical teachings specifically excluded all foreigners and Samaritans. The Pharisees even tended to exclude the common man from their definition of neighbor; and the Dead Sea community excluded anyone who did not agree with their theological beliefs.

You may have been confused as I was years ago in reading Jesus' statement in the Sermon on the Mount beginning, “You have heard it said to hate your enemies...” I couldn't find that idea anywhere in the OT? Of course it isn't, but it was a common Jewish idea during Jesus' day. Evidence of that attitude is found in the Apocryphal writings of the time:

        Sirach 12:4-5: “Give to the devout, but do not help the sinner.”

        Tobit 4:17: “Place your bread on the grave of the righteous, but give none to sinners.”

        And from the Dead Sea Scrolls: “I shall not comfort the oppressed until their path is perfect” and “hate the men of the pit.”

        From later rabbinical teachings concerning love of neighbor: “If he acts as thy people do, thou shalt love him; but if not, thou shalt not love him.” Other rulings specifically stated that a Jew was not liable to the death penalty for killing a Samaritan and that it was okay to withhold wages from them. (Snodgrass)

Josephus records several reasons for the Jew's hatred of Samaritans: (1) during the time of Alexander the Great, they destroyed Jewish farms and took some of the people away as slaves, and they renamed their temple as a temple to Zeus in order to escape Greek persecution, (2) right before a Jewish festival in 8 AD, some Samaritans desecrated the Jerusalem Temple by scattering human bones there at night, and (3) they once killed a group of Galilean pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem.

Verse 30 Now Jesus begins the parable proper: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the bands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead." “Going down” – it was a 2/3 mile descent over 18 miles. It was not only a very hilly but also a treacherous road which provided many potential hiding spots for robbers. In Roman times this road was called the Path of Blood. The Jericho mentioned here is not that of the OT but a city founded much later by Herod the Great.

Verses 31-32 “Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So also a Levite when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.” There is another realistic touch here in that about half of the 24 orders of priests lived in Jericho with each order serving for one week a year in the temple. “By chance” is used elsewhere in Scripture to indicate God's providence. In other words, the events were not just accidental. Trench points out how often God brings together those who are hurting and those who are in the position to help them. The question is whether we recognize those opportunities and take advantage of them.

There were several possible motives for not stopping to help: the fear of robbers still in neighborhood, the body might have been a plant to stop unwary travelers, being too conceited and proud to help, feeling that God must have had reason for inflicting punishment on the injured man, etc. The motive I was always taught from the pulpit when growing up was that the priest and Levite were on their way to Jerusalem for their turn to serve in the Temple and that it was vital they not be slowed down or ritually polluted by contact with a dead body since that would have prevented them from serving. But were they on the way to Jerusalem or returning from there? Remember the riddle “As I was walking to St. Ives, I met a man...” Both the drop in altitude between Jerusalem and Jericho, and the fact that those going toward Jerusalem always were said to be going up rather than down indicate that just as the wounded man had been traveling down from Jerusalem, so was the priest. We are not told which direction the Levite was traveling in.

Getting back to motives: Yes, there are various purity laws in Leviticus regarding contact with corpses. The priest and Levite were apparently not sure if the man was already dead, but if so they might have to pay burial costs, and they would be socially and ritually unclean for seven days, and would have to pay for sacrifices to become ritually cleansed. But contrary to often quoted opinions, the absolute prohibition against priests contacting corpses under any circumstances doesn't even apply to Levites. In addition, the Mishnah taught that a priest's first duty was to try to save a life, even if it did lead to ritual impurity. So neither party had an excuse for his actions. Also, they were well aware of the teaching in Deuteronomy 22:4: “You shall not see your neighbor's donkey or ox fallen on the road and ignore it; you shall help to lift it up.” By reasoning from the lesser to the greater, the command to help a person in need should be even more obvious.

One interesting OT passage that may have been in Jesus' mind as he told this story is Hosea 6:9. It contains this interesting condemnation of the Jewish priesthood: “As robbers lie in wait for someone, so the priests are banded together; they murder on the road to Shechem, they commit a monstrous crime.” In other words, Jesus may be strongly suggesting that the priests and Levites are just as bad as the robbers in the parable, if not worse.

Verse 33 “But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity (or compassion)." The word for compassion (mercy or pity) is elsewhere in the NT only applied to Jesus except for another parable, the Prodigal Son, in which the father is said to have had compassion on his youngest son.

Verse 34 “He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and cared for him.” It has been said that oil and wine made up the first-aid kit in ancient times: wine as antiseptic and oil to soothe the wound. At this point, there may be another OT passage that influenced this parable. II Chronicles 28 contains the story about a group of Judeans led captive into Samaria. But a prophet warns them to return the prisoners. So the Samaritans “clothed all that were naked among them; gave them sandals, provided them with food and drink, and anointed them; and carrying all the feeble among them on donkeys, they brought them to their kindred at Jericho...Then they returned to Samaria.” Notice all the similarities between this event and Jesus' parable, including the presence of "Jericho" in both.

Verse 35 describes how the Samaritan left the man with the innkeeper and gave him two denarii to take care of the wounded man until he returned. This indicates that the Samaritan was a man known by the innkeeper to be trustworthy. The money would have been enough to provide about two months of lodging according to one scholar, several days according to another, two weeks from another one, and almost a month according to a fourth commentator. This points out that you should not just take everything you read or hear about the Bible automatically without checking it out yourself, and that especially applies to anything I might teach.

Jesus asks in verse 36, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” Why do you think Jesus chose such a roundabout way to define "neighbor", looking at what it means to be a neighbor rather than how one can identify one's neighbor? 

    The question is not what marks out someone as deserving of my love, “but was an appeal to a better principle in the questioner's heart than the narrow and unloving theories in which he had been trained.” (Trench)

     “While mere neighborhood does not create love, love does create neighborliness.” (Manson)

     “Neighbor is not an object that one defines but a relationship into which one enters.” (Ellis) 

    Jesus' answer totally negates the assumption of the lawyer that there are boundaries to the definition of neighbor. (Snodgrass)

     Franz Leenhardt: “One cannot define one's neighbor; one can only be a neighbor.”

Verse 37. The lawyer replies that it is the one who showed him mercy. Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise.” The refusal of the lawyer to use the word “Samaritan” indicates that he had understood but not really accepted the point of the story.

Let's review some of the characteristics of parables to see if this one follows Olrik's Laws regarding ancient orally transmitted stories:

    a. The Rule of Three: There is often a set of three that appears. In this case it would be the three men who encounter the wounded traveler

    b. Rule of End Stress: The last in a series is the most important (That would be the Samaritan himself)

    c. Rule of Stage Duality: only two characters or groups of characters are on the stage at one time. First it is the traveler and the thieves, then the traveler with each of the three passers-by in turn, and lastly the innkeeper and the Samaritan.

    d. Rule of Contrast: virtue and vice, wisdom and foolishness, etc. Of course, the contrast here is in the attitudes of those who ignored the wounded man compared to the one who helped him.

    e. Rule of a Single Theme: In most cases, there will be one main point intended by the parable. We'll get to that next as we discuss the interpretation of the parable.

Interpretation

The man on a journey = Adam

Jerusalem = the heavenly city of peace

Jericho = human mortality and those under a curse

Robbers stripping the man = Satan and his angels who strip him of his immortality

Beating the man = persuading him to sin

Priest and Levite = impotent old covenant that cannot save

Samaritan = Jesus

Binding of wounds = restraint of sin

Oil = comfort of good hope

Wine = exhortation to work with a fervent spirit

Beast of burden = Jesus' flesh

Being set upon it = belief in the incarnation

Inn = the church

The next day = the time beyond the resurrection

Innkeeper = the apostle Paul

Two pence = the love commands or the promise of this life and life to come

What ever more you spend = counsel of celibacy or Paul's earning his own keep

Samaritan's return = second coming of Christ

This allegorical interpretation was the most common patristic interpretation and a few modern commentators still teach it, at least the part about the Samaritan representing Christ. Interestingly, there are even other scholars who think that Christ is symbolized by the wounded man instead. This illustrates the danger of turning a parable into an allegory without any sure guides to help you out. But as Snodgrass says, “The Good Samaritan is not a metaphorical story about some other reality.”

Prophetic – There is one piece of evidence that links this parable to the story of the two sons, found in Matthew's Gospel. In both cases, Jesus concludes the parable with a question: Which one of these / the two...? Thus, it can be seen as a contrast between those outside the law who do the law anyway (Samaritans) and the Jews who know what to do but don't do it This played out historically in the rejection of Jesus by the Jews and his acceptance in Samaritan and Gentile lands.

Intellectual – There were two sets of competing OT laws that came into play here and the question of the time among rabbis was, “Which one has precedence?” On the one hand was the command to love your neighbor but on the other hand, were the restrictions found in rabbinical writings against people coming in contact with a corpse. Although there is little indication that the lawyer had that controversy in mind, it is obvious from Jesus' reply that the love command overrides all others.

Ethical – “The parable exposes any religion with a mania for creeds and an anemia for deeds.” (P. Jones) I attended one church for years where the congregation was seeped in Bible knowledge coming from the pulpit and from excellent Sunday school teachers, but the actions of the people, including many of the leaders, would hardly be called Christian. I eventually left that church and began to attend one where the general level of Bible knowledge among the people was fairly rudimentary, but they were the most loving and caring Christians I had experienced in a long time.

This parable can be applied to many aspects of life from abortion issues, fighting genocide, problems of the homeless, etc.

Look at the way the conversation is structured. The exact same format appears in verses 25-28 as in 29-37 (Snodgrass):

Question 1 from lawyer

        Question 2 from Jesus

        Question 2 answered by lawyer     

Question 1 answered by Jesus

Question 3 from lawyer

        Question 4 about Jesus' parable

        Question 4 answered by lawyer

Question 3 answered by Jesus

Craddock asks about the first set of questions, “What is wrong with this conversation? We have two good questions, two good answers, and two men who agree. What else could one ask? All kinds of things are wrong. Asking questions for the purpose of gaining an advantage over another is not a kingdom exercise. Neither is asking questions with no intention of implementing the answers. The goal of witnessing or of theological conversation is not to outwit one another. And having right answers does not mean one knows God. Students can make a 4.0 in Bible and miss the point. Jesus did not say to the lawyer, 'Great answer! You are my best pupil.' Rather, Jesus said, 'Go and do.'” And that, as Jesus' final word, is obviously the main intent of this parable.

So finally we come to the personal application of this well-known parable. One approach is to put ourselves into the story as each of the characters in turn.

Priests and Levite: Years ago when I lived in upstate NY, I was driving to church on a rather deserted road to teach a class and passed a woman with car trouble on the side of the road. I made a snap decision and kept driving. Remember that this was before the days of cell phones. I rationalized that it would probably take too long to find a gas station that was open and I would let down my whole class by not showing up on time. I played the part of the priest and the Levite. I think of James 1:27 where he defines pure religion as helping those in need and keeping ourselves unstained by the world. We tend to obey the last part of this definition warning about polluting contact with outside influences but in the process block ourselves from helping others.

God taught me a lesson about a year later. My next door neighbor was a chemist at the same laboratory so we carpooled to work together. Well, We ran out of gas in the snow on a country road on the way to work, and we had to walk about a mile back to get help. At the end of the day, my neighbor got into the car to go home and I could see that he was really mad. It turned out that all day long people would come up to him and ask, “Wasn't that you who was walking in the snow with Dave this morning?” But not one of them had stopped to help us. When he told me this, I started laughing because I realized that God had turned the tables on me to teach me a lesson.

The Traveler: This story that comes to mind to me took place about a year after I had transferred to Austin from out of state. My company had only given my wife and me one week to scout out places to live, and the house we bought appeared to be in a good neighborhood. We didn't realize at the time that the surrounding housing had already begun to go downhill and soon had one of the highest crime rates in Austin. I was driving home one day and was about ¼ mile from my house when my car just stopped running on a very busy road. I knew I couldn't push it by myself and didn't know what to do when I saw in my rear view mirror a car pull up behind me and three rather large and intimidating teenagers who looked like they lived in the neighboring housing project got out and headed toward me. Without saying a word they began to push my car as I steered it onto a deserted side street. At this point I felt like the traveler in the parable who is about to be beat up and robbed, but the boys just got back in their car and left before I even had time to thank them. So they turned out to be the Good Samaritans instead of the thieves. And it shamed me to think how badly I had misjudged them strictly by the color of their skin and their clothing.

The Innkeeper: Although I don't think that this parable is really a detailed allegory, there is something to the fact that after saving the man, the Samaritan turned him over to an innkeeper to help complete the man's full restoration. This is a vivid picture of what should happen when a person becomes saved and then is introduced into a church community where he can be fully discipled and matured as a Christian. So my own ministry has always centered on teaching those who have been brought in by others rather than trying to save them myself. And I will admit that besides it fitting in best with my gifts, the role of teacher is a lot less scary to me than being an evangelist.