Jesus Christ · The Two Great Parables
The Good Samaritan
A theology expert asks his follow-up question “willing to justify himself”: and who is my neighbour? He wants a boundary — a line past which love is no longer owed. Jesus answers with a story that refuses to draw one: a real road, a beaten man, two temple officials who see and cross over, and a Samaritan — a slur in the mouths of the audience — who comes where he is. Then the question comes back reversed. Not “who qualifies for my love?” but “was I a neighbour?”
Two Questions From a Lawyer
— Luke 10:25-29 — and the motive behind the secondThe exchange begins as a test. The lawyer’s first question — “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” — Jesus turns back on him, and the man answers perfectly: love God entirely; love your neighbour as yourself. “Do this, and thou shalt live.” It is the second question that gives him away. Luke supplies the motive in three words — willing to justify himself— because a law that says “neighbour” is keepable only if “neighbour” has edges.
One day an expert in the law stood up to test Him. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” Jesus replied. “How do you read it?” He answered, “‘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 ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus said. “Do this and you will live.”But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”the tell — a boundary requested.
A certain lawyer - One who professed to be well skilled in the laws of Moses, and whose business it was to explain them. Stood up - Rose - came forward to address him. Tempted him - Feigned a desire to be instructed, but did it to perplex him, or to lead him, if possible, to contradict some of the maxims of the law. Inherit eternal life - Be saved. This was the common inquiry among the Jews. They had said that man must keep the commandments - the written and oral law.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869), on Luke 10:25
To justify himself - Desirous to appear blameless, or to vindicate himself, and show that he had kept the law. Jesus wished to lead him to a proper view of his own sinfulness, and his real departure from the law.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869), on Luke 10:29
Some think that their neighbor is their brother, family, relative or their kinsman. Our Lord teaches who our neighbor is in the Gospel parable of a certain man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.… Everyone is our neighbor, and we should not harm anyone. If, on the contrary, we understand our fellow human beings to be only our brother and relatives, is it then permissible to do evil to strangers? God forbid such a belief! We are neighbors, all people to all people, for we have one Father.
Jerome· Homily on Psalm 14 (420), on Luke 10:29
The Road Down
— Jerusalem to Jericho — the verbs are the parableJerusalem · 2,500 ft above the sea
Jericho · 800 ft below
The robbers
“stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead”
A certain man--a Jew. from Jerusalem to Jericho--a distance of nineteen miles northeast, a deep and very fertile hollow--"the Temple of Judea" [TRENCH]. thieves--"robbers." The road, being rocky and desolate, was a notorious haunt of robbers, then and for ages after, and even to this day.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on Luke 10:30
By chance - Accidentally, or as it happened. It means that he did not do it with a design to aid the man that was wounded. A certain priest - It is said that not less than 12,000 priests and Levites dwelt at Jericho; and as their business was at Jerusalem, of course there would be many of them constantly traveling on that road. When he saw him - He saw him lie, but came not near him. Passed by on the other side - On the farther side of the way.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869), on Luke 10:31
Jesus took up this question and said, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down the same road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So too, when a Levite came to that spot and saw him, he passed by on the other side.The Man From the Wrong Nation
— Luke 10:33-35 — the care, itemizedThe hearers knew the story’s rhythm: priest, Levite… and the third traveler should be an ordinary Israelite — clergy failing where a layman shines. Jesus breaks the pattern with the one nationality calculated to sting. And then the story slows down deliberately to itemize the mercy: the approach, the compassion, wine to clean and oil to soothe, the bandaging, his own animal surrendered while he walks, the inn, two denarii — two days’ wages — and an open account: “whatsoever thou spendest more, I will repay thee.” Love here is not a feeling that passed through him. It is a costed, itemized, follow-up-scheduled act.
But when a Samaritan on a journey came upon him, he looked at him and had compassion. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Take care of him,’ he said, ‘and on my return I will repay you for any additional expense.’Samaritan--one excommunicated by the Jews, a byword among them, synonymous with heretic and devil (Joh 8:48; see on Lu 17:18). had compassion--His best is mentioned first; for "He who gives outward things gives something external to himself, but he who imparts compassion and tears gives him something from his very self" [GREGORY THE GREAT, in TRENCH].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on Luke 10:33
Pouring in oil and wine - These, beaten together, appear to have been used formerly as a common medicine for fresh wounds. Bind up a fresh cut immediately in a soft rag or lint, moistened with pure olive oil, and the parts will heal by what is called the first intention, and more speedily than by any other means. An inn - Πανδοχειον, from παν, all, and δεχομαι, I receive; because it receives all comers.
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1832), on Luke 10:34
Blessed is that innkeeper who can care for another's wounds. Blessed is he to whom Jesus says, "Whatever you shall spend over and above, I will repay you." A good steward is one who also spends over and above. Paul is a good steward, whose sermons and epistles overflow with the knowledge that he received.
Ambrose of Milan· Commentary on Luke (397), on Luke 10:35
The Question, Reversed
— Luke 10:36-37 — from 'who is my neighbour?' to 'was I one?'Jesus never answers the lawyer’s question. He replaces it. The lawyer asked for the boundary of the word neighbour as an object — whom must I love? Jesus hands the word back as a subject: which of the three wasa neighbour? The boundary the lawyer wanted does not exist; the only line the parable draws runs through the traveler’s own will. Even then, the lawyer cannot bring himself to say “the Samaritan” — the commentators all notice the circumlocution — and Jesus lets it stand, and sends him off with the five heaviest words a self-justifier can carry: go, and do thou likewise.
Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” “The one who showed him mercy,” replied the expert in the law. Then Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”(3) Making him commend one of a deeply hated race. And he does it, but it is almost extorted. For he does not answer, "The Samaritan"--that would have sounded heterodox, heretical--but "He that showed mercy on him." It comes to the same thing, no doubt, but the circumlocution is significant.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), on Luke 10:36
And he said, He that showed mercy on him - He could not for shame say otherwise, though he thereby condemned himself and overthrew his own false notion of the neighbour to whom our love is due.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (1755), on Luke 10:37
Was neighbour - Showed the kindness of a neighbor, or evinced the proper feelings of a neighbor. The lawyer had asked him who was his neighbor? Jesus in this beautiful narrative showed him who and what a neighbor was, and he did this in a way that disarmed his prejudice, deeply affected him in regard to his own duty, and evinced the beauty of religion.
Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869), on Luke 10:36
How the Church Has Loved This Story
— the old allegory, presented as the reception it isFor more than a thousand years the church’s teachers read this parable a second way, on top of the first — as the whole gospel in miniature. That reading is part of the story’s history and worth knowing; it is presented here as the church’s devotion, not as what the parable asserts.
The Christ-reading of the fathersreception history, honored as such
In the reading beloved from Origen and Ambrose to the medieval church: the traveler is Adam — humanity — going down from Jerusalem (peace) to Jericho; the robbers are the powers that stripped him; the priest and Levite are the law and the sacrifices, which could diagnose but not heal; the Samaritan is Christ — who was Himself slurred with that very name (John 8:48) — whose oil and wine are His healing word and whose beast is His own body bearing the wounded; the inn is the church; the two pence, the resources left with her; and “when I come again” is the promise of His return. Gregory of Nazianzus’s exclamation, preserved in the JFB note above, shows how early the identification came naturally: He is called “Samaritan” — and He saves the man on the Jericho road. The allegory is not the parable’s argument, which is about being a neighbour; it is the church’s recognition that the only One who ever fully did what this story commands is the One telling it.
Where It Points
— the love with no qualifying lineThe parable stands guard over the second great commandment, refusing every attempt to shrink its object. “Neighbour” is not a category of people; it is a way of being a person — proved on roads, at cost, across the lines the world draws hardest.
Closing
A man wanted to know where love’s obligation ends, and was given a story in which it doesn’t. The question Jesus leaves on the Jericho road is not “who is my neighbour?” — it is whether, when the road produces its next half-dead stranger, I will cross over or come where he is.