The Parable of the Good Samaritan

Only in Luke 10:25-37

 

 

 

 

Here is the printed portion of this
Parable of the Good Samaritan.
This is a new site as of July 2018, and the
VIDEO will be added as soon as possible,
of course beginning with Parable #1.

 

We tend to like to limit our responsibility, and we like to blame others. As a lawyer I’ve seen this countless times. The question asked here is, “Who is my neighbor?” — which is a religious, theological question. This parable shows that gospel question we should ask is, “To whom can I be a neighbor, and what can I do to help them?”

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In John 4, Jesus ministered to a Samaritan woman. 
Here he talks about a Samaritan man.

Jesus says, “As you do to the least of these, you also do unto me.” It is the gospel that gives us all the things of God, beginning with his love. John says we can only love because we are first loved by God. Not truly knowing God’s love, we have trouble loving— even forgiving. We can only truly know God’s love in the gospel! Anything else is a theory of man that just doesn’t hold water.

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This parable is precipitated by and in answer to a question posed to Jesus by a lawyer. In this case, the lawyer would have been an expert in the law. The lawyer’s question was, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10:25).

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This gave Jesus opportunity to define what our relationship should be to our neighbors. The lawyer was making the assumption that we must do something to obtain eternal life. Jesus didn’t talk about this, but instead he talked about what it means to love.

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Jesus asked the man a question back concerning the law. The man quoted the Old Testament (Deut 6:5 and Lev 19:18). 

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This lawyer-scribe was an educated man and knew that he could not possibly keep that law. But Jesus goes on to say that this kind of love requires more than an emotional feeling. True love requires compassion and action.

 

The word ‘action’ is arranged this way: “I Act On.”

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Two religious Jewish men come by first and refuse to offer any help to the man in need. The third man to come by is the Samaritan, the one least likely to have shown compassion for the injured man. Samaritans and Jews don’t like each other since Samaritans intermarried with non-Jews and did not keep the law.

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But the Samaritan showed compassion on the man and took action to help him. Jesus infers that living by the law is not the way to live, which is the way the first two men lived. Jesus shows that living in gospel truth, we live at a deeper level with each other, and our hearts are filled with compassion that takes action.

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      There is another possible way to interpret this parable. In this way, the injured man is all men in their fallen condition of sin. The robbers are Satan and others attacking man with the intent of destroying his relationship with God. The lawyer is mankind without the true understanding of God and his Word. The priest represents religion and laws and rules. The Levite is legalism that is very prejudiced. The Samaritan is the believer, representing those of us who live by gospel truth.

Go to Parable Video 8: The Children At Play

For a Wikipedia viewpoint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Good_Samaritan