Deeper Commentary

10:31 And by chance a certain priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side-

"By chance" is repeated of the Levite who "in like manner", i.e. "chance", encountered the injured man (:32). Why this stress? This is notably not said of the Samaritan. At the risk of over interpretation, we could say that the impression may be that the Samaritan set out to help the injured man, perhaps having heard of his plight from the Priest and Levite. That would explain why he travelled with bandages, oil and wine. In which case, we have a sense of the Lord's purposeful setting out for our salvation. The representatives of mere religion, faced with death, looking at a naked, bleeding, dying man, were unable to save. Only Jesus saves from the ultimate issue of death. The Greek kata sunkurian translated "by chance" can as well be rendered "fortunately", 'luckily enough', and is used this way in modern Greek. We are set up to expect a salvation from the Priest and Levite, but we are disappointed. Just as legalism and all religion ultimately disappoints. "Going down that road" can refer to the literal steep descent from Jerusalem to Jericho; but in a religious sense, men 'went up' to Jerusalem, such as the priest to do his service, and 'went down' from Jerusalem when they returned home. The priest had done his service, his religious thing. And he still wasn't thereby empowered to save a man, to give salvation.

Josephus says that when Herod the Great dismissed the 40,000 men who had been employed in building the temple, many of them became robbers on the Jerusalem-Jericho road. Again there is the theme that the temple was finished, just as the Priest and Levite were going home having finished their temple service. It is claimed that there were 12,000 priests and Levites living at Jericho; and so they would have been constantly travelling on that road.

The radical nature of the Lord Jesus is reflected in His teaching style. His parables work around what I have elsewhere called "elements of unreality". They involve a clash of the familiar, the comfortable, the normal, with the strange and unreal and radical. The parables are now so well known that their radical nature has been almost buried under the avalanche of familiarity. The parables begin by getting the hearers sympathetic and onboard with the story line- and then, in a flick of the tail, the whole punch line is turned round against their expectations, with radical demands. The story of a man travelling the Jerusalem-Jericho road alone would've elicited sympathy and identity with the hearers- yes, that road is awfully dangerous. And then the priest and Levite pass by and don't help. That was realistic-"priests and Levites were known to have quarters in the Jordan valley near Jericho where they retreated from the beehive of activity surrounding the temple". The common people were anticlerical, and yes, they could just imagine the priest and Levite passing by. "Typical!" would've been their comment. They're all set up to expect the Messianic Jewish working class hero to stride in to the rescue. But... it's a despised Samaritan who stops and gives saving help. They had expected a Jewish Saviour- and Jesus, the teller of the parable, claimed to be just that. But... in the story, He's represented by a Samaritan. Remember that Samaritans and Jews had no dealings, and people were amazed that Jesus would even speak with the Samaritan woman at the well. Even in desperation, a Jew wouldn't have wanted to be helped by a Samaritan. You had to be utterly desperate to accept such help. Moments earlier, the audience had been identifying with the injured Jewish man. But... were they really that desperate, did they appreciate their desperation to that extent, to keep "in" the story, and accept that that desperate man was really them? They wanted to be able to identify with the hero. But no, they had to first of all identify with the wounded, dying, desperate Jew. And only then were they bidden "Go and do likewise"- 'be like the Samaritan'. The Lord's initial audience would have been left with knitted eyebrows and deep introspection at the end of it. The whole thing was too challenging for many. They quit the parable, quit identifying with the story... just as we can when it gets too demanding. It's a tragedy that this amazing story, crafted in such a radically demanding way, has been reduced to merely 'Be a good neighbour to the guy next door, so long as it doesn't demand too much of you'- which is what the story has come to mean for the majority of professed Christians today. That of itself indicates a discomfort with the radical nature of the demands.

It's the same with Nathan's parable to David. It elicited David's sympathy- and then it was turned back on David: "You are the man!". But he didn't quit the parable. He acted on it, as we have to. The parable of the self-righteous older son is just the same. The parable's story line leads us to expect that the wayward son repents and is accepted back by his father. But then right at the end, the whole thing takes a biting twist. We suddenly realize that the prodigal son and the need to forgive your wayward son isn't the point of the story- for that's something which comes naturally to any father and family. The whole point is that the son who played safe, who stayed home and behaved himself... he is the one who ends up outside of the family's joy because of his self-righteousness. He ends up the villain, the lost son. Again, there'd have been knotted brows and an exit from identity with the story line. And the way generations of Christians have described the story as "the parable of the lost / prodigal son" shows how they [we] too have so often missed the essentially radical point of the story.

10:32 And in like manner a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side- See on :31. When we analyze this good Samaritan parable, it becomes clear that we are not simply intended to do good deeds to people we meet, copying the Samaritan. We are also aptly represented by the wounded man; it is the Lord Jesus who is the good Samaritan. The Law of Moses, symbolized by the priest and Levite, came near to man's stricken condition, and had a close look at it. Lk. 10:32 (Young's Literal) brings this out: "Having been about the place, having come and seen...", the Levite passed on by. The Jews regarded Christ as a Samaritan, so they would have immediately understood the Samaritan of the parable to represent Jesus (Jn. 8:48 "Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?”). The good Samaritan having compassion on the man and being moved to do something about him has echoes of the Lord's compassion on the multitudes (:33). His promise to come again after two days (he gave two pence, and a penny a day was a fair rate, Mt. 20:2) is a clear connection with the Lord's promise to come again (after 2000 years from his departure?).

We enquire why the Lord chose the priest and Levite in this story. His teaching, especially in Luke, was always aimed at the scribes and Pharisees. Not the priests and Levites. Perhaps He wishes His audience to figure that if the priest or Levite had touched the body, they would have been unclean and unable to serve in the temple (Lev. 21:1-4,11). To help the man, representative as he was of humanity, meant an end to temple service. We are perhaps invited to imagine the priest and Levite weighing up in their minds between helping the man, and serving in the temple. For perhaps they were on their way to the temple to start their duties. And they chose religion over spirituality, as so many do. Although it is perhaps significant that the priest was going "down" the road (:32), and the road went "down" from Jerusalem to Jericho (:31). In which case, we imagine he switched into auto pilot, always putting a fence around the law; and doing his religious duties was above absolutely everything for him. Helping the man was a deed which would not have been observed by anyone. But the essence of spirituality is who we are when nobody is watching. Likewise the law about not serving when unclean actually only strictly applied to the Priest and not to the Levite. But he too had fences around the laws, in his own mind. They both failed to realize that God wants mercy and not [the performance of] sacrifice (Hos. 6:6). And there was also the economic aspect. If indeed the man were dead, the Priest at least would have been rendered unclean. It has been commented: "If the priest became unclean, he must return to Jerusalem, stand by the Eastern gate with the unclean, and go through the process of purification.. This ritual would not only take time, but it would result in the loss of wages. He would have to buy and offer a heifer, which
would take up most of a week and be of significant cost to him,
his family, and his household". We are invited to imagine these issues playing subconsciously in his mind- all such a contrast to the Samaritan.

In reality, it is unnatural to pass by a wounded man in the way presented in the story. Most human beings would have stopped and helped- if there were no other factors in play. Humanity generally responds to humanity in such a situation. The fact neither of the two men do stop and try to help is in fact an element of unreality in the story. We are left, then, with the question highlighted- why did they not respond? What factor was greater than even their basic humanity? The factor was religion, their fear of defilement, fear of possible religious consequence. The commands about defilement related to touching a dead body, and the man was still alive. But it was their instinctive placing of a hedge around a law that led them to assume they must not touch a man who was near death but not yet dead. And the priest and Levite had finished their term of service in Jerusalem and were heading home, so they had no real practical concern about being unable to serve at the sanctuary whilst unclean. The story well portrays how 'religion' and the religious mentality is even stronger than basic humanity and common human decency. It drags man even lower than he already is. They failed to properly interpret Lev. 21:1,2: “No one shall defile himself for a dead person among his relatives, except for his nearest kin: his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, his brother". That wounded man ought to have been treated by them as their nearest relative. For the parable is implicitly critical of the priest and Levite. They failed to see themselves, spiritually, in that man. Organized religion is hereby shown to be useless. And putting the Gospel records together, we note that almost immediately after giving this parable, according to Matthew and Mark, the Lord goes on to prophecy the destruction of the temple, Jerusalem and the Jewish system.

10:33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he was moved with compassion-

The Samaritans rejected the Jerusalem temple, as witness the Lord's conversation with the Samaritan woman in Jn. 4. This Samaritan is travelling either from the temple down to Jericho- an element of unreality, in that no Samaritan would usually make any journey to or from Jerusalem. He is an unusual Samaritan; despised by the Jews but having at least some respect for the Jerusalem temple. An exact fit with the Lord Jesus. Stereotypes are turned on their head. Lk. 9:51-54 has just demonstrated that Samaritans weren't hospitable to Jews. But this Samaritan is different. He has a heart of compassion for the dying Jew.  

'Coming to where he was' speaks volumes of the Lord's humanity, being with us where we are. He came near to the man, whilst the others went away from him, passing by on the other side. We think of how "sinners were all drawing near to hear Him" (Lk. 15:1). The moving with compassion is the same word used of the Father having compassion on the prodigal (Lk. 15:20); and the master having compassion upon his indebted servants (Mt. 18:27). The Lord's compassion is so often noted in the Gospels (Mk 1:42; 6:34; 8:2; 9:22; Mt 14:14; 20:34). That compassion is based upon identity; for the Lord likens Himself to the sick, rejected, hungry and unhelped in Mt. 25:35-40. His 'going down' from Jerusalem to Jericho is the equivalent of John's language of the Lord 'coming down' to save man. He has walked the path of man's descent into sin, not as a personal sinner but through identity with us. And this was shown in His death as a sinner, for "cursed is every one who hangs on a tree". In this sense, even sin does not separate us from the love of Christ. And "go and do likewise" challenges us to in our lives do this work of the Lord Jesus, coming down and going close to men stricken in sin.

The Samaritan "was moved with compassion" by the man's (spiritual) state. This is the same phrase as used concerning how Christ "was moved with compassion" by the multitudes. The connection with the good Samaritan parable would invite us to read the Lord's compassion as fundamentally spiritual. The reason for the miracles was to confirm the spoken word (Mk. 16:20), to lead men to see the wisdom of the message they were validating (Mk. 6:2). Are there any examples of Christ doing miracles for reasons unconnected with preaching? They often (always?) had symbolic meaning; and were designed to inculcate faith (Jn. 20:31) and repentance (Mt. 11:21). And in any case, His miracles were largely to benefit the Covenant people, or those closely associated with them. The apostles didn't do mass benefit miracles (e.g. feeding thousands of people) to back up their preaching in the Gentile world; even though they had the power to do "greater works" than did the Lord (Jn. 14:12). 'Charitable' giving ought to be associated with preaching, surely, if we are to follow the example of Christ's compassion with the multitudes.  In practice, the work of providing welfare and conducting fresh preaching is done by the same brethren in the mission field.

The Lord Jesus "knew what was in man", not only by direct revelation from the Father and the Old Testament word, but also from His own observation of our own nature, both in Himself and the surrounding world. The sensitivity of Jesus is reflected in this realization which He reflects. As the Samaritan came near to the wounded man (the ecclesia), realized the extent of his problem (the ravages of sin) and was thereby moved with compassion, so Christ was motivated by His consideration of our position (Lk. 10:33,34); the Lord realized His humanity more and more, and progressively humbled Himself, achieving a progressively fuller identity with us by so doing, until He crowned it all by His death (Phil. 2:6-8). The main lying helpless on the Jerusalem - Jericho road was surely modelled on Zedekiah being overtaken there by his enemies (Jer. 39:5). See on Lk. 14:9.

10:34 And came to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on them oil and wine, and he put him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him- He "bound up his wounds", alluding to the manner in which Christ was to bind up the broken hearted (Is. 61:1). He cured those mental wounds by pouring in oil and wine, symbols of his word and his blood respectively. So the brutal beating up of that man, leaving him half dead, refers to the broken-heartedness which the sin of this world inflicts upon us. Picture the scene on that Jericho road, the body covered in blood and dust, massive bruises swelling up, flies buzzing around on the congealed blood, face in the dust, frightened donkey neighing among the scrub somewhere. That is the very picture of our broken heartedness, the broken heartedness which Christ came to heal. The physical grossness of those wounds is a picture of our mental state. Yet the flesh deceives us that there is nothing really that wrong with our minds, with our natures. Yet there is, and we need to come to terms with it more and more completely, to realize our deep mental need for Christ's healing. Once we do this, we will be able to see the need, the urgent need, for his healing of our minds  through his spirit, his  perfect, clean mind, being in us. And how were those wounds healed? How are our mental wounds healed? By the Son of God tearing up his own garments to bandage up the wounds (how else did he do it?), and healing us with his blood and his word.

"He brought him to the inn" can also be translated "He led it [the donkey] to the inn". In this case, the Samaritan is acting as a servant, for it is the master who rides on the donkey and the servant who walks on foot, leading it there. Remember how Haman has to lead the horse on which Mordecai rides (Esther 6:7-11). All this speaks of how the Lord took upon Himself the form of a servant in order to lead us to salvation- when at the time we could do nothing, and had no awareness of the huge grace being shown to us. The Samaritan was of course making himself vulnerable to attack by robbers by doing this. But think through it some more. There was an eye-for-eye vengeance syndrome alive and well at that time. If a Samaritan turned up with a wounded Jew, it would look for all the world like he was responsible for the damage. It would be the first time a Samaritan was known to have done such an act of kindness. And he risks himself all the more, by staying at the inn, leaving, and then returning there, thus willing to face the inevitable suspicion that he had attacked the man, or was somehow involved in the incident. This risking of His own salvation was what the cross was all about. The parable gives a rare window into the Lord's self-perception on this point. And so for us- we may stay up all night serving someone's need, only to make ourselves irritable and impatient and more prone to sin ourselves the next day. And in any case, it's my experience that no good deed goes unpunished; we have to pay various prices for it in this life. In all these things we are living out the spirit of the Samaritan saviour.

Until the good Samaritan's return, the man was kept in the inn, with everything that was needed lavishly provided. Surely the inn is symbolic of the ecclesia; in the ecclesia there should be a common sense of spiritual improvement, of growing in health, of remembering our extraordinary deliverance, realizing our weakness, looking forward to seeing the Samaritan again to praise him for the wonder of it all. This ought to characterize our gatherings as the church. Who is the innkeeper? He may just be part of the furniture of the parable, as I have yet to find a convincing interpretation.

The parables, especially those which Luke records, appear to end leaving us with unanswered questions. Does the wounded traveller survive and get better? When does the Samaritan return? How much does it cost him? Was the beaten man happy to see the Samaritan when he returned? Who inherits the property of the rich fool? Does the barren fig tree produce a crop in the end? Does the elder brother finally join in the party? Does the unjust steward succeed in getting himself out of his problems after his dismissal? What happens to the rich man’s five brothers, seeing Lazarus isn’t allowed to go and warn them? Do they hear Moses and the prophets? Do the riff raff come in from the lanes to the Great Supper? Does the unjust judge actually resolve the widow’s complaints? How does the rich merchant survive, after having sold all he has for the one pearl, thus discarding his entire past, his life’s work…? And what does he do with the pearl? He, presumably, sits and treasures it, but can do nothing with it in order to prosper materially… And yet we are left to reflect upon this. See on Mt. 13:44; Lk. 14:32.

In the culture of the time, strangers were to be welcomed and put up for the night according to their culture of hospitality. "Hotels" as we know them weren't common. The word used for "inn" is rather strange and one commentator says that "These places had a dubious character: everybody was welcome, monies had to be paid for lodging, and the female workers at the inn offered sexual favors to guests as a rule". And yet the Lord used this word for a place which represented His church. A different word is used for the Government operated lodging houses- and most travellers in those days were on Government service. A different word is used for the "inn" where Joseph and Mary stayed in Bethlehem. But the Lord doesn't use that word for this "inn". Wealthy travellers would rather pitch tents and sleep in them for the night, protected by their own guards, rather than use an "inn". Strabo, Philo and other ancient writers all give a negative picture of "inns", as noisy and immoral, frequented by lower classes and outcasts / criminals who had no relatives nearby to stay with, and to be avoided by all good people. Strabo speaks of inns as brothels. And innkeepers are always presented as not trustworthy and morally dubious. We note the confusion in describing Rahab as both an innkeeper and a prostitute. Samaritan doesn't just put the injured man there for one night, as an emergency. He chooses this as the place of healing for him. The ambience of an inn was not conducive to rest or recuperation- they were typically associated with noise, theft, drunks and prostitutes. The church is indeed a strange place. Again we have an inversion of stereotypes; just as the 'bad' Samaritan becomes the good Samaritan, so the despised innkeeper plays a part in the man's salvation. Contra to the idea that two pennies meant a return after two days, "According to Joachim Jeremias, a day’s board cost one twelfth of a denarius; the Samaritan’s advance payment was sufficient for several days and bound the inn-keeper to look after the man as long as was necessary". He envisaged, in this case, a long stay. In a questionable place that was usually only stayed in for one night. Again, the church is presented as unusual... and not as secular people would like to imagine it.

Given the bad reputation of innkeepers, the Samaritan is entrusting the innkeeper with money. And promising to pay anything else that might be needed. This is an element of unreality in the story. The Samaritan seems both wealthy, or generous, and very trusting of a stereotypically weak and dubious person. In this we see something similar to the parables which speak of the Lord giving His wealth to others to manage, in an apparently too trusting manner and extent. In this we see the Lord's empowerment of His weak church to do the work of saving sick humanity, and He will give all the resources required for this. The Samaritan "took care of him" and then uses the same words to tell the innkeeper in :35 to "Take care of him". He is asking the innkeeper, dubious as he supposedly was, to show the same care as the Samaritan had shown, to save the man. This is an exact picture of the Lord's delegation of His own saving work to the church, and His assurance that He will provide all human resources to enable that. We could argue that the two characters who failed to help / care (Levite and priest) are matched by two characters who did care- the Samaritan and the innkeeper. The Samaritan and innkeeper would thereby be linked together as co-workers in the man's salvation.

10:35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the host, and said: Take care of him, and if you spend more, I, when I come back again, will repay you- "If you spend more..." was perhaps to guard against the way that unpaid debts could lead to the indebted person being enslaved (as in Mt. 18:23-35) or otherwise abused until they had paid the debt. The Samaritan, like the Lord, is absolutely thoughtful and sensitive to our every possible spiritual need. And the gift of the two denarii to the dubious innkeeper was an act of entrustment by the Samaritan- for typically, the innkeeper would have kept the money for himself and then billed the Samaritan a huge amount at his return. There is no contract made, not even a verbal agreement as to what the innkeeper's duties are. He is simply asked to care for the person as the Samaritan had cared for him. And being an innkeeper, he might appear the least qualified. He is a dodgy innkeeper, not a medical man. We would be more comfortable if the Samaritan brought the man to a physician and paid him in advance to care for him. The Samaritan's example so far in the story was the pattern- and it speaks of the Lord's death on the cross. He expects the dubious innkeeper to grasp that, and continue it. The trust and lack of agreed contract is an element of unreality that would have caused the first hearers to shake their heads muttering 'That wasn't wise'. The Lord likewise entrusts us with His wealth, as the parable of the talents makes clear. He trusts us to not act as we humans typically do. But to be moved by His example of loving salvation of others, to with integrity do the same and play our part with Him in the ultimate salvation of others. And the innkeeper also had to show some faith / trust- because for all he knew, the Samaritan wouldn't return, or might himself be mugged along that notorious road. And he accepts that, accepting that he might be left out of pocket if the Samaritan doesn't return. And caring for a "half dead" man, who would take weeks to recover and might still die from infections, was no small thing to undertake. And quite possibly it might stop him from serving his regular or usual customers. Especially with no rock solid guarantee that the Samaritan would return and reimburse him. The two pennies were indeed a deposit guaranteeing the return [cp. the Holy Spirit gift]. But still faith was required by the innkeeper. The Samaritan's example [cp. the cross] was what inspired him to rise out of his shrewd, short termist, calculating mindset and accept the challenge. And so with us. Both the Samaritan and innkeeper take a risk, they risk their own possible loss in order to save. If this inn were at the top of the Jerusalem-Jericho road, it would have been near Bethany- and a house in Bethany is the next scene in Luke's account.

We note that these are the only recorded words in the parable. The parable largely functions without words, because contrary to the attitude of the lawyer to whom the parable was first addressed, the issue is all about action and not words. Nor is it about striving over words and meanings to do with the word "neighbour". The injured man had no money- he had been robbed. The Samaritan paid for him. This isn't a story about the need to be generous to strangers; but more is it a challenge to accept we are naked and without anything to our names, no money, and purely dependent upon the grace of the Samaritan Saviour.

"The next day" suggests the Samaritan also stayed a night in the inn, and then left. We note that innkeepers and staying in inns were all somewhat stigmatized. Inns weren't good places. But the inn was used to heal the injured man. This has quite some implications, once we interpret the inn as the church. His promise to come again after two days (he gave two pence, and a penny a day was a fair rate, Mt. 20:2) is a clear connection with the Lord's promise to come again (after 2000 years from his departure?).

The ‘two pennies’ paid by the Samaritan are the equivalent of the half shekel atonement money under the Mosaic Law, whereby a man could be redeemed. Our redeemer is of course the Lord Jesus. The redemption was ‘paid’ in His blood- which implies His putting us on His beast of burden and carrying us to the inn, where He paid the money, is a picture of His final sufferings which lead up to the actual shedding of His blood.

The parable of the good Samaritan explains how Christ took compassion on the stricken spiritual state of us His people, picked us up, made Himself vulnerable to attack by placing the man on His donkey, and caused us to be fully healed. The Samaritan was less vulnerable than the robbed man, on account of having a donkey. But he made himself even more vulnerable than the robbed man had been, in order to take him to the inn. The picture of the wounded man straddled over the donkey and the Samaritan walking patiently alongside shows what easy prey they would have been. The whole process of the man's redemption by this Samaritan is an account of the cross of Christ (not least the pouring in of wine and oil). The implication is that through seeking to save us, Christ made Himself more vulnerable than He would have been if He sought only His own salvation. And the Samaritan's speed of progress was more than halved; he had to walk rather than ride, keeping the wounded man balanced on the donkey. This parable seems to reveal that Christ realized at least in some abstract sense that His concern for us in some ways made it more difficult for Him; although the reality was that the motivation for His victory was largely due to His sense of responsibility for us. The idea of him taking care for the man is expressed in the language of Ex. 21:19, which says that if a man wounds another, "he shall pay... and shall cause him to be thoroughly healed". This somewhat odd allusion (at first sight) surely indicates that the Lord took upon Himself the full blame for our stricken condition, presumably in the sense that as the second Adam He took upon Himself the guilt of Adam. This is why there are so many connections between His death and the effects of Adam's sin (e.g. the crown of thorns, the Garden etc.). The way Christ compared Himself to a Samaritan, half Jew and half Gentile, shows that especially on the cross, this is how He felt. He was mindful of both Jewish and Gentile aspects of His future body as He died. The Jews (and His own brothers, Ps. 69:8) treated Him as half Gentile (from a Roman soldier, the Midrash claims).

So we are as it were in the inn, thinking back to our salvation by that suffering Samaritan, the strangeness and yet the glorious wonder  of it all. I'm sure we are meant us to fill in the unspoken details in his parable. Of course the saved man would have re-lived time and again his wondrous salvation, how he had come to with the eyes of that man peering earnestly into his, the laying on the ass, and the slow journey to the inn. As Israel remembered their Passover deliverance through the Passover feast, so we lie on our sickbed in the inn, as it were, and remember our great salvation.

10:36 Which of these three, do you think, proved a neighbour to him that encountered the robbers?- "Proved a neighbour" takes us back to the initial question; to love God is to love our neighbour as ourselves. The Samaritan parable appears to be an example of the way the Lord left His parables open to multiple interpretations and reflections, all of which express aspects of the many truths He was expressing to us. We need to reflect who the ‘neighbour’ actually is. The parable is told in extension of the Lord’s approval of the statement that to love God is to love our neighbour, and vice versa (:27). The Lord was explaining that what we have to ‘do’ to get eternal life is to perceive that God is our neighbour. This is and was a challenging idea. As challenging and provocative as when a black sister in southern USA said to me once ‘Ya know, God’s ma nigger’. She meant, ‘God’s my buddy, my close one’. The turning point of the parable is in it’s end stress [as so often in these stories of the Lord]: “Which of these three… was neighbour unto him that fell among thieves?” (Lk. 10:36). Obviously, the neighbour was the Samaritan, whom we have shown to be symbolic of God and His Son. This is the answer to the question of the lawyer: ‘And who is my neighbour?’. Answer: God / Jesus. The lawyer was wondering to whom he should do his good deeds. So he asks ‘Who is my neighbour?’. He misunderstood the whole thing, as people do today. The Lord was turning the question around. Who is your neighbour? God / Jesus is your neighbour. You are lying there stricken. Your fellow lawyers and legalists / Priests / Levites can’t help you. To receive eternal life, you must let God be your neighbour. This is the work of God, to believe on the one whom He sent (Jn. 6:29). This was the Lord’s response to a similar question about what good works ought to be done. And the Samaritans were despised and rejected… yet the Lord chose them as a symbol of Himself. It's easy to under-estimate just how much the Jews despised Samaritans- "The Samaritans were publically cursed in the synagogues; and a petition was daily offered up praying God that the Samaritans might not be partakers of eternal life" (W.O.E. Oesterley, The Gospel Parables In The Light Of Their Jewish Background (London: SPCK, 1936) p. 102). We see the sheer bravery of the Lord in framing the parable as He did. He doesn't chose to speak of a good Jew helping a stricken Samaritan; it's the other way around. The watchful student will find up to 12 allusions in the Good Samaritan parable back to Hosea 6:1-10- which portray the Jews as the robbers, and God as the Samaritan saviour. It is none less than Yahweh Himself who "will bind us up... revive us... raise us up... come to us"- all the very things which the Samaritan did. In all this was a huge challenge to the Lord's audience- as to whether they would accept His grace. "Oil and wine are forbidden objects if they emanate from a Samaritan" (J.D.M. Derrett, Law In The New Testament (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1970) p. 220)- hence the challenge to the Jews in accepting the Lord's teaching. We in our turn struggle with the extent and purity of His grace.

But of course, we are intended to be the Good Samaritan too- in that we are to manifest and replicate the saving work of Jesus in our lives and in our interactions with people. There are details in the parables that need to be thought about, the story reconstructed. The Samaritan ‘happened’ to have “oil and wine” with him, i.e. medicaments for a wounded man (the wine would have been an antiseptic). And he was travelling alone, when people usually travelled in convoys. And the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans, they wouldn’t even talk with them on the street (Jn. 4:9). So perhaps the Lord intended us to figure that the Samaritan was actually going to help one of his fellow Samaritans who needed attention, but on the way, he met one of another race in even greater need, and changed his plans in order to save him. In all this we have an exquisite example of the self-revelation of Jesus in His own parables- for He saw Himself as the Samaritan. And for us too, the call to save often comes when we are on our way to do something else, at the most inconvenient moment, to people we would never have considered would need nor accept our help towards salvation.

The parable of the good Samaritan needs careful reflection before we see in it a command to concentrate on giving to the world.  It is used as Biblical evidence for a social gospel. The Samaritan was "neighbour unto him that fell among thieves" (Lk. 10:36)- i.e. the story shows how he fulfilled the command to love our neighbour. We have shown above that this command refers to love for those related to the Covenant. The Samaritan represented Christ. The mugged man was those He came to save; not the world generally, for they have not all accepted His healing. We must go and do likewise; in showing the love of Christ to the world. But we have earlier defined that love as being paramountly spiritual, and relating to the work of the cross. The parable was teaching the inability of the Law to save man spiritually, not materially. 

The injured man is every man. But he can do nothing. Apart from accept grace. He has a passive role in the story. So again the Lord is turning the lawyer's question on its head. It's not about what we can do, nor to whom we should do good. We can in fact do nothing, but accept grace.

10:37 And he said: The one who showed him mercy. And Jesus said to him: Go and do likewise- The lawyer could not bring himself to say the word "The Samaritan". They were hated and despised so deeply. There's ample evidence that the despised Samaritan of this parable refers to the Lord Jesus. He was 'neighbour' to stricken humanity, he came near to us, binding up our broken hearts, and carried us to the haven of the ecclesia. "Go and do likewise" is therefore a real challenge to us: to have the same dedication for others' salvation as Christ had. His zeal to achieve God's plan of redemption should be ours. Remember how the good Samaritan parable is an exposition of how to love God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind (:27). Every fibre of the Lord's mind and body was bent for us, for bringing about God's plan of redemption. He loved us, his neighbour, as himself. Because of this it is impossible to separate Christ from the work He came to do, i.e. our redemption. The point of the good Samaritan parable is to teach us that his same devotion to the work of conquering sin should be seen in us; our concern for the salvation of others should be as great as that for our own. We need to be totally filled with the idea of bringing about God's glory, of seeing the conquest of sin achieved through Christ. So all our strength, our mind, will be given over to the conquest of sin in ourselves, to the spreading of the Gospel to others, and to the binding up of the broken hearts of our brethren.

The preface to the good Samaritan parable is there in :27,28, about loving God with all our strength and our neighbour as ourselves; and "this do, and you shall live" (eternally). To define this statement more closely, the Lord told the good Samaritan parable. "Go and do likewise" is referring back to :28, where the Lord commands the man "this do", i.e. loving God with all the heart, soul etc. So the example of the good Samaritan is a practical epitome of loving God with all the heart, soul etc. To love our neighbour as ourselves is to love God with all the heart and soul and strength and mind. Therefore the good Samaritan needs to represent us, although we are also the wounded man.

"Be going on, and do likewise", the Lord concluded (:37 YLT). Verse 38 appropriately continues: "Now it came to pass, as they went", in the same way as the Samaritan Saviour "as he journeyed" (:33) showed such energetic compassion, with all his heart and strength, to the stricken man. We must be able to use our own realization of our own desperate need for Christ's grace to motivate us to zealously devote ourselves to ministering to others. Our lack of zeal in this is largely due to our own failure to appreciate our own need, and the degree to which this has been satisfied by the Lord. He knew (and knows) the feelings of the stricken man.

Like most Jews, the Lord would have prayed the shema ("The Lord our God is one") upon rising and going to bed- just as He had a garment like that of the Pharisees, with the traditional tassels hanging from its edge (Mt. 9:20; 23:5). Yet He thought about what He prayed. When asked which was the greatest of the commandments, He replied that it was the fact that God is one. He saw the unity of God as a commandment that elicited action; and He says [note His grammar] that this plus the command to love our neighbour is the [singular] great commandment (Mk. 12:31). And He again combines these two commandments in Lk. 10:27,37, saying that to love God with all our heart is parallel with loving our neighbour and showing mercy to him. He quoted two commandments as one, so deeply had He perceived that we can't claim to love God without loving our brother. How had He worked that out? Perhaps by daily reflecting upon what to many was merely a ritual saying of words. And we too read and have pass our lips, ideas which can work radical transformation in us if only we will put meaning into the words and reflect upon them. He speaks of giving His shalom [peace] to us, not as the [Jewish] world gives it; each time He called out shalom  across the street or to the guys at work each morning, He meant it. And He perceived that it would take His death on the cross to really achieve what He was giving to them in His words.  

A feature we need to bear in mind with all the parables is the almost constant stress on the end of the story as the part which makes the main point which the Lord is seeking to get over. Likewise the emphasis is often upon the last person mentioned in the story, the last action, the last words. Think of the parable of the prodigal; or how the Samaritan, the last man on the scene, is the example for us. “Go and do likewise” (Lk. 10:37) invites us to go forth and be like the Lord Jesus in bringing salvation to others. Or the man who buried his talent and did nothing with it; the crux of the story is that indifference to our potential is so awful. The parable of the sower focuses in the end on the good seed which brings a great harvest. The fact so much of the seed is lost is in itself an element of unreality- but the focus is on the fact that some seed brings forth wonderfully. And isn’t this just the encouragement every preacher needs? That despite all the hard hearts, the initial responses that come to nothing, all is worth it because someone responds truly.

We wonder if the Lord closed the parable with a gentle smile on His face. The parable engaged with the question of 'Who is my neighbour?', but also with 'What shall I do to inherit eternal life?' (:25). The answers to that is, nothing. We can "do" nothing. The parable turns everything on its head. We are the stricken man. Not anyone else in the parable. The story of course invites us to think we are to act as the Samaritan. But any thoughtful reader comes to see that this is not the point. The Lord is the Samaritan. We are the stricken man, unable to do anything to be saved. Like the lost sheep, frozen and unable to make any move back to the fold. To fret about questions about the definition of "neighbour" was to ask the wrong questions. There are actually no questions to be asked. It's a case of accepting the grace of a saviour. The real question is 'So will you let the despised Samaritan save you?'. To read the parable as simply meaning 'Be a top bloke to random people' is to fall into the same trap as the lawyer was in.

10:38 Now as they went on their way, he entered into a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha welcomed him into her house- This incident is recorded perhaps to demonstrate the outworking of 'going and doing likewise' in the preceding parable (:37). But the 'doing' was not doing works, but rather listening to the Lord's teaching of salvation by grace and believing it.

The parable of the good Samaritan features Jesus as the Samaritan helping the stricken man, representative of us all. However, the parable is followed immediately by the account of the Lord visiting the Bethany home of Martha and Mary. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho went via Bethany. The home where the sick man was taken was surely intended to be understood as that of Martha and Mary. The attacked man is called “a certain man”, and then we read straight on that the Lord was entertained by “a certain woman”, Martha (Lk. 10:30,38). The Samaritan “as he journeyed” came to the stricken man; and yet “as they went on their way, he entered into a certain village…” (Lk. 10:33,38). The Samaritan Jesus ‘cared for him’; and yet Martha unkindly challenges the Lord ‘Don’t you care…?’ (Lk. 10:35,40). The similarities aren’t just co-incidence. Surely the Lord is teaching that whether or not Martha perceives it, she and Mary are actually the wounded man of the parable, and He is taking care of them, not vice versa as Martha thought, in the teaching He was giving them in their home. He was spiritually pouring in oil and wine. And yet Martha and Mary, especially in Martha’s incomprehension of the Lord’s spiritual and saving care for her, are set up as types of all of us who are saved and cared for in Christ.

The disciples literally did give up most of what they had and follow the Lord. And yet there were evidently others who responded to His teaching without doing this- Peter’s family (Mk. 1:29); Mary and Martha (Lk. 10:38); Simon the leper Mk. 14:3). They made use of the Lord's concessions to human weakness. 

10:39 And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at the Lord's feet and heard his word- See on 8:27. "Also sat" is a positive comment on Martha; despite her obsession with hospitality, she also loved the Lord's words and was His disciple- 'sitting at the feet' is an idiom for being a disciple of a rabbi. What is challenging is that many Jewish teachers considered it better for the Law to be burnt than to be taught to a woman. But the Lord taught women, as He did the Samaritan woman; and Martha and Mary were also amongst those 'at His feet'. This again is typical of how Luke emphasizes the Lord's radical acceptance of women and the marginalized.

10:40 But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said: Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me- We can so easily be like Martha, "distracted" even by the secular dimension to our supposed service of the Lord. The parable of the sower can be interpreted as fulfilling every time we hear the word sown in us. Thus some seed is "choked with cares" (Lk. 8:14)- exactly the same words used about Martha being "distracted" with her domestic duties so that she didn't hear the Lord's word at that time. We bring various attitudes of mind- stony, receptive, cumbered etc.- to the word each time we hear it. And it is our attitude to it which determines our response to it.

"Do you not care?" is the language of the distracted disciples in the boat at Mk. 4:38. His whole life and death were because He did so care that they would not perish (Jn. 3:16). It’s so reminiscent of a child’s total, if temporary, misunderstanding and lack of appreciation of the parent’s love and self-sacrifice. We note in Mk. 12:14 that the Lord was again accused there of 'not caring'. The most ultimately caring person was at times perceived as not caring; and when our care is ignored or misread, we can take comfort from this.

10:41 But the Lord answered and said to her: Martha, Martha, you are anxious and disturbed about many things- Nearly every one of the 19 occurrences of the Greek word for "anxious" is in the Lord's teachings not to take anxious thought but instead to focus upon the things of the Kingdom. The focus upon only "one thing" in life empowers us to handle the stress of "the many" secular things. Without that focus, life appears full of "many things" and the fact we cannot sufficiently multi-task leaves us stressed and distracted from that one thing which is needful.

10:42 But one thing is needful. For Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her- Martha was “anxious and disturbed about many things” (:41), but the Lord perceived that Mary was anxious and troubled about the “one thing” that was “needful”- and the context demands we understand this “one thing” as hearing the Lord’s words. For her, as she sat there at His feet, it was an anxious and troubling experience. To hear the Lord’s words is in this sense a troubling experience. Whilst we are saved by grace, the extent of the imperative within the Lord’s teaching is without doubt ‘troubling’ to the sensitive believer in Him. For we cannot hear Him without perceiving the enormous imperative which there is within those words for the transformation of our human lives in practice.  See on Phil. 4:6. The one thing that was needful is surely to be connected by the incident, also recorded by Luke, where the Lord tells the rich young man that he lacks “the one thing” (Lk. 18:22)- which in his case, was to give his wealth away. Yet Mary did this, when she poured out her life savings on the Lord’s feet. Sitting at His feet, hearing His words, led her to anoint those feet. She chose “the one thing”, of anxiously hearing His words, the lines in her forehead showing in intense concentration. And yet that learning of Him issued in something practical- she gave her life to Him in practice, by giving all she had to those feet. The rich young man lacked the one thing- for he was not then ready to give his life’s wealth to the Lord. Moving the spotlight onto ourselves, we can hear, and yet do nothing. We can read our Bibles without the intensity of devotion which Mary had, and without there being any direct translation of what we hear and read into practice. We can be as the rich young man, intellectually impressed, and yet totally failing to accept the tremendous practical demands behind the most simple, basic teachings of the Lord.  
Local Jewish culture stressed that the place of the woman was about domestic matters rather than spiritual ones. Yet in the incident of Martha and Mary, the Lord commended Mary for neglecting her domestic duties in order to concern herself with spiritual development. She sat at his feet, as if a student at the feet of a rabbi. As noted on :39, it’s easy to forget that to sit at the feet of a Rabbi [and the Lord was called ‘Rabbi’] meant to be a disciple of that Rabbi. And women… couldn’t be disciples of a Rabbi. It was all radical stuff.