by Steve Moore
Having looked carefully at the setting, story, and sequel, the primary focus of study with a parable is capturing the single thought it was intended to communicate in words that transcend the circumstances of the story. Once the single thought is clearly stated, there may be one or more supporting ideas that relate to the overarching primary principle.
With this simple framework in mind, let's revisit the story of the Good Samaritan, as found in Luke 10:25-37. I've omitted the verse numbers to help you immerse yourself in the narrative and inserted the study template to help you see how these components overlay on the parable. If you are like me and have benefited from hearing this story many times over the years, you will be tempted to skim over it quickly, perhaps not reading it at all.
When it comes to Bible study, familiarity is both a friend and a foe. It is our friend in that only after we have a basic feel for the facts will we be able to dig deeper into the meaning and application. It is our foe in that familiarity can be like a well-schooled pickpocket, deftly removing valuables from the wallet of our hearts without even rousing suspicion. Guard your heart; read slowly, carefully.
THE GOOD SAMARITAN
SETTING: On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“What is written in the Law?” he 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 replied. “Do this and you will live.”
But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
STORY: In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’
SEQUEL: “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”
The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
THE SETTING
Jesus was anything but a politician, and yet He experienced the functional equivalent of “gotcha journalism” more than the average person running for office today. But Jesus' detractors were not merely trying to embarrass or discredit Him in order to undermine the support of His followers. They wanted to justify their belief that He was worthy of death. Wherever Jesus went, He had a contingent of detractors obsessed with the goal of producing evidence that would enable them to charge Him with blasphemy and put Him to death. Just a few chapters prior to the Good Samaritan, Luke tells us, “The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely” (Luke 6:7).
If this drama were being played out today, we could easily imagine the Pharisees and experts in the law spending hours in front of a whiteboard conducting brainstorming sessions about how and when they would launch their next plot to trip up Jesus. I can hear their fist-pounding arguments and feel the tension and frustration in the room rise. I imagine someone nervously pacing back and forth, responding to the latest idea with terse, cutting words: “No, He's too smart for that!”
Perhaps the expert in the Law who stood up to test Jesus in the exchange that led to the story of the Good Samaritan was among those Luke referred to a few chapters earlier, looking for a reason to accuse Jesus. Whether he was on an official mission or operating as a lone ranger, the question he posed, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” was designed to put Jesus to the test (see Luke 10:25). But Jesus, like a skilled intellectual counterpuncher, turned the spotlight of the entire conversation back on the religious expert with a question of His own: “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”
Without missing a beat, the public verbal sparring match with Jesus continued as the religious expert quoted from two passages in the Torah—first Deuteronomy 6:5, “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength,” then Leviticus 19:18, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live” (Luke 10:28).
The religious expert began trying to test Jesus. But now “he wanted to justify himself” (Luke 10:29). So he continued the exchange with a follow-up question of his own, “And who is my neighbor?”
Here's how Micah, an Orthodox Jew quoted by Ted Dekker and Carl Medearis in their book Tea with Hezbollah, describes this exchange: “In Judaism, that is a burdened question [Who is my neighbor?]. In the Mishnah, which is the summary of all interpretation of Jewish law, ‘neighbor’ is a technical term for friend. It basically defines neighbor as a practicing Jew, which is how the Pharisees in Jesus' time interpreted it.”3 Micah goes on to suggest the religious expert actually was trying to bait Jesus into redefining the meaning of neighbor in a way that would have been scandalous to a sensible Jew. But Jesus outmaneuvered His antagonist again by telling a story instead of answering the question.
THE STORY
When looking at the story it is important to identify any hindrances to our understanding, including historical or cultural differences that would color our perspective. Even if you have visited Israel, you probably don't have the ability to conduct a mental virtual tour of the location for this story and could benefit from a few simple background details to establish the context.
Jerusalem is higher in elevation than Jericho. Over a seventeen-mile stretch, the elevation drops three thousand feet; hence the victim was “going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.” This was the most public road in all of Judea, the grand thoroughfare between these two cities. As many as twelve thousand priests resided in Jericho and would have traveled regularly on this road. Since the priest and Levite were also “going down,” we can assume they were traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. This is an important detail that the original hearers of this story would not miss. The priest and Levite were not reporting to the temple for service but rather heading back home, having served their duty.
Why is this so important? Jews who came in contact with a dead body were considered ceremonially unclean. Priests and Levites were especially diligent about avoiding impurities that could complicate their readiness to report for duty at the temple. Since these two were headed home, their ability to rationalize avoiding contact with a person left for dead along the road would have been undermined.
Author Ted Dekker describes the parable of the Good Samaritan, saying, “Like all good tales, his story had a strong antagonist, a killer who took a man, pummeled him within an inch of his life, and left him for dead. And it had a strong protagonist, a man who went out of his way to nurse the victim back to life after others refused to help the dying man.”4
But perhaps more importantly, the parable had a dramatic and unexpected plot twist that would have stimulated repulsive angst in the minds of the original hearers. The hero of the story is not a Jew. This unexpected turn of events, positioning a Samaritan as the good guy, would have triggered an emotional gag reflex, as if the words of Jesus reached just far enough down the throat of the religious expert (and the others who shared his worldview) to make him want to spit them out. This part of the story is so important that we'll devote the entire next chapter to exploring it in more detail.
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br /> THE SEQUEL
In the sequel to the story (remember, in this sense sequel is a result, consequence, or inference) Jesus once again turned the focus back on the religious expert. Having responded to the question with a story instead of an answer, Jesus now pressed the expert in the Law to answer his own question, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” (Luke 10:36).
Without debating, arguing, or even so much as raising His voice, Jesus pinned His attacker in a trap of his own making. The question is so simple that even a child in the crowd could have answered it. It is so profound that it blew up the very worldview assumptions underlying the verbal exchange. The question that triggered the story was, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus flipped the entire conversation on its head, changing the focus of the question by asking, “Which of these three was a neighbor to the man?” From Jesus' perspective the burden of responsibility is not on others to somehow qualify to become our neighbor. The responsibility is on us to take the initiative in being a neighbor to others.
The expert's disdain for this man of mixed race ran so deep that he couldn't even bring himself to say the word Samaritan, replying, “The one who had mercy on him” (Luke 10:37). His words were like the strands of a makeshift fuse, slowly burning, with the bomb of truth exploding in his own face as Jesus responded, “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).
THE SINGLE THOUGHT
As we touched on earlier, the goal of all this analyzing of the setting, story, and sequel is distilling a single thought, an overarching big idea that summarizes the main point of the parable in words that transcend the story itself. In some cases, Jesus specifically explained the meaning of a parable. Where He didn't, as is the case with the Good Samaritan, we are left with the challenge of carefully and prayerfully capturing the meaning, the single thought. It is impossible to remove all subjectivity from this process, and there is room for honest disagreement.
I distill the single thought from the Good Samaritan in the following sentence: God expects us to take the initiative, crossing boundaries and overcoming barriers, to show His mercy by serving others.
SUPPORTING IDEAS
Once the essence of the parable is captured in a single thought, we can go back to the combination of the setting, story, and sequel to expose any supporting ideas that resonate with the overarching principle. Sometimes the supporting ideas flow from reliable comparisons we can make from items in the story that clearly were intended to be symbolic. In other cases the supporting ideas emerge as we put the puzzle pieces of the wider interaction together and get a glimpse at the cover of the box.
In the case of the Good Samaritan, there are no obvious comparisons or symbols. But when the story is viewed in context with the setting and sequel, several supporting ideas are worthy of consideration. First, how you respond to the needs of others is determined by who you love the most. Remember, the need for the story, why Jesus told it, is grounded in the religious expert's quoting of two important passages from the Old Testament that emphasize the priority of loving God and loving others.
The second supporting idea in this passage is if you love God first, you will live others-focused. Without telling us anything about the motives or beliefs of the Samaritan, Jesus paints a vivid, colorful picture of what it looks like in real life to love God most, to put God first. You take the initiative, crossing boundaries and overcoming barriers, to show His mercy by serving others. The challenge we face in applying this message to our daily lives is that our world is shrinking and the neighborhood is changing. We'll come back to that central issue, but first it is important that we understand how radically Jesus redefined the neighborhood of first-century Judaism by inserting the plot twist that made the hero of the story a Samaritan.
Chapter 2
REDEFINING THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Jesus never used the descriptive words “good Samaritan.” Search for this phrase in the New Testament with your Bible software program, and you won't get any results, unless your search feature includes chapter headings that were not in the original text. “Good Samaritan” is an extrabiblical label, a title that has been assigned to this parable, aptly reducing the essence of the story to two words.
For the average Jew listening to Jesus tell this story, the words “good Samaritan” would have been an oxymoron, such as “orthodox heretic” or “good bad guy.” Samaritans were among the people Jews loved to hate. They were not viewed as neighbors, in part because they were from “the hood,” the other side of the tracks. But in His paradigm-busting fashion, Jesus was about to redefine the neighborhood.
If we could interview the expert in the Law who approached Jesus in Luke 10 about the bad blood between Jews and Samaritans, he might respond by saying, “It's a long story.” By some accounts the roots of this dispute reached back more than one thousand years from the time of Jesus to the relocation of the tabernacle by Eli from Mount Gerizim to Shiloh, which was perceived by some as the creation of a false place of worship and illegitimate priesthood.1 With this tension in the background, the divide was institutionalized during the civil war that split the country in two, Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Omri, the sixth king of Israel, “bought the hill of Samaria … and built a city on the hill, calling it Samaria, after Shemer, the name of the former owner of the hill” (1 Kings 16:24).
Around 722 BC, the northern kingdom of Israel was attacked by Sargon II, an Assyrian ruler and “the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria” (2 Kings 17:23). One of Sargon's strategies for dominating a conquered land involved the resettling of foreign peoples to the region in an attempt to dilute their culture and history. When foreigners intermarried with locals, as some in Israel did, the culture was more than diluted; it mutated. The people brought to the towns of Samaria by the king of Assyria did not worship the Lord. Their interest in the God of Israel surfaced only after they were attacked by lions and perceived it to be an act of divine judgment. They pleaded with Sargon II for instruction on how to appease this powerful “local deity” and eventually settled into a pattern of syncretism, blending together the worship of Yahweh with “their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought” (2 Kings 17:33).
In the sunset years of the Babylonian exile, when Ezra and Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem, Samaritans were viewed as the enemies of Judah and not permitted to join in the reconstruction of the temple or the city (see Ezra 4:1-3; Nehemiah 4:7). By the time of Jesus, one of the most insulting accusations that could be leveled against a Jew was to be called a Samaritan. Jews went out of their way to avoid contact with Samaritans, who were the social equals of stray dogs. Though violence between Samaritans and Jews was more the exception than the rule, the level of hatred and prejudice rivaled the deepest racial fault lines one could imagine today.
BIAS-INDUCED BLINDNESS
Every culture has blind spots that filter out aspects of reality. One of the most difficult blind spots to expose is prejudice, especially when it is religiously justified. This bias-induced blindness inspires a hateful boldness that prefers the judgment of fire and brimstone over mercy and neighborly compassion. Prejudice of this nature is like being kidnapped by hatred and hauled away with a black hood over your heart. The darkness is subtle but real; it is the eyes of the heart that can't see. That was true of Jonah with the Assyrians as well as the disciples with the Samaritans. And lest you get on your high horse of pride, test your first response to groups such as Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, or the Taliban. Vengeance is the Lord's, and justice in the face of violence is the responsibility of governments. Our role as individual Christ followers is loving forgiveness.
Jesus saw prejudice against Samaritans in the heart of the disciples and went out of His way to expose it. John set the stage, saying of Jesus, “Now he had to go through Samaria” (John 4:4). In the Samaritan community of Sychar, Jesus had an amazing encounter with a woman He met at the well outside of tow
n. The combination of tenderness and truth-telling in this story is a powerful example of the personal ministry of Jesus. In this unlikely setting, Jesus chose to reveal Himself as the Messiah to a Samaritan woman who in the eyes of Jews was twice removed from the mercy of Yahweh, first by her mixed-race birth and second by her promiscuous behavior. She had been married five times and was living with a man when she encountered Jesus.
The living water Jesus poured into the soul of the woman at the well overflowed into the town of Sychar, like the Nile of ancient Egypt, fertilizing the soil of their hearts, preparing the way for an abundant harvest. But there is a second layer of truth in this story that is easily overshadowed by the fruitful results of Jesus' personal ministry. Could it be there were two reasons Jesus “had to go through Samaria,” on His way back to Galilee? In this unusual setting Jesus created His own rabbinical classroom, staging a powerful teachable moment in which He exposed the bias-induced blindness of His first disciples that kept them from seeing the needs of others.
When Jesus exhorted His disciples, saying, “Open your eyes and look at the fields!” they were standing in a Samaritan village, surrounded by people they loved to hate (see verse 35). They would not have chosen to be there, but Jesus “had to go through Samaria,” first to reveal Himself to a Samaritan woman and second to challenge His disciples to see what God sees, to take the initiative, crossing boundaries and overcoming barriers, to show God's mercy by serving others.
