Scripture: Luke 10:25-37
Good morning everyone. Today I’ll be carrying on Will’s current theme of Parables. We’re going to be looking at the Good Samaritan today – a parable that stems from a question asked of Jesus from an expert in religious law.
We’re going to look at the questions he asked, how Jesus responds, what that meant for the people at the time, and what that means for us now. Let’s begin with reading the parable in Luke chapter 10 v 25 – 37.
One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”
The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’”
“Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!”
The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?”
Jesus replied with a story: “A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road. “By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.
“Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.
“Now which of these three would you say was a neighbour to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked.
The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.”
Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”
When I was being toilet trained, my parents struck up a deal with me. Every time I went to the toilet and undertook the necessary actions, I would receive one M&M. I agreed, so we wrote up the contract, and the M&M deal was on.
After reviewing the contract however, I noticed a loophole. Fantastic. The deal had specified exactly what I said, “Every time I went to the toilet and undertook the necessary actions, I would receive one M&M.”. It didn’t say anything about undertaking the necessary actions to completion.
I would go to the toilet a little bit, if you understand what I mean, retrieve my agreed upon reward, and then go back to the toilet to do a little bit more, expecting to retrieve the same reward straight away again. From what I’ve been told, it worked at first but my parents were not pleased with me exploiting this loophole so it did not last.
Of course, my main objective here was to obtain as many M&Ms as possible. I was also really asking the question “What’s the least I can get away with here and still obtain my reward?”.
We see the same thinking from the lawyer in this section. The first question he asks of Jesus is, “What should I do to inherit eternal life?”. This gives us a good understanding of how he views Jesus’ teachings to this point. He sees the way to eternal life as a tickbox exercise “If I just do this handy list of things, I’m in – job done.”.
It makes sense, he’s a lawyer – all you’ve gotta do is follow these rules and you’re good to go. This isn’t quite how inheritance works however – an inheritance is received, it’s not earned.
Jesus replies with a question, directing him to the laws he knows this man is already aware of. “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?”. How do you read it is an interesting question. He doesn’t just ask him to quote it word for word, Jesus is asking him how he understands and interprets it, maybe as far as how do you choose to live this out?
The lawyer then answers by quoting parts of Deuteronomy and Leviticus.
“You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind” And “Love your neighbour as yourself”.
He’s nailed it, what a great answer! He describes loving God in all ways – not just a nice feeling but how you live out your life – day to day. As he quotes, loving God goes hand in hand with loving your neighbour as well.
Jesus agrees, a great answer! He says “Right! Do this and you will live!”.
The lawyer then follows up with a question that shows – while he may have fantastic theological knowledge, his desire to live it out fully might not quite be there. There’s a big gap between his knowledge and understanding of the law and how he chooses to act on that.
“Who is my neighbour?” he asks. Luke says that he asks this to justify his actions, not in hoping that he’ll be given the opportunity to show love to more and more people around him, but rather the opposite. He wants to cut down his list of requirements to the bare minimum. He wants to prove he already meets this requirement, job done. He’s asking how can I narrow my obligations and still receive the same reward? Eternal life sounds pretty great, I’m up for that. Let me just check it’s not going to be too much of an inconvenience though.
Some people close to me are so easy to love, I’m completely fine with them being my neighbour. Some others though…. They don’t quite agree with me on everything, maybe they even don’t like me. Surely, I don’t need to show them the same love as those in my inner circle, for example.
Often when I’m reading the Bible and I’m reading passages about religious leaders testing Jesus, trying to cut him and his teachings down, or attacking him for breaking their laws, I read them as the villains of the story. Here’s Jesus who we love, sharing the Good News, and these religious experts come in and just don’t get it – they’re on the bad side, trying to shut down Jesus, the hero of the story.
When I read about this religious lawyer, he’s quite relatable to be honest. I don’t want him to be relatable, but I find myself asking the same question regularly. Whether it’s toilet training or something a bit more recent – reaching out to a friend, giving up my time, energy, and resources to provide for others, putting in my best efforts at work, being a loving friend, brother, flatmate, leader. What’s the minimum I can do to pass? Do I have to put in this level of effort for everyone?
Let’s read again how Jesus responds. Jesus replied with a story:
“A Jewish man was traveling from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road. “By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side. “Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’ “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbour to the man who was attacked by bandits?” Jesus asked. The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy.” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”
Hearing this parable in 2026 has quite a different meaning to it than how the Jewish audience were hearing this story when Jesus told it for the first time.
A lot of the depth is lost on us at first – it becomes a nice story of how we should show acts of kindness and not walk past those in need. That in itself is great and important but the cultural impact of this story at the time ran a lot deeper.
Firstly, Jesus introduces us to a Jewish man who is travelling from Jerusalem to Jericho. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was an infamously dangerous road. It was isolated, steep and rocky – descending 4000 feet through narrow, winding canyons that provided great hiding spots for bandits. It had a bad and unsafe reputation but from all we’ve been told, this man is travelling it by himself. Living up to the reputation of the road, the man is attacked, robbed, beaten, and left to die on the side of the road.
We then see a Priest and a temple assistant come across this man in need and walk right past him. There’s an expectation here, that the Jewish audience would have had as well, that these are the exact people who would help out this man in need. It’s even possible that the priest was very wealthy, travelling with a group, plenty of resources available to help here.
I spent some time trying to work out the reasoning or justification these people would have to ignore this man especially given their titles and roles in the temple. Some commentaries said that the priest would have been thinking about becoming ceremonially unclean if they touched this person (if he was dead) or that they only had an obligation to help Jewish people and there was no way of knowing this beaten man’s cultural or ethnic origin so why risk it?
There were all these ideas flying around as to their motivation to just walking past but after looking at it for a bit, I realised it probably doesn’t actually matter. Jesus doesn’t focus at all on their motivation or justification behind this. The sole focus is on their actions and what they chose to do when faced with this opportunity to help – they walked right past.
When we’re faced with situations where we have an opportunity to help those in need, do we focus on the action we need to take or our reasons for not helping? We might be quite tired, we don’t think we’re the best person to support, we might have enough going on to deal with ourselves. Those can all be true but whether our inaction is justified someway or it isn’t – it is still inaction. Our rationalisation of this does nothing more to support the person who is in need.
What Jesus was doing in introducing these two characters in the Priest and the temple assistant was setting the Jewish audience up for the big plot twist. This is where some of the cultural context may not pack the same punch for us as it did for them at the time. Jesus has established a narrative direction here – we’ve started with a priest, next we’ve got a temple assistant, who’s next? The audience here are probably anticipating an Israelite/a regular Jewish person.
That would have been an obvious and clear next person, based on the structure of their society at the time. There would have been genuine shock when a despised Samaritan became the hero of this story.
When you hear the word Samaritan, what do you think? I would be very surprised if you didn’t automatically think of this story we’re talking about today. In fact, the term “Good Samaritan” is a common term today for someone who selflessly helps someone in need. Being called a Good Samaritan today is a great compliment. We even have a charity here called Samaritans Aotearoa. They are a charity that provides a 24/7 crisis help line where volunteers pick up the phone and support people who call through whether they’re lonely, suicidal, depressed, distress or just going through a bad time. The impact of this story over time has moulded the meaning of the word Samaritan into something incredibly positive.
This was really not what the word represented when Jesus told this parable. There was a huge cultural divide between Jewish people and Samaritan people. Jews despised Samaritans largely because of historical, ethnic and religious divisions. When Israel fell to Assyria, foreign people settled in the region and intermarried with the remaining Israelites, creating a group Jews later saw as religiously compromised – or Samaritans which you can read about in 2 Kings 17.
By Jesus’ time, the hostility was so strong that Jews and Samaritans typically avoided each other. We see examples of this in the book of John. Firstly, on a separate occasion to this, Jesus and Jewish religious leaders are debating and, in an attempt to discredit him, they say to him in John 8:48: “You Samaritan devil! Didn’t we say all along that you were possessed by a demon?”. Calling him a Samaritan here is meant as a derogatory term, implying he is religiously corrupt or outside true Jewish faith, and they pair it with accusing him of being demon-possessed to completely undermine his authority.
Secondly, the divide is made clear when Jesus was speaking to a Samaritan woman at a well. When Jesus asks her for a drink, she is shocked because Jewish men normally would not speak with a Samaritan woman at all saying “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?”.
This gives an idea of how the Jewish audience would be reacting to this new character introduction – a Samaritan man? This can’t be good. What happens next though? “Then a despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’
There are a lot of justifiable reasons for the Samaritan man to walk past, just like the priest and the temple assistant did. In fact, he probably has a lot more reasons to simply carry on his journey. Firstly, this Jewish man was travelling by himself on a dangerous road. He put himself into this situation, right? He clearly wasn’t well prepared or made some bad decisions that got him to this point.
Secondly, this man is Jewish remember. We have a pretty good idea of what he might think of a Samaritan man coming to his aid.
Thirdly, what if this was a trap? An ambush? The same bandits who attacked and robbed this man could be hiding around the corner waiting for him too.
Fourthly, helping this man is going to be expensive and ruin his plans. There are many reasons to walk by here, but he does not. The Samaritan simply acted out of compassion.
Jesus then asks the religious expert: “Now which of these three would you say was a neighbour to the man who was attacked by the bandits?” The man replied, “The one who showed him mercy” Then Jesus said, “Yes, now go and do the same.”
Jesus flips the question on its head. It’s no longer about asking “Who is my neighbour?”. We’re called to be a neighbour to those around us. Jesus makes it very clear that any form of social, cultural, religious, political barriers should not be getting in the way of being a neighbour and showing love to those in need.
What does that look like for us then? If there’s anything that is plentiful in the world today, it’s opportunities to help people in need. It’s clear that Jesus is saying that loving your neighbour is not just an emotion, it’s a physical response as well.
James 2 tells us: Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? It’s a very simple message but do we find it as simple to live out every day on an individual level?
Sometimes it’s small: noticing someone struggling, offering a listening ear, lending a hand with a practical task. Sometimes it’s bigger: volunteering your time, giving resources, or supporting someone who feels isolated. And sometimes it means crossing barriers – social, cultural, or personal – to show care where others wouldn’t. In all cases, it’s about seeing the need and responding with action.
It needs to be a part of a church’s identity as well. When people are in crisis, do they feel they can rely on their local church for support? Can we say that now about our church? Here’s a great example of a church showing love to their community: How good is it to see God’s love being broadcast in local media?
[Audio clip plays of a church providing refuge for people after a crisis]
May they be an example to all of us. Beyond practical help, we can also provide spiritual help to those in need – again, there is a lot of need for this too. Whether that’s praying for those around us, sharing the hope we’ve found in Jesus, providing encouragement, inviting people to church.
The opportunity to lead people to Jesus and the hope he brings is ever present. This comes with the same limitless boundary as to who our neighbour is that Jesus describes in the parable as well. That can be scarier or harder though, right? This is where the cultural, religious, political, personal and a range of other differences can feel like a bigger blocker. If someone is rude to me for whatever reason, that doesn’t make it easier to pray for them. I certainly don’t want to be responding with an invite to church.
This always makes me think of the story of Jonah which we heard here a month or two ago. Jonah, after delivering a message from God to the Ninevites, anticipates and even hopes for God to destroy Nineveh as his message had warned. When God showed compassion to the Ninevites and chose to not carry out the destruction He had threatened, Jonah was very angry. Jonah doesn’t believe the Ninevites deserved the same love God had shown him. To which the Lord responds: “…Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city?
Who are the Ninevites in your life? If there’s someone in your life that you’re praying God deals with instead of saves, you’re missing an opportunity to show them the same love you’ve experienced.
To live like the Samaritan in this story, we have to understand that we’ve also been the Jewish man beaten at the side of the road before as well – or maybe we still are. Jesus is our good Samaritan. He’s compelled by compassion to act and show us love. He gave everything, even His life, because he sees the great need we have and acts on His compassion. Through Jesus, we accept the gift, or the inheritance, of eternal life. When we experience Jesus’ compassion, it should change how we live. The love he has shown us isn’t meant to stop with ourselves. When we respond with love to our neighbour, it is an outpouring of the love we have been shown.
Galatians 5 reminds us what that looks like in action. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.
Living like the good Samaritan is a lifestyle shaped by the Holy Spirit, showing God’s love in practical ways. To be clear, this message isn’t coming from someone who has this perfected either. Living this out fully is a journey that we go on when we accept Jesus into our lives and seek to follow Him and grow more like Him every day.
My prayer today is that for myself and for everyone here, may this message lead us to take action when we feel compassion. To show love to those who need it – not because of where they come from or what they believe, but because of the love we have been shown.
1st John 4:9-12 tells us: God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.
If this isn’t a love that you have experienced yourself, you’re in the right place. Chat to those around you, we also have a regular prayer ministry team. May you come to know and understand what it means to be loved by God as well.
Let’s pray: Dear Lord, thank you for this parable and what it teaches us. May we come to love those around us as you have loved us. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Tawa Baptist 