The Parable of the Good Samaritan

by Don Hite

A young seminary graduate was seeking to pastor his first church and was granted an interview by a little old one room church way out in the country.

The committee chairman asked, "Son, do you know the Bible pretty good?"

The young man replied, “Yes sir. I know the Bible from the back to the front.”

The deacon chairman asked “Do you know the stories and parables?”

The young man answered, “Oh yes! I know all the stories and parables.”

The committee chairman said, “Tell us one of the parables of Jesus - let’s say the parable of the Good Samaritan.” And so he did and it went like this:

“There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, who went down to Jericho by night and he fell among stony ground. And the thorns rose up and choked him nearly half to death. He said, ‘What shall I do?’ Then he said, ‘I shall arise and go to my father’s house.’ And he arose, and climbed up into a sycamore tree. The next day Solomon and his wife Gomorrah came by, and they carried him down to the ark for Moses to take care of him. And as he was going through the eastern gate into the ark, he caught his hair in a limb and he hung there for 40 days and 40 nights. And afterwards, he hungered and the ravens came and fed him. The next day the three wise men came and carried him down to the boat dock and he caught a ship down to Nineveh. And when he got down there, he found Delilah sitting on the wall. He cried out, ‘Chunk her down, boys.’ And they said, ‘How many times shall we chunk her down, unto seven times?’ And he said, ‘Nay, but unto seventy times seven.’ So they chunked her down, 490 times. Then she burst asunder in their midst, and they picked up twelve baskets of the leftovers. And they asked him, ‘Lord, in the resurrection, whose wife will she be?’”

The pulpit committee members all looked at one another for a moment and then the chairman said, “Folks, I think we ought to ask the church to call him as our pastor. He is awfully young, but he sure does know his Bible."

The Parable of the Good Samaritan is found only in the Gospel of Luke in 10:25-37.

An Expert in the law or lawyer asked Jesus a question that showed his ignorance of the central issue of the law being eternal life and the command to love one another or your neighbor.

Jesus answered him with a parable known as the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus contrasted the unloving actions of a Priest and Levite with the loving actions of a Samaritan. The Samaritan cared for a wounded traveler and in his actions he was obeying the central commandment of Gods law: love, in particular to Love God, yourselves and your neighbor or everyone.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan really goes like this:

An expert in the law stood up to test Jesus and asked him what must I do to inherit eternal life and Jesus answered quoting Deuteronomy 6:5 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 Leviticus 19:18 Love your neighbor as yourself. Then the man told Jesus that he answered correctly. Jesus in turn told him to do it so that he will live. Then the expert asked Jesus who is my neighbor and Jesus then went on to deliver the parable of the Good Samaritan starting at Luke 10:30.

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 Two Greek Denarii 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.'

Then Jesus asked the expert in the law which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? And the expert replied the one who had mercy on him or the Samaritan and Jesus replied Go and do likewise.

The man in the story - obviously a Jew - was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho which is about seventeen miles on foot.

The road dropped more than 3 thousand feet and so he was going down in elevation and not up. This road was dangerous for people to travel down especially if they were alone because of the rocky terrain and places where robbers could easily hide and jump them which is what happened to this man.

Not only did they take his money but they took his clothes or stripped him and then beat him half to death. This man was in bad shape and Jesus implied that the man would have died if he was not helped.

It is important to note here that Jews and Samaritans of Jesus day hated each other then because the Jews thought of them as inferior half-breeds because they were descendants of Jews from the North who intermixed and married other non Jews after Israel’s exile.

The Jews listening to the parable were obviously thinking to themselves that a Samaritan would never help a Jew and knowing that the Samaritans were usually the ones doing the robbing the story takes a twist as Luke is fond of doing.

Here Jesus went into great detail on how the Samaritan helped this Jew: He bandaged his wounds with cloth from his own clothing since the robbers took his clothes, put oil on his bruises to soothe them like a lotion, put wine on his wounds as an antiseptic and finally placed him on his donkey so that he had to walk while leading the donkey.

Next he took him to an inn and took care of his needs. But the story doesn’t end there. The next morning when the Samaritan left to continue his journey he gave the innkeeper enough money to cover several days stay and food and promised the innkeeper that when he came back through he would stop by and pay any additional money the man may have owed the innkeeper.

This inferior half-breed Samaritan understood how to love his neighbor and how to help someone with a need regardless of who or what they were.

While the priest and Levite from the Jewish tribe of Levi who served in the Temple and we supposed to be Godly crossed to the other side of the road.

As Jews who served in the temple they were supposed to help him according to their religious laws because he was not dead. If he was dead then their laws would have forbid them to touch him or they would become unclean but this was not the case.

Therefore they totally disregarded their own laws because it was too much bother and they showed that they loved themselves more than others. They loved holding to the letter of their law over helping or loving a fellow in need and in effect they broke the law.

We are taught that when you love God that love overflows into love for others or our neighbors. As members of the body of Christ when we love one another we are in turn showing the world the love that God has shown to us.

Additional Verses:

John 13:34-35
John 15:10, 12
Colossians 1:4
1 Thessalonians 1:3
1 Peter 2:17
1 John 4:11