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§27 The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–42)

This section may be divided roughly into three parts: (1) the question of the teacher concerning eternal life, a question which occasions the “Great Commandment” (vv. 25–29); (2) the Parable of the Good Samaritan (vv. 30–37); and (3) Jesus’ visit with Martha and Mary (vv. 38–42). A theme common to all of these parts is setting proper priorities. To the teacher of the law, Jesus places priority on love for one’s neighbor (vv. 25–37), while in his visit to Martha and Mary (vv. 38–42), Martha learns that Jesus takes priority over all other matters. Talbert (p. 120) has suggested that the Parable of the Good Samaritan and the visit with Martha and Mary illustrate the twofold Great Commandment. That is, the Good Samaritan loves his neighbor, and Mary loves the Lord more than anything else.

10:25–29 / This incident parallels (and possibly is derived from) Mark 12:28–34, where it is Jesus, not the expert in the law, who cites the commandments to love God and one’s neighbor (although in Mark 12:32–33 the expert repeats similar commandments). In Luke 10:25 Jesus is put to the test. (This test is not necessarily “trap,” as some versions translate, for there is no indication of hostility in the balance of the episode.) The legal expert is interested in Jesus’ theology. He wants to know what, in Jesus’ opinion, is required to inherit eternal life. In rabbinic style Jesus answers the question with a question of his own: “What is written in the Law?” and, “How do you read it?” The expert then cites Deut. 6:5 and Lev. 19:18 (see note below). He understands the chief requirement of the law to be summarized in the commandments to love God and one’s neighbor. Jesus agrees with his answer (“You have answered correctly”), for it is the answer that he himself has given elsewhere (Matt. 22:37; Mark 12:29–31). It is, however, easier to profess love for God and to observe religious rituals as proof of this love than it is to show love for one’s neighbor. The legal expert must have sensed this and so, wishing to justify himself, asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Implicit in his question is an excuse for failing to keep the second commandment, that is, one must love only one’s neighbor (when properly identified and qualified) and not others. (According to Lev. 19:18 only Israelites are “neighbors.”) But this is not how Jesus understood the commandment. The commandment to love one’s neighbor is to be applied universally, not selectively. As the Parable of the Good Samaritan will illustrate, it is the man who treats a stranger as a neighbor that really keeps the commandments of the law. The legal expert, by his qualifying question, may have been trying to find a loophole.

Evans (p. 43) naturally sees a correspondence between this section of Luke and Deuteronomy 5–6, where the Ten Commandments are repeated (5:6–21) and the summarizing commandment (called the “Shema” from the first word “hear”) is found (6:4). Evans notes that Israel was told to keep the law, “so that you may go in and take over the good land” (6:18) and “so that we might be kept alive” (6:24). The question of the legal expert (Luke 10:25) and Jesus’ allusion to Lev. 18:5 (in Luke 10:28) contain language that Evans thinks is either derived from, or at least alluding to, these verses in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 5–6 emphasize the need for “complete devotion to God” (Evans, p. 43), and this is the thrust of Luke 10:25–28.

10:30–37 / To answer the legal expert’s question Jesus tells the well-known Parable of the Good Samaritan (see note below). The man who proves to be the neighbor (and who really keeps the spirit of the law, as seen in 10:27) is the Samaritan who cared for the wounded man. Ironically, those who were most concerned with keeping every requirement of the law (as seen through the grid of many oral laws and traditions), the priest and Levite, were unable to aid a fellow human being in great need for fear of becoming ceremonially “unclean.” Because of their religious duties there was no room left for the duty that every person, especially a priest, has as neighbor to another. The Samaritan, however, was viewed as “unclean,” as one with no concern for the oral laws and traditions (indeed, as one not worthy himself of receiving assistance from a Jew; see b. Sanhedrin 57a; Talbert, p. 123), and yet he is the one who fulfills the law, as expressed in the quotation of Lev. 19:18 (cf. the similar context of Mark 12:33 where Hos. 6:6 is quoted; see also Matt. 9:13; 12:7). The irony is intensified by Jesus’ command that the expert in the law follow the example of the Samaritan.

Evans (p. 43) finds a parallel between this parable and Deuteronomy 7, in which Israel is commanded to have “no mercy on” foreigners. In this instance the parallel is one of contrast. Note that the legal expert admits that the Samaritan, by having “mercy on” the wounded man, kept the commandment. Unlike the Israelites who were to hate the foreigner (lest they become ensnared in the religions of the foreigners), the Lucan passage teaches that the commandment to love one’s neighbor extends to foreigners as well. The Parable of the Good Samaritan contributes significantly to Luke’s overall concern to show that foreigners, outcasts, poor, and humble may all receive God’s mercy.

10:38–42 / The point of this episode is simple and relates in some ways to the parable that precedes it: It is more important to hear and obey the word of Jesus than to be busy with other matters, even though they may be commendable of themselves. It would have been far better for Martha to have made simpler and less time-consuming preparations in order, like her sister Mary, to learn from the Lord. Likewise, the priest and the Levite of the Parable of the Good Samaritan needed to learn that God and people are better served by deeds of mercy than by religious rituals. Evans (p. 43) suggests that Luke intends this passage to parallel Deut. 8:1–3 where people are to learn that they are to live not by bread alone, but by every word that comes from God (see Luke 4:4). This could very well be the case. By choosing to listen to Jesus’ teaching (v. 39), Mary is an example of one who knows that “man does not live by bread alone, but … by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord” (Deut. 8:3b, RSV). In contrast, Martha busies herself with the food that perishes (v. 40; Deut. 8:3a). For further discussion of this pericope, see R. W. Wall, “Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38–42) in the Context of a Christian Deuteronomy,” JSNT 35 (1989), pp. 19–35.