What does Scripture say?
Opening
Main Poin
Why Does it Matter
Scripture
He thought it would reveal the weakness and falseness in Jesus’ teaching and lead people away from him back to the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, the qualified religious leaders
God had given Israel an inheritance, namely the land of Israel. They had forfeited this inheritance through disobedience. Now they looked for a new inheritance, one that would last forever. The rabbis debated exactly what this inheritance was. The lawyer gave Jesus opportunity to provide a new definition
Now the lawyer was being tested, not Jesus
Then you will be and do what God expects in the Old Testament. Such love must not be half-hearted. It must be all-encompassing. Every part of you—thoughts, emotions, feelings, actions—must be controlled by love for God and for others.
he emphasized the nature of this answer—not just an idea of the mind, but an action of one’s strength, a feeling of one’s soul, an emotion of one’s heart. Love must control the entire person.
Who is my neighbor? That is, how far does my love have to extend? Jewish legal interpretation sought to govern every situation and every relationship: Jew and Gentile; Jew and Roman; man and woman; free man and slave, priest and laity, clean and unclean, righteous and sinner. Every relationship was clearly defined, and the definitions determined how and when a person could participate in Jewish worship. The question was vital to Jewish identity
Jesus told the story of one victim without identifying the man by race, occupation, or reason for traveling
A priest, the highest of Jewish religious officials, hurriedly stepped to the other side of the road and continued on his important business, even though rabbinic law expected him to bury any corpse he discovered. Similarly, a Levite, who carried out the more mundane tasks of temple worship and operation, passed quickly by. No reason why, except not enough love for this “neighbor.”
the Samaritan took the dying man from the ditch and gave him life under supervised care without cost to the suffering man. The Samaritan representing everything the Jews hated became more than one they should love as a neighbor. The Samaritan became the hero of the story, the person showing love, the individual whose love Jews should imitate
Jesus had the lawyer set up for the obvious question: Who among the three was the loving neighbor?
The lawyer gave the only possible answer: the one who showed mercy to the traveler. Again, this Greek term is often applied to Jesus, who responds to calls for mercy (Matt. 9:27; 15:22; 17:15; Mark 10:47–48; Luke 17:13; cf. Mark 5:19). Jesus promised God’s mercy to those who show mercy (Matt. 5:7). So Jesus told the lawyer to go and show mercy like the Samaritan had done.