The good Samaritan

The parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) is one of Jesus’ most famous parables. The popular understanding of the parable is something like “Love people who are different from you.” But there is more to the story. The parable isn’t so much about the person who receives your love as much as it is about you receiving mercy and showing mercy.

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

The expert in the law was supposed to be an expert in God’s Word. He knew the Old Testament backward and forward, but he failed to apprehend the mercy that runs throughout the books of Moses and the prophets and the psalms. We can see his failure to locate his life in this mercy through the two questions he asked. This is why Jesus told the expert a parable. A parable is a story told to change someone. Jesus wanted to change this expert and the way he received and showed mercy.

The expert first asked Jesus about eternal life. “ ‘Teacher,’ he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ ” (v. 25). Maybe he thought of Daniel 12:2, which speaks of the bodily resurrection of the dead. The dead will be raised, and believers will enjoy eternal life. His question was good in the sense that it asked about eternal salvation. But notice that the premise is wrong. An inheritance cannot be earned; it can only be received as a gift.

So, as a good teacher, Jesus responded with a question: “How does the Law (the inspired writings of Moses) answer your question?” The expert could answer his own question. So he summarized God’s commands: Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor.

The commands that he summarized were first given to Israel within the context of mercy. Before giving Israel the Ten Commandments, God reminded the people why they were at the base of Mt. Sinai: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Exodus 20:2). They were there that day because they had received God’s mercy. They would also inherit the Promised Land because of God’s mercy. The expert failed to see that he was a recipient of mercy.

We salvation-by-grace-alone Lutherans may be surprised by what Jesus said next. We might prefer him to say, “You cannot do anything. Salvation is a gift.” Instead, he said, “Do this and you will live” (v. 28). The one who loves God and knows his mercy has come to know what life really is. The one who receives the mercy of God and shares that mercy with others is living the full kind of life that God intended. The mutual sharing of love between God and people and then from God through people is what living really is.

“Who is my neighbor”

That brings us to the expert’s second question: “And who is my neighbor?” (v. 29). You can imagine after such a short answer to a loaded question that the expert wanted something more from Jesus. Some suggest that when Luke tells us that the expert “wanted to justify himself,” the expert was somehow trying to prove himself right in the eyes of God. However, quite often when Luke describes the Jewish religious leaders, he describes them as being more concerned with proving themselves right in the eyes of people than of God. After receiving such a straightforward answer, the expert was trying to save face.

This second question reveals again the expert’s deficient understanding of mercy. Mercy is compassion shown to someone who is not deserving of compassion. To paraphrase one commentator: Mercy does not define its object; it discovers its object. The expert’s question implies that there are limits to whom love and mercy should be shown and to what makes someone deserving of compassion.

So Jesus told a parable about a Samaritan. Depending on which Jewish individual you asked, the view of Samaritans ranged somewhere between unsaved and unclean to barely saved. The relationship between Jewish people and Samaritans was complicated. Once, around A.D. 9, Samaritans defiled the temple complex in Jerusalem by scattering bones around it. Maybe you can imagine the reaction of the expert at this point: “How can someone who is so undeserving of mercy be the protagonist?”

There was a near-dead man of unknown nationality on the side of the road. Was he Jewish? Was he a Gentile? Jesus didn’t tell us. A priest walked by. Then a Levite too. Maybe the expert could rationalize why. Not only was the man left half dead, but he was also unclothed. Any signifiers of his nationality, like his dress, were stripped from him. Avoiding the risk of gentile uncleanness, both the priest and the Levite tried to stay away from the man.

Even if the man left on the side of the road wasn’t dead, he could’ve been. If he were dead, the priest and the Levite would have become ceremonially unclean. Some rabbis suggested that you couldn’t come within 4 feet of a dead body without becoming unclean.

But the Samaritan was the one who was merciful. Couldn’t the moral “love people who are different from you” be more easily reached if the Samaritan was the victim? But that was not the case. The outcast, the one undeserving of mercy, was the one who came to the aid of the victim.

This parable works precisely because the listener was Jewish and the protagonist was Samaritan. The Samaritan, who was a social outcast, cared little about his status and came to the aid of the victim.

Then Jesus asked, “Which of these three was a neighbor?” Jesus had changed the expert’s follow-up question. The question now was, “Am I a neighbor?”

The only way to answer such a question rightly is to understand that we are the Samaritan. The Samaritan is the outcast. He is undeserving. And so are we. And to those who are undeserving, God has shown his mercy. That’s life. His mercy changes us. Now everything that we think and do is empowered by that mercy. The Lord’s mercy has turned us into neighbors. Now we are people who discover people to love. That’s living.

This is the second article in a six-part series on Jesus’ parables found in the book of Luke. Read the first article, which focuses on the lost sheep and coin.

Author: Aaron Goetzinger
Volume 113, Number 07
Issue: July 2026
Illustrations: Corissa Nelson

Interpreting parables: Context

The parable of the good Samaritan has been subject to many interpretations. Many early church fathers used allegory to interpret the parable. Allegorical interpretation seeks to find a deeper sense or hidden meaning behind the words. For example, the thieves are the devil and his angels. One church father using this method found no less than 15 details worthy of interpretation. Unfortunately, words don’t get to mean whatever the reader wants them to mean.

In order to discover the meaning of the words, and thus the parable as a whole, the first question any reader should ask is, “What is the context?” The context can range from wide to narrow. It could be the entire Bible, the topic being treated, or the placement in that book of the Bible. In the case of the parable of the good Samaritan, extrabiblical historical context is helpful, for example, understanding the relationship between Samaritans and Jews or even the rabbinical teaching on purity laws. The context of a parable will establish preliminary boundaries for understanding the parable appropriately.