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The Good Samaritan
This chapter is based on Luke 10:25-37.
As Christ was teaching the people, “a certain lawyer stood up
and tested him, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal
life?’” The priests and rabbis had thought they would entangle Christ
by having the lawyer ask this question. But the Savior entered into
no controversy. “What is written in the law?” He said. “What is your
reading of it?” He turned the question of salvation on the keeping of
God’s commandments.
The lawyer said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all
your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all
your mind,” and “your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus said, “You have
answered rightly; do this and you will live.”
The lawyer had been studying the Scriptures to learn their real
meaning. In his answer about the law’s requirements, he claimed
no value for the mass of ceremonial and ritualistic instructions but
presented the two great principles on which hang all the law and the
prophets. This answer, which Christ commended, gave the Savior
an advantage with the rabbis.
“Do this and you will live,” Jesus said. He presented the law as a
divine unity. It is not possible to keep one commandment and break
another, because the same principle runs through them all. Supreme
love to God and impartial love to others are the principles to be lived
out in the life.
The lawyer was convicted under Christ’s uncompromising words.
He had not shown love toward others within his reach. But instead of
repenting, he tried to justify himself, saying, “Who is my neighbor?”
Among the Jews, this question caused endless dispute. The
heathen and Samaritans were strangers and enemies, but where
should the distinction be made among people of their own nation
and different classes of society? Were they to regard the ignorant
and careless crowds, the “unclean,” as neighbors?
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