Showing Love • Luke 10:25-37
By Jessica McMillan
In this passage, Luke records an interaction between Jesus and an expert in the Mosaic law who wanted to test him with a question about how to achieve eternal life. What began as a debate about interpretation of Scripture turned into a lesson about what it means to have a heart transformed by God. Knowing God’s word is not the same as living out the biblical principles contained within it.
Luke 10:25-29
The custom of the day was that teachers sat while students stood. The “expert in the law stood up to test Jesus” (v. 25 NIV) with the question about how to inherit eternal life. It is likely that he already knew what Jesus would say and that he wanted to trap him in some way. We are told in other places how the Pharisees, tax collectors, and experts in the law would often ask Jesus questions like how to be saved and which commandment was the most important (Mark 12:28, Matthew 22: 36) even after he had already taught them. They did not ask these questions out of a genuine desire to learn because they already knew the answers, as demonstrated in verse 26 when Jesus asked, “What is written in the law?” Jesus often avoided a direct answer when he knew he was being interrogated insincerely. Surely, an expert in the law already knew what the law said! It was almost as if he was saying, “Well you tell me, Mr. Smarty-pants.” The lawyer quoted Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18, but he really intended to have Jesus define the meaning of a “neighbor.” Perhaps he wanted others listening to hear this and think of him more highly in this attempt at “checkmate” of Jesus.
The definition of “neighbor” was open for interpretation based on Leviticus 19:17-18.
“Do not hate a fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in their guilt. Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord” (NIV). Based on a rudimentary understanding, one’s neighbor was someone who was part of the covenant community — a Jew, not necessarily all humans. Then Jesus told a story that would appall self-righteous people, and in that story, he thereby taught a lesson about what it looks like to love others. By telling this parable, Jesus was exposing the lawyer’s failure to fulfill the very law he claimed to understand.
Luke 10:30-37
It was common in that specific geographical location for robbers to prey on innocent victims walking by. In this parable, a band of thugs assaulted a man and left him lying half dead and naked in the road. Because the man had been stripped and beaten, his ethnic identity was likely unclear, making the Samaritan’s compassion even more striking. Both the priest and Levite walked by, possibly concluding that he was NOT a neighbor, and they continued on their way, even making sure to walk to the opposite side of the road. These religious leaders showed no compassion for the hurting man. Any onlookers would have been quite surprised when a Samaritan passed by and acted kindly, since Samaritans were deemed NOT neighbors (outside the covenant community). The Samaritan tried to clean up the bleeding victim’s wounds and took him to a safe place. At the end of the story, Jesus asked the lawyer who had been a “neighbor” to the one so brutalized by robbers, and there was only one answer — the one who showed mercy. It is significant that Jesus’s response shifted from “Who is my neighbor?” to a more appropriate question: “How can I be a neighbor?”
Loving others is not always easy or convenient. We do not earn eternal life by demonstrating love for God and our neighbor, but our actions reveal a heart that has been transformed by God’s grace. This passage teaches us that eternal life is lived through sincere love for God and compassion for others. When we truly love God, we will demonstrate that love through mercy toward others.
McMillan is on faculty at NOBTS and is a member of Roseland Park Baptist Church, Picayune.
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