Continuing our journey in the study of the “Good Samaritan”, today we come to two more lessons…
3.Concise Commandments
Now this Critic of the Master was quite conversant with sum and substance of Jesus’ teachings, for prompt was his reply:
“He answered, ‘”Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind”[c]; and, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”‘” (Luke 10:27)
Evidently he had heard the Master proclaim before that if we concentrate on obeying these two commandments, we would quite naturally be obeying the rest. Had not the Master also earlier spoken of the “lighter burden” He places on His followers (Matt 11:18-30), as compared to the myriad of laws the other Jewish religious leaders were imposing on the hapless public (Matt 23:4). On receiving this reply, with all the authority that goes with being the Son of God, Christ gives his detractor an answer…
“‘You have answered correctly,’ Jesus replied. ‘Do this and you will live.'” (Luke 10:28)
4. Contention
With the prejudicial bent of mind we now see the Jewish orthodox leader contending with the Master:
“But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?'” (Luke 10:29)
He of course was not averse to loving fellow Jews but loving the despised Samaritans. No way!!!Through the centuries the Jews with pure Jewish lineage had looked down upon the Samaritans as the “mixed breed”. For more on the origin of the Samaritans reading of 2 Kings 17th chapter Chapter would help. In a nutshell, they were the children of resident Jews in Samaria after the Assyrian exile and the gentiles whom the Assyrian King Shalmanesar had relocated to Samaria from other parts of his vast empire at that time.
Now the setting was perfect for the Lord to narrate a parable to drive home the point of loving everyone in need unreservedly. Though prima facie, it would seem that the main motive behind this parable of the Good Samaritan is to convey the significance of the unconditional agape love, its contents have been so spiritually woven so as to represent symbolically the entire Biblical history from the Pristine Creation onwards. Going by our Lord’s attention to even minor details in this account, I would even go so far as to conjecture that it was a true story that the good Lord saw unfolding from the Heavenly realms, long before His Earthly sojourn began in Bethlehem. Hey, was He not in existence from times immemorial…even before Abraham was born (John 8:58)!!!
In the next section, we shall glean lessons from the exact parable.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, we praise Thee for making Thy parables so simple that even the simple–minded ones amongst us can understand. Give us always an understanding heart. Amen.
Suresh Manoharan
J and SM Ministries
(To access the rest of the “It’s ‘All’ There” mini-series, please click here.)