From a practical point of view, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the most important thing is the distinction between what the scribe, who asks Christ about eternal life, understands by the word "neighbor," and what the Lord Himself understands...
From a practical point of view, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the most important thing is the distinction between what the scribe, who asks Christ about eternal life, understands by the word "neighbor," and what the Lord Himself understands. The scribe, quite in the spirit of ordinary human thinking, considers a neighbor to be the person who stands in a certain relationship to us. He expects in response a word that would belong in the same category as the concepts of "relative, friend, neighbor, fellow countryman, coreligionist." The necessity of helping those who are near us is repeatedly spoken of in the Holy Scriptures of both the New and, especially, the Old Testament.
It must be said that the position of the Old Testament law on this issue is quite exalted; it requires doing good to everyone, from relatives to refugees, whom it calls strangers in our land. And yet, the Old Testament consciousness does not differ in this from the mindset of all people. It assumes the existence of ever-widening concentric circles of people who are located closer or further from oneself. In the proper sense of the word, a person, including an Old Testament person, considers relatives and friends as neighbors. We are ready to treat them with all goodwill, even with love. "Do not even the Gentiles do the same?" asks the Lord ( 5:47).
However, the Old Testament, compared to pagan beliefs and customs, significantly expands this circle. Not only relatives and neighbors, but also completely unknown fellow countrymen must be considered neighbors. Even a slave and a disenfranchised stranger are also human beings, therefore you must treat them humanely, that is, as your neighbors. Thus, the Old Testament brings the answer to the question: "who is my neighbor" to its limit: "any person who happens to be nearby."
The Lord, however, concludes the parable of the Good Samaritan with a counter-question to the scribe: "Which of these three proved neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers" ( 10:36). The Synodal translation in this verse is somewhat approximate. The Greek text contains not the verb "to be", but the verb "to become,
to be born, to be made". The Lord is saying that you became a neighbor to a person because he
is in need of your help.
It is not a matter of a relationship of closeness or kinship, but of a relationship of need
for another person. Moreover, He emphatically reverses the concept: it is not that the one who
fell among robbers became a neighbor to one of the three travelers — this would be quite in the
spirit of the Old Testament; on the contrary, one of them became a neighbor to him. Thus, at the
center of the circles defining the concept of "neighbor," the Lord places not you, but the
other, the one who needs you. A neighbor, therefore, is not the one to whom you would like to
give something. A neighbor is not even the one to whom you could give something. A neighbor is
the one who needs you.
And here it is important to remember how the Apostle Paul calls those who have believed "fellow
citizens with the saints and members of the household of God" ( 2:19).
We become neighbors to God because we need Him. And He invites us to define a neighbor exactly
as He Himself does, that is, to follow His path, to be like Him.
10
10:25 Mat 22:35; Mar 12:28.
10:27 Thou shalt love the Lord thy God - That is, thou shalt unite all the faculties of thy soul to render him the most intelligent and sincere, the most affectionate and resolute service. We may safely rest in this general sense of these important words, if we are not able to fix the particular meaning of every single word. If we desire to do this, perhaps the heart, which is a general expression, may be explained by the three following, With all thy soul, with the warmest affection, with all thy strength, the most vigorous efforts of thy will, and with all thy mind or understanding, in the most wise and reasonable manner thou canst; thy understanding guiding thy will and affections. Deu 6:5; Lev 19:18.
10:28 Thou hast answered right; this do, and thou shalt live - Here is no irony, but a deep and weighty truth. He, and he alone, shall live for ever, who thus loves God and his neighbour in the present life.
10:29 To justify himself - That is, to show he had done this. Lev 18:5.
10:30 From Jerusalem to Jericho - The road from Jerusalem to Jericho (about eighteen miles from it) lay through desert and rockyplaces: so many robberies and murders were committed therein, that it was called the bloody way. Jericho was situated in the valley: hence the phrase of going down to it. About twelve thousand priests and Levites dwelt there, who all attended the service of the temple.
10:31 The common translation is, by chance - Which is full of gross improprieties. For if we speak strictly, there is no such thing in the universe as either chance or fortune. A certain priest came down that way, and passed by on the other side - And both he and the Levite no doubt could find an excuse for passing over on the other side, and might perhaps gravely thank God for their own deliverance, while they left their brother bleeding to death. Is it not an emblem of many living characters, perhaps of some who bear the sacred office? O house of Levi and of Aaron, is not the day coming, when the virtues of heathens and Samaritans will rise up in judgment against you?
10:33 But a certain Samaritan came where he was - It was admirably well judged to represent the distress on the side of the Jew, and the mercy on that of the Samaritan. For the case being thus proposed, self interest would make the very scribe sensible, how amiable such a conduct was, and would lay him open to our Lord's inference. Had it been put the other way, prejudice might more easily have interposed, before the heart could have been affected.
10:34 Pouring in oil and wine - Which when well beaten together are one of the best balsams that can be applied to a fresh wound.
10:36 Which of these was the neighbour to him that fell among the robbers - Which acted the part of a neighbour?
10:37 And he said, He that showed mercy on him - He could not for shame say otherwise, though he thereby condemned himself and overthrew his own false notion of the neighbour to whom our love is due. Go and do thou in like manner - Let us go and do likewise, regarding every man as our neighbour who needs our assistance.Let us renounce that bigotry and party zeal which would contract our hearts into an insensibility for all the human race, but a small number whose sentiments and practices are so much our own, that our love to them is but self love reflected. With an honest openness of mind let us always remember that kindred between man and man, and cultivate that happy instinct whereby, in the original constitution of our nature, God has strongly bound us to each other.