Who Is Your Neighbor?

   The Parable of the Good Samaritan has gone round the world, but I think few who have read it recognize the dexterity with which Christ turned the tables on a hypocrite.

In Luke 10, a lawyer tries to trap Jesus by asking, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” The questioner was a dialectician whose job was to interpret the Mosaic Law. He wasn’t asking for information; he thought he already knew the answer. Christ knew this and countered by asking, “What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?”

In other words, you’re a lawyer; why don’t you give us your expert opinion. This, I’m sure, caught the lawyer off-guard, but in answer, he quoted the same passages from Deuteronomy and Leviticus Christ would quote in answering another lawyer who asked what was the greatest commandment (Matt. 22.36–40). Jesus said, “You’re right,” then added another principle from Leviticus, “Do this, and you will live.”

Upset at his trap being unsprung, the lawyer sought to exonerate himself by asking, “And who is my neighbor?” A Jew’s neighbor, according to the rabbis, was only a fellow Israelite. The lawyer probably thought Jesus would broaden this definition, thus getting Himself in trouble with the people. Instead, Jesus told a story about a priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan and asked, “Which of the three was neighbor to him who fell among thieves?” And the lawyer was forced to admit that the true neighbor was a Samaritan, not a Jew. It was the lawyer who ended up trapped.

Kenny Chumbley