The Theologian and the Samaritan (part 1)

A study of Luke 10:34-37


Luke 10:24
When Jesus and his disciples were on their way to Jerusalem, an expert in the Law of Moses went up and tested Jesus with a question: "Teacher, what deed must I do to have eternal life?"

The person asking the question is an expert in the law of Moses, he probably teaches in the law of Moses, and has spent much of his life studying the oral law, and debating the meaning of scripture. This man is a theologian.

Why is this person asking Jesus this question?

We see in the next few verses that the “expert” already knew the answer to the question. We are also told that he was testing Jesus. If you are an expert in a subject and hear someone else talking on it, you might want to find out if they really know what they are talking about. You might even be offended that they would consider themselves qualified to teach on the subject! The theologian picks a question that he feels he knows the answer to, and asks Jesus to see if agrees with him.


Luke 10:25-28
Jesus answered, "What does the Law of Moses say? How do you understand it?" The expert replied, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all of your mind,' and also, 'Love your neighbour as much as you love yourself.'" Jesus said to him, "You have given the right answer. Keep doing this and you will live."

Jesus’ response results in the person answering his own question.

The answer that he gives is a quote from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18, and is one that was taught by Hillel, one of the leading Torah scholars of his day (and arguably one of the most influential on Judaism to this day). Jesus agreed with the answer, and, in telling the theologian that he was right, turned the tables. Instead of being the person tested, he put himself into the role of teacher. Jesus then tells the man that he should live out this understanding of the Torah.

Jesus’s statement of “keep doing this and you will live” provides an incredible challenge to the theologian. If the theologian knows what he should be doing, surely he is already living the life he should? In which case all he has to do is carry on behaving as he knows he should.

Is it easier to work out what the right thing to do is or do what you think is right?

There are some issues where it’s incredibly difficult to work out what the right thing to do is. The debate on subjects like euthanasia, animal testing, and genetic modification of food all show how difficult the moral dilemmas we face can be, but the majority of the time we struggle not with knowing the difference between right and wrong, but in actually doing the right thing.
Jesus’s telling the theologian to carry on doing the things he knows are right challenges everything about the theologian’s beliefs and life. Spending a life time studying the most complex passages of scripture is not a replacement for living out the simple gospel message. Study is wonderful, getting a fuller understanding of the bible is very worth while, but without action it is completely meaningless.


Luke 10:29
But the expert wanted to justify himself, so asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbour?"

The start of the passage told us that the theologian wanted to test Jesus. Now we are told he wants to justify himself.

What does this suggest about the way the theologian has lived up to this point?

Jesus has not said anything to the theologian that is an accusation, yet he feels a need to justify himself, to defend his position. That seems to suggest that Jesus’s statement has challenged him, that he knows he is not living up to his own beliefs.

There are three responses we can make when we realise we are not living our lives as we should:
With God’s help change
Justify our own actions
Pretend it doesn’t matter and ignore it.

The theologian could have said, “I know I should love people, but I really struggle with it I just can’t stand Romans”, or “I find it really hard to love Samaritans.” Instead of asking for help, he tries to find an exemption clause in the rule. He asks the question who is my neighbour? The fewer people that are included in the phrase neighbour the easier it is to love them.

Luke is written in Greek, but the law quoted in Luke 10:28 was written in Hebrew, so although the Greek word for neighbour πλησίον (plēsion) is used in this passage, it’s the Hebrew word we need to understand to see the significance of this question. The Hebrew word translated as neighbour is רע (rea`) is used 188 times in the Hebrew Bible. As well as being used in Lev 19:18 (love your neighbour as yourself) it appears as part of a number of other laws including the prohibition against bearing false witness against your neighbour (Exd 20:16) and forbidding defraud your neighbour (Lev 19:13), as such the exact meaning of this word is very significant then.

Orthodox Judaism understands the word rea` to mean a fellow Jew, as such Judaism reads Lev 19:18 as: “love other Jews as much as you love yourself”. Debate on the meaning of this word existed in the time of Jesus, and it is this debate that Jesus enters into with the story that he tells.


Luke 10:30a
Jesus answered with a story: A man was going down the mountain road from Jerusalem to Jericho….

Note in verse 24 we where told that Jesus was walking along a road to Jerusalem, Jesus adapts his answers to the people and situation he finds himself in. It probably would have been easier for Jesus just to have answered the question and said “a neighbour is..”, however giving an answer in this form would be less likely to stick in the mind of his listeners. By providing a practical example of the law, Jesus brings it to life, and asks his listeners to provide their own answers. When discussing points of law, the Rabbis of Jesus’s time often provided stories as examples of how the law should be applied.

Luke 10:30b
…and he was attacked by a gang of robbers who stripped him of everything, beat him up, and ran off, leaving him half-dead

While this is just a story used to illustrate a point, it is one that the listeners could relate to. The road between Jerusalem and Jericho goes downhill for 17 miles long and was noted by a Jewish historian of the period as being used by Arabian robbers.

The man is described as being half-dead. This means that anyone seeing his body might have assumed either that he was already dead, or that he might die while they were looking after him. In addition to this would be the fear that the robbers might still be nearby and attack anyone approaching to help the man.

Within the Hebrew Bible, the prescience of a dead body is a source of ritual impurity. As such someone who enters the same dwelling as a dead body become ritually impure. The process of cleansing from this impurity takes seven days and ends with washing hands in Ash (from a red heifer) mixed with water (Num 19:2-21)


Thats enough for one day! We will carry on next week