The Good Samaritan: Meaning of Jesus' Famous Parable

The phrase 'good Samaritan' has entered everyday language, meaning simply someone who helps a stranger. But the parable Jesus told is far more pointed and beautiful than the phrase suggests. Told in answer to a loaded question, it overturns our idea of who our 'neighbour' is. Here's the story and what it really means.

The question behind it

A religious expert asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus pointed him to the law's summary: love God, and love your neighbour as yourself. But the man, 'willing to justify himself,' asked a narrowing question: 'And who is my neighbour?' — hoping, perhaps, to limit the list of people he was obliged to love. Jesus answered with a story.

The story

A man travelling a dangerous road was attacked, robbed, and left half-dead. A priest passed by on the other side. So did a Levite — another religious insider. Then came a Samaritan, a member of a group despised by the man's people, and it was he who stopped. He bandaged the wounds, carried the man to an inn, and paid for his care out of his own pocket. The despised outsider was the true neighbour.

Why the Samaritan shocked them

To Jesus' audience, 'good' and 'Samaritan' were almost contradictory words. Jews and Samaritans held deep mutual hostility. By making the hero a Samaritan — and the failures religious professionals — Jesus deliberately dismantled his listeners' prejudices. Real love for neighbour, he showed, crosses the very lines we most want to keep.

The neighbour is anyone in need

Notice how Jesus flipped the man's question. He didn't answer 'who counts as my neighbour?' Instead he asked, 'which of these was neighbour to the man?' The point isn't to define who deserves our love, but to become the kind of person who shows love to whoever is in front of us in need. Our neighbour is anyone we have the opportunity to help.

'Go, and do thou likewise'

Jesus ended not with a theory but a command. When the expert admitted the neighbour was 'he that shewed mercy,' Jesus said simply, 'Go, and do thou likewise.' The parable resists being merely admired; it asks to be obeyed. Real love isn't a warm feeling but costly action toward whoever needs us — including the people we're inclined to overlook.

A picture of grace, too

Many readers also see themselves in the wounded man — helpless in the ditch, unable to save themselves, rescued at great cost by an unexpected saviour who crossed every barrier to help. That's a picture of what God has done for us in Christ. Having been rescued so freely ourselves, we're freed to go and show the same mercy to others.

The parable of the Good Samaritan calls us past our comfortable limits: to love not just the convenient or the familiar, but anyone in need, at real cost, across every dividing line. 'Go, and do thou likewise' is not a suggestion but a summons — one made possible by the greater mercy already shown to us.