The Parable of the Good Samaritan
Who is my neighbour? An unlikely hero answers with oil, wine, and his own money.
Asked to define neighbour, Jesus tells of a man beaten and left half dead on the Jericho road, passed by a priest and a Levite, and rescued by a despised Samaritan who bandages him, carries him to an inn, and pays for his care. Then he flips the question: not who is my neighbour, but which of these was neighbour to him?
The parable
But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
The Samaritan — the least likely hero to Jesus' Jewish audience — is the one moved with compassion.
And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
Costly, hands-on mercy: his own oil, wine, beast, and time.
Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.
Jesus turns the lawyer's question inside out: go, and do thou likewise.
What it means
A lawyer, wanting to justify himself, asked who is my neighbour? — hoping to draw a boundary around his obligation to love. Jesus refused to draw the line and erased it instead. The hero is a Samaritan, a people the Jews despised as heretical half-breeds; the men who passed by were religious professionals, too busy or too fastidious to stop.
The mercy in the parable is specific and expensive: the Samaritan gives first aid, surrenders his own transport, walks so the wounded man can ride, pays the innkeeper, and promises to cover any further cost. Love, in Jesus' definition, is not a warm feeling toward people like us but concrete action toward whoever lies in our path — especially the one we might rather avoid.
The lawyer had asked for a definition; Jesus gave him a command: go, and do thou likewise. And Christians have long seen in the Samaritan a picture of Christ himself — the despised and rejected one who crosses the road to a humanity beaten and half dead, pays the whole cost of our rescue, and promises to return.
Quick answers
- What is the main lesson of the Good Samaritan?
- That love of neighbour has no boundaries of race, religion, or convenience — a true neighbour is anyone who shows mercy, and we are called to be that neighbour to whoever is in need.
- Why was it shocking that a Samaritan helped?
- Jews and Samaritans despised one another. Making the hated outsider the hero — while the respectable priest and Levite failed — deliberately overturned the lawyer's assumptions about who counts as good.