Summary: This is a classic passage that needs no complex exegesis to make it understandable. One can tell it as a morality tale (we should be the Good Samaritan); or one go a Lutheran route (Christ is the Good Samaritan). But if you want to try something else...A word I'd never caught before was the word for inn -- πανδοχειον -- literally all-are-welcome. I find this a comforting image of the church -- a place where anyone and everyone comes to receive mercy and healing on the road of life. (okay, okay, it is not a great image of repentance, but nonetheless, it is worth pondering: why do people find comfort at a local bar/inn and not the church).
2025 addition: The Good Samaritan may not have started the story as the neighbor; he may have needed to become the neighbor. A reminder that in our divided world, we are not born neighbors, but trauma can bring us together.
Other words:
σπλαγχνιζομαι ("splagchnizoma", meaning "compassion", 10.33) This word means compassion in Greek; it comes from intestines. To have compassion meant your guts were turned over.
ζωην (from ζωη "zooe" meaning life, 10.25) In John's Gospel Jesus affirms that everlasting life is not something that begins after death, but begins here. You can really see this in the Greek in his Gospel, where many of the tenses regarding everlasting life are in the present: he who believes HAS everlasting life (John 3:36). In this passage from Luke, Jesus also connects everlasting life with earthly life. (Do this, Jesus says, and you will live.) Jesus denies a distinction between everlasting life (the lawyers' question) and life. To live with God is everlasting life, which begins here on earth. However, Luke here connects them with moral action. What does everlasting life look and feel like? Like showing mercy. I have no desire to drive a wedge between Luke and John or between faith and works here. Simply, the everlasting life is the life in the new creation, where our faith transforms us into God's instruments of mercy.
πως ("poos" meaning "how", 10.26) Jesus does not say, "What does the law say?" Rather he says, "How do you read the law?" A reminder that people can read the same laws in different ways!
Other words:
σπλαγχνιζομαι ("splagchnizoma", meaning "compassion", 10.33) This word means compassion in Greek; it comes from intestines. To have compassion meant your guts were turned over.
ζωην (from ζωη "zooe" meaning life, 10.25) In John's Gospel Jesus affirms that everlasting life is not something that begins after death, but begins here. You can really see this in the Greek in his Gospel, where many of the tenses regarding everlasting life are in the present: he who believes HAS everlasting life (John 3:36). In this passage from Luke, Jesus also connects everlasting life with earthly life. (Do this, Jesus says, and you will live.) Jesus denies a distinction between everlasting life (the lawyers' question) and life. To live with God is everlasting life, which begins here on earth. However, Luke here connects them with moral action. What does everlasting life look and feel like? Like showing mercy. I have no desire to drive a wedge between Luke and John or between faith and works here. Simply, the everlasting life is the life in the new creation, where our faith transforms us into God's instruments of mercy.
πως ("poos" meaning "how", 10.26) Jesus does not say, "What does the law say?" Rather he says, "How do you read the law?" A reminder that people can read the same laws in different ways!
συγκυρίαν (syn + kyria = "by chance", 10.31) I cannot confirm the etymology, but from what I can read here, the word literally means "with the Lord." In other words, this is not "random", but seemingly orchestrated by the Lord!
τραῦμα (trauma, "wound", 10.34) There is a beautiful image here of the Good Samaritan binding up the wounds. The Good Samaritan isn't simply donating money, but he is dealing with the wounds of another person. More deeply, it is interesting to think about the trauma caused by such an event. In what ways is the Good Samaritan, by his acts, healing the other wounds the person experienced?
γεγονέναι (become, 10.37) The common way we remember the story is that Jesus asked the person "Who was the neighbor to the man who (was injured)"? But Jesus asks a slightly different question -- who became the neighbor? This word γίνομαι can mean "be" but has more of a sense of "came into being or became." The point is that these people may not always have been neighbors, but they became neighbors through the trauma!
