Parable of the Hurt Samaritan—Luke 10:25-37
Jack Klumpenhower
3/5/2010

One day Jesus told a story: A certain Samaritan was walking from Jerusalem to Jericho. He was attacked by bandits, beaten, and left for dead. A priest came along. He saw the Samaritan—a despised outsider—and passed by without helping. Then a Levite did the same. Finally an ordinary Jew stopped to help the Samaritan. He treated him, took him to an inn, and paid for his care.

What’s that? You recall the story differently?

You’re right, of course. When Jesus told this famous story in Luke 10:25-37, it was a Jew who was hurt and the Samaritan who stopped to help. I swapped the characters to get us thinking about why Jesus told it the way he did, using the characters as he did. I think the answer can help those of us who struggle to act like “Good Samaritans.”

The context of the story

Let’s start with the context. Jews and Samaritans were indeed ethnic enemies who despised each other. The occasion for this story was a conversation between Jesus and a Jewish scholar about God’s command to love your neighbor as yourself. The Jewish scholar apparently hoped to limit the number of neighbors to something manageable, because Luke tells us: “The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” (Luke 10:29, NLT).

That’s when Jesus told him about the Samaritan who helped the injured Jew. When the story was done, Jesus and the scholar established that the Samaritan had been most neighborly. Jesus said, “Now go and do the same” (Luke 10:37, NLT).

We usually take this to mean that we ought to follow the Samaritan’s example. We ought to show kindness to anyone we meet, even enemies. And this should be an all-out sort of kindness, like the Samaritan who helped as fully as he could. It’s a demanding rule to live by. Pretty much impossible. Yet we resolve to hunker down and try.

The twist to the story

But was that Jesus’ point? If he meant to say, “You should show great love, even to enemies,” wouldn’t it work better to tell the story my way? Shouldn’t he have made a Jew the example for his Jewish listeners to follow? Why make the hero a Samaritan?

Do you see what Jesus did? The point of the story as he told it is not “Love your enemy.” Told Jesus’ way, the message is “Your enemy has loved you.”
Now the command to go and do the same makes more sense. If you’d really been loved first by an enemy, it’d be easy to love one back. If that enemy had risked his own life to rescue you from the brink of death, the experience would change you. You’d be eager to help enemies too. You’d be so thankful.

The result of the story

Luke doesn’t say how the scholar reacted to the story. My guess is that he was confused. When had a Samaritan, or any other enemy for that matter, actually shown love to him? It was just a story.

But you and I should get it. We should understand.

Romans 5:10 tells us, “Our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies” (NLT). We’ve been saved by an enemy. While we were under rebellion from God, Jesus not only risked his life but actually died to rescue us. Like the Samaritan, Jesus showed all-out love. He gave everything he had for us.

The more we appreciate this, the easier it becomes to go and do the same. That’s how kindness to others works for those who know Jesus. It’s not impossibly hard, nor a mere rule. It’s a growing, eager expression of gratitude.
Jesus told the story his way because he had a bigger story in mind—one where he plays the hero and you and I, the hurt man. If we hold any power to act like the Samaritan, it comes from this.

Jack Klumpenhower is a writer and communications consultant living in Colorado. He has authored Bible study lessons and a family devotional guide.