Luke 10:25–37 ESV
And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
This is the word of God.
The next few sections of the book of Luke will have quite a bit of overlap. It seems like Luke has assembled this encounter with Jesus’ encounter with Mary and Martha and his teaching on prayer together for a reason. Rather than lumping them all together, we are going to slow down a bit soak in all that we can on these topics.
Today’s passage really become the theme or introductory passage for the other two.
Theme: Loving God with all that we are and loving others as ourselves will be more costly than we expect, but it will be worth it.
So, as we consider this passage today, we are going to consider the extent of loving God and the extent of loving others. We’ll conclude by considering the vast extent of Jesus’ love for us.
We don’t know exactly where this took place or if it happened right after Jesus sent out the 72. Luke simply begins this section by stating “and behold.” So this lawyer or an expert in religious law approached Jesus with a question - in hopes of testing him.
These religious leaders were always out to get Jesus because the way that he worked often called into question their practices or their authority.
So he asks - “what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
He had likely heard Jesus talk about eternal life. But it’s interesting that he phrases it this way as there is a false premise of the lawyer’s question - you can’t do things to receive an inheritance - inheritances are given - often by relation to the one who can give - in this case God.
Jesus responds with his own questions - what is written…, how do you read it? In other words, how do you interpret what is written.
So this man responds with two different parts of the OT law - love God (Dt. 6:5) - as we have read a couple of times in the service today, and love your neighbor as yourself (Lv. 19:18). Jesus essentially commends that man by saying that he is correct and that he will live if he does those things.
Jesus notes in other parts of the gospels that these two statements are at the core of what it means to follow God. All of the law and the prophets depend on loving God fully and loving others unconditionally.
Let’s begin by considering …
The extent of loving God (25-28)
The Shema actually says - love God with all your heart, soul and might - the lawyer here adds mind. The point is that our love for God should entail all that we are. Our love for God should not be limited to our time with him on Sundays or our devotional time. Our love for God should invade everything that we do. And yet, if we really think about it, this is difficult to do.
What does it mean to love God? Often we think of love as an affection.
In Greek there are four different kinds of love.
Eros - which is a romantic kind of love
Philo - which is a brotherly or friendship kind of love
Storge - which is like the love of a parent toward a child
Agape - unconditional love - this is the love that God shows to us. This is the kind of love that we are to show to God and frankly others.
It begins with love. Delight, joy, unconditional love. Loving God requires a relationship. It’s not a religious obligation or duty.
Sinclair Ferguson and J.I. Packer note in the…
New Dictionary of Theology A Unique and Distinctive Love
agape is completely unselfish. It is based neither on a felt need in the loving person nor on a desire called forth by some attractive feature(s) in the one loved; it is not afraid to make itself vulnerable, and it does not seek to get its own way by covert ruses and psychological ‘games’. It rather proceeds from a heart of love and is directed to the other person to bless him or her and to seek that person’s highest good (cf.
So how do we love God, agape, when He is perfect? How can we show him love looking out for his “highest good” when he is all good?
I think that’s where the rest of the shema from Deuteronomy helps us.
Deuteronomy 6:6–9 “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
So let’s reflect a bit on what it means to love God will all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind.
Heart and Mind
I think we can think about heart and mind together as the early Israelites would have thought about it that way. I think the lawyer here and Jesus in some other passages is addressing the distinction that his culture would have considered - a separation of heart and mind - much like our culture does today.
Mind
Did you notice how the command was to keep the words of the law on your heart? Loving God with our heart or mind begins with knowing His word. His Word helps us to understand who he is and how he works. I do think Scripture should inform how we think and how we process what’s happening around us.
I think this might also relate to our…
Passions or Affections or Desires
Are the things that we are interested in or the things that capture our attention honoring to God? Can enjoyment of those things bring pleasure to God as it does to us?
Next he gets to…
Soul
This is essentially who we are - our being. This is the core of our identity. Do we see ourselves as being made in the image of God? When God’s word is on our mind - eventually it begins to pierce into the depths of who we are. Our knowledge of God is not limited to what we know about him, but we begin to truly know him and identify with him.
Finally,
Strength or Might
In other words, this is our physical body. This is the power we have. The strength we possess. Maybe even the authority or influence that we wield. Do are we loving God with our physical bodies? Do our words, actions, interactions identify us with God?
So we are called to love God with our heart/mind, soul, and strength.
Athletic Coach or Ballet instructor - joining a team we may take some time to learn to think about the sport the way that the coach or instructor teaches. After a while, you begin to understand deeply so that you believe the philosophy of the game that the coach is touting and you actually practice it or physically do it. You stand, field, turn, run, leap, etc.
So, what begins with loving God by having is word on our minds or in our hearts, moves to a place where he dwells within us (soul) and we do things that truly honor him.
Is our love for God relegated to Sunday activities or certain times of the day?
Is our love for God seen in how we identify ourselves as his people?
Is our love for God seen in our actions?
This brings us to the second part of the Lawyer’s answer - loving our neighbor as ourselves.
In this conversation with the lawyer, Luke notes that the man was trying to justify himself. He’s trying to prove that he is good enough or loving enough. So he asks, “who is my neighbor.” If I am to love my neighbor as myself, who is included in that?
It’s in response to that question that Jesus shares the parable of the good Samaritan. In this, he helps us to understand…
The extent of loving others (29-37)
Now, I know this parable is familiar to us. It’s a fictitious story that is designed to make a point.
A man of unknown nationality or religious affiliation is making a journey alone down from Jerusalem to Jericho. While only about 17 miles, the elevation drops over 3000 feet. Many people would not want to make this journey alone. But in this story, the man is alone and encounters exactly what many people fear - robbers. They beat him, stripped him of his clothes and left him for dead. Jesus notes he was “half-dead.”
And so, by “chance” a priest walked by and passed on the other side - leaving him there. Now, a priest in their context might be similar to a pastor. Someone who would lead religious services, teach, etc.
Then a Levite passes by also. We could sort of equate a levite to a worship leader. Their primary role was to help to facilitate worship.
For both of these two men, their lives revolved around the temple or the tabernacle.
We would naturally expect that guys like these would be willing to stop in order to help someone. Now, before we give them too hard of a time, it’s quite possible that they were on their way to lead worship services, which would have required ceremonial cleanliness. So if they were to stop and help this man - they would end up being unclean - either because they had contact with his blood, or because he died. However, the temple was in Jerusalem and Jesus notes that these men were going down the road, which is away from Jerusalem. So, this ceremonial uncleanness is not a valid consideration.
So then Jesus gets to the turn in the story - a Samaritan comes along. Now Samaritans and Jews did not like each other. In fact, they avoided each other whenever possible. Their feud went back for centuries. And yet this hated Samaritan gets off of his animal, binds up his woulds, takes him to an inn and pays for his care.
In response, Jesus asks the lawyer who proved to be a neighbor - to which the man rightly replied - “the one who showed him mercy.” It’s interesting that he couldn’t even call the man a Samaritan - simply “the one.”
But let’s consider a few things that entail the man’s neighborly love. First of all, neighborly love is…
Humiliating or Humbling
This Samaritan may have been riding a horse or a donkey, he may have been walking with it - whatever the case, he had to get down in order to minister to the injured man. We can assume that he had some means, so his humiliation might have included soiling his own garments with this man’s blood. He got down and dirty with this injured man.
There will be times when we love people in need where we will need to humble ourselves. We may need to lay aside whatever dignity we may think we have deserve in order to love and serve others. Loving others as ourselves puts them on an equal footing with us - no matter what their social status, immigration status, religious affiliation, ethnicity, etc. Loving others as ourselves recognizes all humans are created in the image of God - even people in the other political party or people who are fans of that other sports team.
Loving others is humiliating and humbling. Secondly, neighborly love for others may be…
Inconvenient
The Samaritan had to pause his journey in order to meet this man’s needs. He had to take time away from his trip in order to bring healing to this man.
I can’t tell you how many times I have seen people on the side of the road and thought, maybe I should stop. By the time I’m finished vacillating about it, I’ve driven a couple of miles past the person. There have been times when I have turned around and most often people say that they are fine.
As inconvenient as it might be to show neighborly love to others, it is worth it. The Samaritan likely saved the life of this man. What kind of life can we bring to those who whom we show love?
Thirdly, neighborly love might be…
Costly
After providing some initial first aid, he puts the man on his animal and then takes him to an inn. He pays the innkeeper the equivalent of 2 days wages (2 denarii). That would have been enough to put this man up for 2 months. What a generous and costly gift!
When we show neighborly love to others, it may cost us something - finances, food, reputation, time, fuel…
Are we living with enough margin that we can be a blessing to others in need?
John C.A. Ferguson notes that “Jesus parable demonstrates humanity’s inability to self-justify. The parable teaches that for the lawyer to fulfill the law himself, he must be merciful to the person most offensive to him. He must show kindness to the one to whom he is least inclined to show it.” (p. 221)
Now, there is a catch in this. The lawyer is exactly right that this is what the law says about loving God and loving others. The problem is - we will never be able to perfectly or rightly love God with all that we are. We will never live up to God’s perfect standard of love. We will also never be able to perfectly love others the way we should. That brings us back to something that we’ve been discussing all week in Art Camp - that is the mess in which we live. The mess that is made by sin.
Joel Beeke notes: “Depravity still stains the total being of the believer, though God has given him a new inward principle of spiritual life that produces good works. The believer’s best works are mixtures of righteousness and remaining sin that defiles the motives if not the acts themselves.” He goes on to note that “Never in all [our] earthly days [have we] loved God with all [our] heart, soul and might, but this is what God’s law requires.” (p. 405)
It is discouraging and disheartening to think that no matter how hard we try, we will fail. We may get it right sometimes, but we will fail more than we’d like to. And yet, even in that there is hope - there is mercy from God. That is in…
The extent of Jesus’ love for us
Fueled by His perfect love for God with all that He is, Jesus acted like the Samaritan. He humiliated himself by exiting the glories of heaven in order to be like us, in order to relate with us - a people who are bent on hating him.
2 Corinthians 5:21 “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
He got down into the dirtiness of our sin and took it on himself. He laid down his life in exchange for ours. He gave up his perfect life so that you and I would have eternal life.
Which gets back to the lawyer’s original question - what must I DO to inherit eternal life? - The answer is - nothing - it has been DONE for you. All that you and I have to do is to repent of our sin, receive Jesus Christ as our savior and allow His Holy Spirit to transform us.
Romans 10:9–10 “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”
Acts 4:12 “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.””
If you’ve not yet trusted in Jesus as your savior or are just investigating what it means to be a Christian - let me encourage you to keep reading, learning, asking, seeking - but know that at some point you’ll have to acknowledge that the key to eternal, purpose filled life is by trusting in Jesus as your savior -repenting of your sin and receiving his forgiveness and acceptance. At that point you are declared righteous - you are his. Then as you have his word on your mind, you see yourself more and more as his and your actions, words, thoughts, begin to represent that new identity. It will be a life long journey but it will be worth it.
Closing thoughts
We should keep trying to love God with all that we are. We will fall short, but when we’ve trusted in Jesus as our savior we become a child of God and an heir of eternal life. With Jesus as our mediator, it’s as though he is standing before the father saying - He’s mine, she’s mine - yep, we still have some work to do, but he’s making progress.
Jesus gave us a perfect example and helps us grow in our ability to love.
We should keep trying to love others the way that we love ourselves. That might even include loving someone who is unlovable.
Sources:
Anyabwile, Thabiti. Exalting Jesus in Luke. Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary. Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2018.
Beeke, Joel R., Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology: Man and Christ, vol. 2. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020.
Bock, Darrell L. Luke 9:51-24:53. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999.
Edwards, William R., John C.A. Ferguson, Chad Van Dixhoorn. Theology for Ministry: How Doctrine Affects the Pastoral Life and Practice. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2022.
Ferguson, Sinclair B., and J.I. Packer. New Dictionary of Theology. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000.
Martin, John A. “Luke.” In The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, edited by J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985.
McKinley, Mike. Luke 1–12 for You. Edited by Carl Laferton. God’s Word for You. The Good Book Company, 2016.
Wilcock, Michael. The Savior of the World: The Message of Luke’s Gospel. The Bible Speaks Today. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1979.
