The Good Samaritan Tending the Wounded ManBible World
10:36Luke 10:36
Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?
Jesus closes the Samaritan story by turning the lawyer's question back on him and asking him to judge which of the three travelers acted as neighbour to the robbed and wounded man. The right answer is the one who showed mercy, proving that being a neighbour is shown by compassionate practical help and not by office, nationality, or group. A neighbour is also every suffering person in need whose distress calls for help, without limit of race, creed, class, or enmity. The command that follows makes this mercy the test of keeping God's law of love and the condition of eternal life, to be lived out in daily deeds of relief and restoration. The merciful traveler further pictures Christ Himself rescuing ruined humanity at His own cost, calling His followers to the same self-sacrificing work.
Parable Setting and Question
The closing question comes at the end of the parable of the good Samaritan, given to answer the lawyer's questions about what to do to inherit eternal life and who is neighbour, and to expound love to God with all heart, soul, strength and mind and love to neighbour as self as the way of life. The lawyer had rightly answered that the law requires that twofold love, yet knowing he had not obeyed it he asked who is neighbour to justify himself. When pressed over how many to take in as neighbour, Christ gave the whole parable running to the close of the chapter, showing that eternal life is not found through the highest sophistry, education, or spiritualistic ideas, but in the solid foundation He Himself created by giving His own life for the life of the world. In the parable are summed up all the principles contained in the law of God, on which hang all the law and the prophets, outlining the whole duty of man, which when followed brings peace and happiness and joy into the home and the church.
The parable was told as an incident that had lately taken place and that actually happened, turned into a parable to teach who is neighbour and that neighbour must be loved as self. It was spoken as an incident many present knew, before a large and intensely interested crowd of Pharisees, Sadducees, priests, lawyers and rulers gathered hoping to catch something from His lips to trap, condemn and kill Him. The lawyer's question about eternal life was put before that watching crowd, and Christ answered by pointing to loving God and neighbour as the appointed work.
The story is of a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho who fell among thieves who stripped him, wounded him and left him half dead. The priest came down, saw him and passed by on the other side, and the Levite came, looked on him and passed by on the other side. But the Samaritan came where he was, had compassion on him, went to him, bound up his wounds pouring in oil and wine, set him on his own beast, brought him to an inn, took care of him, paid twopence to the host to continue his care, and promised to repay more on return.
Jesus put the question back to the lawyer for his own judgment, forcing him to decide which of the three, priest, Levite and Samaritan, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves. The lawyer and many present joined in answering, He that shewed mercy on him, and Jesus commanded, Go, and do thou likewise. The lawyer would not credit the Samaritan by name because of national dislike and prejudice, saying only he that showed mercy, though his national prejudice kept him from naming the Samaritan. Yet Christ had put the principles of the law of God in direct, forcible form so His hearers had neglected them yet found no chance to cavil or object, and the lawyer found nothing to criticize and his prejudice against Christ was removed. The conduct of the priest and Levite toward the wounded man agreed with the lawyer's own ideas and with what he had been taught that forms and ceremonies were all the law required, and the question exposed his failure to keep the law's demand for mercy, condemned his own practice, and exposed neglect of the law's principles by those who knew its words without doing them.
Meaning of True Neighbor
A neighbour is the one who shows mercy to someone in need, as the Samaritan did for the wounded man, and being a neighbour is defined and proved by merciful, compassionate action and practical help rather than by status, religious office, nationality or group identity. Jesus’ question forces judgment between the priest and Levite who failed to help and the Samaritan whose compassionate care made him neighbour, and the lawyer’s answer, he that shewed mercy on him, both condemns his own practice and leads to the command to go and do likewise. The Samaritan, not the priest or Levite who passed by, was neighbour because he stopped, cared for the man, treated his wounds, brought him to an inn and paid for his recovery.
A neighbour is also anyone who needs help, sympathy and practical relief, every soul wounded and bruised by the adversary, every suffering, destitute and helpless person who is God’s property and whose need calls for help, whatever his class. The question teaches that love of neighbour requires practical care across social divisions, that those entrusted with wealth, ability or grace must use them as faithful stewards rather than keep advantages for themselves, and that meeting physical need can open the heart to virtue and religion and spiritual truth. The church must not stand asking who is neighbour but must undertake the work lying nearest it, for in Christ the distinctions as to who was neighbour are swept away.
Neighbourhood has no territorial lines, no artificial distinctions, no caste, rank or aristocracy, and is not limited to church or faith, race, color, social class, friendship, kin, country or creed, but crosses hostility and enmity. It extends even to the despised, the unpleasant, the stranger and the bitterest opponent, to anyone needing Christ’s grace and patience even when uncourteous or when kindness goes unappreciated and unrepaid, and it requires recognizing the sufferer as a fellow human being and representing mercy, compassion and tenderness toward all who suffer. Love for God is shown in loving others through deeds and words in unselfish service to all.
The priest and the Levite who saw the suffering man and passed by on the other side were not neighbours, while the Samaritan of a despised, hated and cursed class whom the Pharisees cursed proved far more righteous than his denouncers. He fulfilled Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, obeyed the spirit of the commandments and the law of human kindness, manifested pity and love where they showed none, proved a heart that feels for suffering humanity and nobility of soul to show mercy to one he did not know, and received Christ’s approval for disinterested benevolence that treated the wounded stranger as he himself would desire to be treated. He is neighbour because he helps the sufferer without questioning whether he is relative or of the same country or creed, but goes to work because work needs to be done, relieving him as best he can, putting him on his own beast, carrying him to an inn and providing for his wants at his own expense, while the priest and Levite represent indifference to those needing sympathy and help and failure to represent Christ through refusal of kindness and encouragement to people in trouble. The exposure of the cruelty and selfishness of the nation’s representatives in setting this Samaritan before them as true neighbour shows unselfish love to neighbour as one of the two great principles of the law, supreme love to God and unselfish love to neighbour, from which the first four commandments and the last six grow.
The man who fell among thieves was a stranger yet a neighbour and a brother in suffering, a Jew who should have awakened the sympathy of his own nation, and his helpless, wounded, dying condition should have moved the priest and Levite to pity even more than a beast of burden would. Though they had read the law commanding love to the stranger they had not brought it into practical life, though professing the law of God as guide they should have been first to minister with tender compassion to their suffering brother. He represents all who claim interest, sympathy and charity when brought under notice, the wounded, robbed, needy and unfortunate no matter who they are and whether they are kith or kin.
The question turns attention away from arguing who qualifies as neighbour toward acting compassionately and doing the neighbourly thing. The less important dispute over definition must give way to doing the work of righteousness placed before us, to recognizing merciful action and acting likewise in keeping with the principles of God’s law through practical help to those in distress.
Christ Pictured in Samaritan
The Samaritan is Christ Himself, and the story is a picture of His mission. The man who fell among thieves is humanity, deceived, bruised, robbed and ruined by Satan and left to perish, helpless and ready to die. Christ had compassion on helpless human need, left His glory to come to the rescue, undertook the case, found men ready to die, healed their wounds, covered them with His righteousness, opened a refuge of safety, made complete provision for their needs at His own charges, and died to redeem them. The wounded and destitute man represents the sinner and the lost human family, and the Samaritan's mercy presents Christ's love and character.
His pity for helpless suffering, careful dressing of wounds, carrying on his own beast, sheltering at the inn, and paying the cost represent the pity and compassion and self-sacrificing Spirit of Christ who left the royal courts and gave His life to save souls perishing in sin. He humbled Himself to serve, took humanity so He could reach humanity, and became poor for our sake. The priest and Levite who saw the need they could meet and passed by on the other side stand in contrast as neglect, false reasoning, indifference, and refusal to be inconvenienced by those who should have been first to help, and all heaven looked upon the scene as a contrast between Christ's compassion and their neglect.
Seeing Christ's Spirit and work as the neighbor exposes the life and work of believers in the light reflected from Him, showing how far short they come of keeping the commandments of God and of loving their neighbors as themselves. His example calls His followers to love one another as He loved them. The lesson calls for doing, not merely speaking, for the Samaritan obeyed a loving heart and thereby proved himself a doer of the law. The question rebukes indifference and reproves all who profess His name yet refuse self-denying labor together with God.
The commendation of the good Samaritan taught the disciples that Christ's love toward Samaritans remained unchanged despite their rejection of Him, preparing them to bring the gospel to them and receive them as fellow believers. The wounded man also figures the straying, backslidden soul caught in Satan's snare, spiritually ready to perish and spiritually dead. He figures as well those for the time fallen under Satan's temptations through liquor drinking, tobacco using, and fiery stimulants, who are ruining themselves and their wives and children, who are for the time under a demon's power and not sane, who curse themselves and will go over the same ground again without help.
To be neighbor is to refuse to pass such poor helpless beings by on the other side as too weak in moral power and a loss of time, but to do Christ's work to rescue them. It is to seek out wounded people struggling with temptation and help lead them to Him, rather than passing them by. It is to search for them with earnest, persevering, personal effort wherever they are and in whatever position of trust, to consult with others to awaken interest, to pray over the parable and make it a living reality, and to restore them with soft, tender, broken hearts and human sympathy made sacred and holy by cooperation with the divine, stirring others to well directed and wise efforts. It is to support the weak, speak words that encourage faith, strengthen every good trait, show friendship without blame when sober, arouse the sense that it is not too late to be men, and strive with all power because Christ died and paid a heavy ransom for that soul, so that one soul rescued is a soul saved from Satan's grasp.
Law Obedience and Life
In this closing question are summed up all the principles contained in God's law, supreme love to the Lord God with all heart and soul and strength and mind and unselfish love to neighbor as self, on which hang all the law and the prophets. That whole duty of man is comprised in keeping the first four commandments toward God and the last six toward man, where supreme love to God sanctifies the affections and bears fruit in love to mankind. When that love is followed it brings peace and happiness and joy into the home and the church. Those tested and proved in loving others as themselves will be pronounced meet for an inheritance with the saints in light as pure and undefiled people who will not exalt self or rebel over another's brighter crown. Love for God and impartial love for other people are the principles running through the whole law.
The law is a unity in which keeping one precept while breaking another is not obedience, and human destiny is determined by obedience to the whole law. Neglecting mercy to the wounded and robbed and needy and unfortunate who are brought under notice breaks the second great commandment on which the last six commandments depend, and to offend in that one point is to be guilty of all. Whoever will not open the heart to the wants and sufferings of humanity will not open the heart to the claims of God stated in the first four precepts, but lets idols claim the heart and affections so that God is not honored and does not reign supreme.
Showing the same tender kindness and regard to those in need is the evidence of keeping the whole law. Genuine loyalty is proved by compassionate practical benevolence, not by profession or outward observance or insistence on the letter, and the question exposes neglect of the law's principles while presenting them in direct forcible form that leaves no room to cavil or object. The priest and the Levite professed the law of God as their guide yet should have been first to minister with tender compassion to their suffering brother and instead passed by on the other side, while the Samaritan whom opposers cursed and of whom they would say nothing good proved far more righteous than his denouncers and so fulfilled Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. True religion is expressed in loving deeds that bring others the greatest good and in genuine goodness, not merely in systems and creeds and rites. The Samaritan obeyed a loving heart and thereby proved himself a doer of the law, and the lesson calls for doing and not merely speaking and for following that example in practical care for others.
The conduct of the priest and Levite toward the wounded man agreed with the idea that forms and ceremonies were all the law required, set against the Samaritan who came where he was and had compassion and bound wounds with oil and wine and carried and cared and paid and promised more. The law's command to love neighbor must be practiced through impartial compassion and help, not merely understood or accompanied by religious ceremonies, and knowing its words without doing them leaves a person a lawbreaker and exposes failure to keep its demand for mercy. Loving one's neighbor as oneself is a binding demand of God's law and part of true religion, not merely outward show or ceremony.
Keeping the law thus described by going and doing likewise is the plain condition of living and inheriting eternal life. The parable sums up the principles of the law which are bound to the way of eternal life, and violating justice and mercy in word or action is sin. To act as the true neighbor who showed mercy is to keep the law of loving God with all heart and soul and strength and neighbor as self, the doing that gives entrance into the kingdom of heaven. Sowing the gospel and practically doing the truth in such merciful help as gospel ministry practically acted binds church members and all others alike and decides the salvation of the soul and eternal life. Eternal life is not found through reaching for the highest sophistry or the highest education or spiritualistic ideas, but in the solid foundation of giving life for the life of the world.
Neglecting known duty in meeting the claim of all who are wounded and bruised and claim interest and sympathy and charity leaves no assurance of eternal life because the claims of God are left unanswered, violates the commandments, and can result in loss of eternal life, and failing to improve great light brings condemnation. Sinful people can obey this standard only through the merit and grace of Jesus, who gives His righteousness to cover the soul, and those who believe in Him receive everlasting life. Love for God is shown in loving others through deeds and words toward anyone needing grace and patience, even one uncourteous or unpleasant whose kindness may go unappreciated or unrepaid, and no one must regard self as superior or treat others with contempt or indifference.
The passage presents the difference between obedience and disobedience to the law for transgressors, applied to temperance against intemperance including drink and tobacco and perverted appetite that enslaves men, set against the world before the Flood and before the destruction of Sodom and against the sacrilegious feast of Belshazzar. It measures the value of the human soul in the light of the cross of Calvary and warns that disobedience is weighed in the balances and found wanting. It presses every hearer as deciding eternal destiny with souls to save or to lose, urging waste of no more moments but flight to refuge and making Christ strength and safety and protection from the enemy and laying hold on eternal life so as not to be compelled to sin.
Love for neighbor alongside wholehearted love for God is a binding part of the terms of salvation that cannot be divided or treated lightly, and failure to care for others including spiritually or financially harming fellow believers dishonors God. Property is a loaned talent to be managed with sound judgment, kept subordinate to eternal interests, and used to advance God's glory, for loving God supremely includes loving neighbor and using what is entrusted wisely.
Go and Do Likewise
The command to go and do likewise makes mercy a practical daily duty for church members and for all others, calling for treating anyone needing help that can be given as neighbor even when helping is inconvenient or costly, and for restoring and encouraging those fallen into difficulty. Being neighbor is proved by acting mercifully toward someone in need as the Samaritan cared for the wounded man, while the priest and Levite failed by passing by, and attention is turned away from defining who qualifies toward compassionate action. That lesson belongs in daily practice, especially in medical missionary work, through personal, patient and sometimes self-sacrificing effort offered where people are and in the spirit of Christ. Seeing a neighbor in need and passing by on the other side is failure to do a plain duty which caution does not excuse, and obedience means being quick to notice and relieve suffering whatever the needy person's religious beliefs.
Being neighbor means seeing and feeling another's suffering with a heart made tender by the Holy Spirit, sensitive to pain and accepting responsibility to minister rather than avoiding duty by passing by the wounded and helpless. Such compassion evidences the Spirit's control and Christ dwelling within, shown in mercy to the destitute, suffering, wounded and dying and in seeking to restore humanity. Knowing that Satan has his trap set for a soul and then going home caring not for the lost sheep is refusing to be neighbor, leaving those who need the power of the divine Healer uncared for and unnoticed. Those who manifest such a spirit partake not of the divine nature but of the attributes of the enemy, in contrast to humble, contrite, tender ministry in cooperation with angels under the working of the Holy Spirit upon mind and heart.
God's people are required to reveal His character to suffering humanity and to represent Christ as Christ represented the Father, as the Samaritan went to the sufferer, bound up wounds pouring in oil and wine, brought him to an inn and took care of him while priest and Levite passed by on the other side. Ministering to the poor and distressed, respecting their rights and meeting their needs, cannot be neglected or justified away as an obstacle to a supposedly great work for Christ. Those who so minister have the companionship of heavenly angels and the cooperation of Christ the Restorer, and in that ministry the power of the Lord is magnified.
The man who fell among thieves stands for the Southern field, robbed and beaten and left by the roadside to die, while priest and Levite stand for those who feel pity yet pass by on the other side. Passing by means leaving the colored race in the South to perish by the wayside, neglected since emancipation by those professing to know God so that thousands fail to gain spiritual freedom. Being neighbor means refusing continued indifference and making decided efforts to save them, seeing need, having compassion, binding up wounds, carrying and caring for them, and leading those in darkness into light as Christ bridged the gulf transgression made. The right answer, he that showed mercy, requires doing much more evangelistic work in the South, putting a thousand workers where there is now one, using means rightly instead of neglecting known duty, and helping free the oppressed from spiritual as well as physical bondage through united practical missionary work.
The neighbor is the destitute Southern field, black and white people in great ignorance and human wretchedness, and in particular the work at Nashville and sister institutions that lack buildings and means to get upon a working foundation. To be neighbor is to see that existing need and relieve it with a proportion of the Lord's goods, sending larger gifts, helping create and finish the neighboring enterprise and not resting until it is in running order. It means sustaining destitute necessities like the Huntsville school by redeeming past neglect, arousing others to duty, and giving liberal unselfish help from stronger conferences with the promise of blessing, and answering which nearby cities and people still lack light by putting every power of body and mind to work. To fail is to be like priest and Levite, having every advantage yet locking up sympathy, studying how to invest thousands for self in unjust proportions, binding about supposed necessities while staying investment only in extra buildings, presses, facilities and conveniences for already large overgrown established institutions. That course is supreme selfishness with money that belongs to God, drying up the soul until selfishness grows as a giant and the heart becomes granite, bringing God's displeasure and dishonor.
Passing by pictures churches and ministers who see great necessity yet touch the Southern field only with the tips of the fingers when not one hundredth part of the needed work has been done. It means keeping silent instead of presenting clearly the needs of the long-neglected field, leaving cities unentered and barren, and using resources for greater comfort, convenience and display rather than for the benefit of the poor, beaten down, oppressed and neglected. Such indifference and cruel neglect of colored people living in ignorance of the message right within the shadow of doors shares the reproach resting on all who so pass by. That neglect is cruel and wicked, supreme selfishness that dries the soul, and calls for taking up responsibility with both practical and spiritual help and labor proportioned to circumstances.
Being neighbor means gathering in the needy, the oppressed, the suffering and the destitute, feeding the hungry, bringing the poor that are cast out into homes, reaching to the very depths of human misery, and helping those who cannot possibly help themselves. It includes finding work for the needy so he can support his family rather than leaving him to beg, sheltering disaster victims free of cost, and lifting the fallen with peace to aching hearts. Meeting immediate physical needs as far as possible opens the way to reach the heart with virtue and religion and gives favorable opportunity to set forth Christ the crucified One. This is the very work every church believing present truth should long since have been doing, requiring grace and strength gathered from God every day, first meeting temporal need then connecting sufferers with care.
Sanitariums are to do the Samaritan's work by giving suffering people a place of help with personal sympathy, welcoming and relieving them and not merely performing services without compassion. Physicians are to act vigorously to relieve suffering like the good Samaritan, giving the afflicted the safest, most comfortable care and best available comfort even at personal or organizational expense. Loving a brother as oneself means charging fairly and honestly for medical services, without excessive fees or large charges for services never given, since diseased bodies are God's property. Caring for Christ's disciple in this way is caring for Jesus, representing the Great Physician while resisting satanic agencies.
The lesson reaches brethren, the sick, the crippled and afflicted, the struggling poor, the discouraged and oppressed of another race, the intemperate, and helpless individuals like Brother Leininger and Edson. It means brethren feeling interested for one another, those blessed with health having kind regard and care for those without health and favoring them, pitying and sympathizing with a crippled brother, supplying his lack and comforting, cheering and strengthening his heart with even a little aid, doing as one would wish to be done by. It means showing tender love to discouraged and oppressed people and helping them find a way forward, and meeting the intemperate with physical help and uplifting influence rather than leaving them without aid. True neighbors seek the lost with self-denying love, restore the wounded and pour oil into wounds, making decided personal persevering effort with prayer and cooperation rather than prescribing impossible conditions, disheartening and discouraging, or pouring vitriol into wounds.
Neighbor love must become whole-being service with heart, mind, soul and strength, not confined to believers but becoming labor for unbelievers, becoming acquainted with them, seeking precious souls living up to all the light they have, placing truth before them and bringing them through the open door into fellowship. Benevolence must not be driven merely by impulse or personal preference but guided by careful judgment about how to show mercy, using entrusted resources to relieve temporal and spiritual distress without narrow or self-directed principles. Those who can help the perishing should humbly work to save them rather than turn away to their own way. The full meaning of who is neighbor is learned through a life of such service, consummated in joyful companionship in heaven.
This love lifts above prejudice of color or caste into a pure heavenly unselfish atmosphere, loving as Christ loved with hearts filled with faith that takes hold of eternal realities, works by love and purifies the soul. That love uplifts the divine Author of truth and brings triumph of humanity over prejudice in seeking the salvation of souls.
To see need and pass by on the other side and leave one to die is cruel and wicked and deserves righteous indignation, hot and intense as the grief and love of parents whose child might have lived if men had been more neighborly. To see souls in peril ready to die and say nothing and do nothing, giving all attention to the ninety and nine within the fold while lost souls around are unwarned, is to fail as neighbor, for every man's sufferings are the sufferings of God's child. Passing by fellow beings without pity or help provokes God's grievous anger, while being faithful to fellow men and loving the world as God loves it pleases God.
Jesus closes the Samaritan story by turning the lawyer's question back on him and asking him to judge which of the three travelers acted as neighbour to the robbed and wounded man. The right answer is the one who showed mercy, proving that being a neighbour is shown by compassionate practical help and not by office, nationality, or group. A neighbour is also every suffering person in need whose distress calls for help, without limit of race, creed, class, or enmity. The command that follows makes this mercy the test of keeping God's law of love and the condition of eternal life, to be lived out in daily deeds of relief and restoration. The merciful traveler further pictures Christ Himself rescuing ruined humanity at His own cost, calling His followers to the same self-sacrificing work.
Parable Setting and Question
The closing question comes at the end of the parable of the good Samaritan, given to answer the lawyer's questions about what to do to inherit eternal life and who is neighbour, and to expound love to God with all heart, soul, strength and mind and love to neighbour as self as the way of life. The lawyer had rightly answered that the law requires that twofold love, yet knowing he had not obeyed it he asked who is neighbour to justify himself. When pressed over how many to take in as neighbour, Christ gave the whole parable running to the close of the chapter, showing that eternal life is not found through the highest sophistry, education, or spiritualistic ideas, but in the solid foundation He Himself created by giving His own life for the life of the world. In the parable are summed up all the principles contained in the law of God, on which hang all the law and the prophets, outlining the whole duty of man, which when followed brings peace and happiness and joy into the home and the church.
The parable was told as an incident that had lately taken place and that actually happened, turned into a parable to teach who is neighbour and that neighbour must be loved as self. It was spoken as an incident many present knew, before a large and intensely interested crowd of Pharisees, Sadducees, priests, lawyers and rulers gathered hoping to catch something from His lips to trap, condemn and kill Him. The lawyer's question about eternal life was put before that watching crowd, and Christ answered by pointing to loving God and neighbour as the appointed work.
The story is of a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho who fell among thieves who stripped him, wounded him and left him half dead. The priest came down, saw him and passed by on the other side, and the Levite came, looked on him and passed by on the other side. But the Samaritan came where he was, had compassion on him, went to him, bound up his wounds pouring in oil and wine, set him on his own beast, brought him to an inn, took care of him, paid twopence to the host to continue his care, and promised to repay more on return.
Jesus put the question back to the lawyer for his own judgment, forcing him to decide which of the three, priest, Levite and Samaritan, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves. The lawyer and many present joined in answering, He that shewed mercy on him, and Jesus commanded, Go, and do thou likewise. The lawyer would not credit the Samaritan by name because of national dislike and prejudice, saying only he that showed mercy, though his national prejudice kept him from naming the Samaritan. Yet Christ had put the principles of the law of God in direct, forcible form so His hearers had neglected them yet found no chance to cavil or object, and the lawyer found nothing to criticize and his prejudice against Christ was removed. The conduct of the priest and Levite toward the wounded man agreed with the lawyer's own ideas and with what he had been taught that forms and ceremonies were all the law required, and the question exposed his failure to keep the law's demand for mercy, condemned his own practice, and exposed neglect of the law's principles by those who knew its words without doing them.
Meaning of True Neighbor
A neighbour is the one who shows mercy to someone in need, as the Samaritan did for the wounded man, and being a neighbour is defined and proved by merciful, compassionate action and practical help rather than by status, religious office, nationality or group identity. Jesus’ question forces judgment between the priest and Levite who failed to help and the Samaritan whose compassionate care made him neighbour, and the lawyer’s answer, he that shewed mercy on him, both condemns his own practice and leads to the command to go and do likewise. The Samaritan, not the priest or Levite who passed by, was neighbour because he stopped, cared for the man, treated his wounds, brought him to an inn and paid for his recovery.
A neighbour is also anyone who needs help, sympathy and practical relief, every soul wounded and bruised by the adversary, every suffering, destitute and helpless person who is God’s property and whose need calls for help, whatever his class. The question teaches that love of neighbour requires practical care across social divisions, that those entrusted with wealth, ability or grace must use them as faithful stewards rather than keep advantages for themselves, and that meeting physical need can open the heart to virtue and religion and spiritual truth. The church must not stand asking who is neighbour but must undertake the work lying nearest it, for in Christ the distinctions as to who was neighbour are swept away.
Neighbourhood has no territorial lines, no artificial distinctions, no caste, rank or aristocracy, and is not limited to church or faith, race, color, social class, friendship, kin, country or creed, but crosses hostility and enmity. It extends even to the despised, the unpleasant, the stranger and the bitterest opponent, to anyone needing Christ’s grace and patience even when uncourteous or when kindness goes unappreciated and unrepaid, and it requires recognizing the sufferer as a fellow human being and representing mercy, compassion and tenderness toward all who suffer. Love for God is shown in loving others through deeds and words in unselfish service to all.
The priest and the Levite who saw the suffering man and passed by on the other side were not neighbours, while the Samaritan of a despised, hated and cursed class whom the Pharisees cursed proved far more righteous than his denouncers. He fulfilled Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, obeyed the spirit of the commandments and the law of human kindness, manifested pity and love where they showed none, proved a heart that feels for suffering humanity and nobility of soul to show mercy to one he did not know, and received Christ’s approval for disinterested benevolence that treated the wounded stranger as he himself would desire to be treated. He is neighbour because he helps the sufferer without questioning whether he is relative or of the same country or creed, but goes to work because work needs to be done, relieving him as best he can, putting him on his own beast, carrying him to an inn and providing for his wants at his own expense, while the priest and Levite represent indifference to those needing sympathy and help and failure to represent Christ through refusal of kindness and encouragement to people in trouble. The exposure of the cruelty and selfishness of the nation’s representatives in setting this Samaritan before them as true neighbour shows unselfish love to neighbour as one of the two great principles of the law, supreme love to God and unselfish love to neighbour, from which the first four commandments and the last six grow.
The man who fell among thieves was a stranger yet a neighbour and a brother in suffering, a Jew who should have awakened the sympathy of his own nation, and his helpless, wounded, dying condition should have moved the priest and Levite to pity even more than a beast of burden would. Though they had read the law commanding love to the stranger they had not brought it into practical life, though professing the law of God as guide they should have been first to minister with tender compassion to their suffering brother. He represents all who claim interest, sympathy and charity when brought under notice, the wounded, robbed, needy and unfortunate no matter who they are and whether they are kith or kin.
The question turns attention away from arguing who qualifies as neighbour toward acting compassionately and doing the neighbourly thing. The less important dispute over definition must give way to doing the work of righteousness placed before us, to recognizing merciful action and acting likewise in keeping with the principles of God’s law through practical help to those in distress.
Christ Pictured in Samaritan
The Samaritan is Christ Himself, and the story is a picture of His mission. The man who fell among thieves is humanity, deceived, bruised, robbed and ruined by Satan and left to perish, helpless and ready to die. Christ had compassion on helpless human need, left His glory to come to the rescue, undertook the case, found men ready to die, healed their wounds, covered them with His righteousness, opened a refuge of safety, made complete provision for their needs at His own charges, and died to redeem them. The wounded and destitute man represents the sinner and the lost human family, and the Samaritan's mercy presents Christ's love and character.
His pity for helpless suffering, careful dressing of wounds, carrying on his own beast, sheltering at the inn, and paying the cost represent the pity and compassion and self-sacrificing Spirit of Christ who left the royal courts and gave His life to save souls perishing in sin. He humbled Himself to serve, took humanity so He could reach humanity, and became poor for our sake. The priest and Levite who saw the need they could meet and passed by on the other side stand in contrast as neglect, false reasoning, indifference, and refusal to be inconvenienced by those who should have been first to help, and all heaven looked upon the scene as a contrast between Christ's compassion and their neglect.
Seeing Christ's Spirit and work as the neighbor exposes the life and work of believers in the light reflected from Him, showing how far short they come of keeping the commandments of God and of loving their neighbors as themselves. His example calls His followers to love one another as He loved them. The lesson calls for doing, not merely speaking, for the Samaritan obeyed a loving heart and thereby proved himself a doer of the law. The question rebukes indifference and reproves all who profess His name yet refuse self-denying labor together with God.
The commendation of the good Samaritan taught the disciples that Christ's love toward Samaritans remained unchanged despite their rejection of Him, preparing them to bring the gospel to them and receive them as fellow believers. The wounded man also figures the straying, backslidden soul caught in Satan's snare, spiritually ready to perish and spiritually dead. He figures as well those for the time fallen under Satan's temptations through liquor drinking, tobacco using, and fiery stimulants, who are ruining themselves and their wives and children, who are for the time under a demon's power and not sane, who curse themselves and will go over the same ground again without help.
To be neighbor is to refuse to pass such poor helpless beings by on the other side as too weak in moral power and a loss of time, but to do Christ's work to rescue them. It is to seek out wounded people struggling with temptation and help lead them to Him, rather than passing them by. It is to search for them with earnest, persevering, personal effort wherever they are and in whatever position of trust, to consult with others to awaken interest, to pray over the parable and make it a living reality, and to restore them with soft, tender, broken hearts and human sympathy made sacred and holy by cooperation with the divine, stirring others to well directed and wise efforts. It is to support the weak, speak words that encourage faith, strengthen every good trait, show friendship without blame when sober, arouse the sense that it is not too late to be men, and strive with all power because Christ died and paid a heavy ransom for that soul, so that one soul rescued is a soul saved from Satan's grasp.
Law Obedience and Life
In this closing question are summed up all the principles contained in God's law, supreme love to the Lord God with all heart and soul and strength and mind and unselfish love to neighbor as self, on which hang all the law and the prophets. That whole duty of man is comprised in keeping the first four commandments toward God and the last six toward man, where supreme love to God sanctifies the affections and bears fruit in love to mankind. When that love is followed it brings peace and happiness and joy into the home and the church. Those tested and proved in loving others as themselves will be pronounced meet for an inheritance with the saints in light as pure and undefiled people who will not exalt self or rebel over another's brighter crown. Love for God and impartial love for other people are the principles running through the whole law.
The law is a unity in which keeping one precept while breaking another is not obedience, and human destiny is determined by obedience to the whole law. Neglecting mercy to the wounded and robbed and needy and unfortunate who are brought under notice breaks the second great commandment on which the last six commandments depend, and to offend in that one point is to be guilty of all. Whoever will not open the heart to the wants and sufferings of humanity will not open the heart to the claims of God stated in the first four precepts, but lets idols claim the heart and affections so that God is not honored and does not reign supreme.
Showing the same tender kindness and regard to those in need is the evidence of keeping the whole law. Genuine loyalty is proved by compassionate practical benevolence, not by profession or outward observance or insistence on the letter, and the question exposes neglect of the law's principles while presenting them in direct forcible form that leaves no room to cavil or object. The priest and the Levite professed the law of God as their guide yet should have been first to minister with tender compassion to their suffering brother and instead passed by on the other side, while the Samaritan whom opposers cursed and of whom they would say nothing good proved far more righteous than his denouncers and so fulfilled Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. True religion is expressed in loving deeds that bring others the greatest good and in genuine goodness, not merely in systems and creeds and rites. The Samaritan obeyed a loving heart and thereby proved himself a doer of the law, and the lesson calls for doing and not merely speaking and for following that example in practical care for others.
The conduct of the priest and Levite toward the wounded man agreed with the idea that forms and ceremonies were all the law required, set against the Samaritan who came where he was and had compassion and bound wounds with oil and wine and carried and cared and paid and promised more. The law's command to love neighbor must be practiced through impartial compassion and help, not merely understood or accompanied by religious ceremonies, and knowing its words without doing them leaves a person a lawbreaker and exposes failure to keep its demand for mercy. Loving one's neighbor as oneself is a binding demand of God's law and part of true religion, not merely outward show or ceremony.
Keeping the law thus described by going and doing likewise is the plain condition of living and inheriting eternal life. The parable sums up the principles of the law which are bound to the way of eternal life, and violating justice and mercy in word or action is sin. To act as the true neighbor who showed mercy is to keep the law of loving God with all heart and soul and strength and neighbor as self, the doing that gives entrance into the kingdom of heaven. Sowing the gospel and practically doing the truth in such merciful help as gospel ministry practically acted binds church members and all others alike and decides the salvation of the soul and eternal life. Eternal life is not found through reaching for the highest sophistry or the highest education or spiritualistic ideas, but in the solid foundation of giving life for the life of the world.
Neglecting known duty in meeting the claim of all who are wounded and bruised and claim interest and sympathy and charity leaves no assurance of eternal life because the claims of God are left unanswered, violates the commandments, and can result in loss of eternal life, and failing to improve great light brings condemnation. Sinful people can obey this standard only through the merit and grace of Jesus, who gives His righteousness to cover the soul, and those who believe in Him receive everlasting life. Love for God is shown in loving others through deeds and words toward anyone needing grace and patience, even one uncourteous or unpleasant whose kindness may go unappreciated or unrepaid, and no one must regard self as superior or treat others with contempt or indifference.
The passage presents the difference between obedience and disobedience to the law for transgressors, applied to temperance against intemperance including drink and tobacco and perverted appetite that enslaves men, set against the world before the Flood and before the destruction of Sodom and against the sacrilegious feast of Belshazzar. It measures the value of the human soul in the light of the cross of Calvary and warns that disobedience is weighed in the balances and found wanting. It presses every hearer as deciding eternal destiny with souls to save or to lose, urging waste of no more moments but flight to refuge and making Christ strength and safety and protection from the enemy and laying hold on eternal life so as not to be compelled to sin.
Love for neighbor alongside wholehearted love for God is a binding part of the terms of salvation that cannot be divided or treated lightly, and failure to care for others including spiritually or financially harming fellow believers dishonors God. Property is a loaned talent to be managed with sound judgment, kept subordinate to eternal interests, and used to advance God's glory, for loving God supremely includes loving neighbor and using what is entrusted wisely.
Go and Do Likewise
The command to go and do likewise makes mercy a practical daily duty for church members and for all others, calling for treating anyone needing help that can be given as neighbor even when helping is inconvenient or costly, and for restoring and encouraging those fallen into difficulty. Being neighbor is proved by acting mercifully toward someone in need as the Samaritan cared for the wounded man, while the priest and Levite failed by passing by, and attention is turned away from defining who qualifies toward compassionate action. That lesson belongs in daily practice, especially in medical missionary work, through personal, patient and sometimes self-sacrificing effort offered where people are and in the spirit of Christ. Seeing a neighbor in need and passing by on the other side is failure to do a plain duty which caution does not excuse, and obedience means being quick to notice and relieve suffering whatever the needy person's religious beliefs.
Being neighbor means seeing and feeling another's suffering with a heart made tender by the Holy Spirit, sensitive to pain and accepting responsibility to minister rather than avoiding duty by passing by the wounded and helpless. Such compassion evidences the Spirit's control and Christ dwelling within, shown in mercy to the destitute, suffering, wounded and dying and in seeking to restore humanity. Knowing that Satan has his trap set for a soul and then going home caring not for the lost sheep is refusing to be neighbor, leaving those who need the power of the divine Healer uncared for and unnoticed. Those who manifest such a spirit partake not of the divine nature but of the attributes of the enemy, in contrast to humble, contrite, tender ministry in cooperation with angels under the working of the Holy Spirit upon mind and heart.
God's people are required to reveal His character to suffering humanity and to represent Christ as Christ represented the Father, as the Samaritan went to the sufferer, bound up wounds pouring in oil and wine, brought him to an inn and took care of him while priest and Levite passed by on the other side. Ministering to the poor and distressed, respecting their rights and meeting their needs, cannot be neglected or justified away as an obstacle to a supposedly great work for Christ. Those who so minister have the companionship of heavenly angels and the cooperation of Christ the Restorer, and in that ministry the power of the Lord is magnified.
The man who fell among thieves stands for the Southern field, robbed and beaten and left by the roadside to die, while priest and Levite stand for those who feel pity yet pass by on the other side. Passing by means leaving the colored race in the South to perish by the wayside, neglected since emancipation by those professing to know God so that thousands fail to gain spiritual freedom. Being neighbor means refusing continued indifference and making decided efforts to save them, seeing need, having compassion, binding up wounds, carrying and caring for them, and leading those in darkness into light as Christ bridged the gulf transgression made. The right answer, he that showed mercy, requires doing much more evangelistic work in the South, putting a thousand workers where there is now one, using means rightly instead of neglecting known duty, and helping free the oppressed from spiritual as well as physical bondage through united practical missionary work.
The neighbor is the destitute Southern field, black and white people in great ignorance and human wretchedness, and in particular the work at Nashville and sister institutions that lack buildings and means to get upon a working foundation. To be neighbor is to see that existing need and relieve it with a proportion of the Lord's goods, sending larger gifts, helping create and finish the neighboring enterprise and not resting until it is in running order. It means sustaining destitute necessities like the Huntsville school by redeeming past neglect, arousing others to duty, and giving liberal unselfish help from stronger conferences with the promise of blessing, and answering which nearby cities and people still lack light by putting every power of body and mind to work. To fail is to be like priest and Levite, having every advantage yet locking up sympathy, studying how to invest thousands for self in unjust proportions, binding about supposed necessities while staying investment only in extra buildings, presses, facilities and conveniences for already large overgrown established institutions. That course is supreme selfishness with money that belongs to God, drying up the soul until selfishness grows as a giant and the heart becomes granite, bringing God's displeasure and dishonor.
Passing by pictures churches and ministers who see great necessity yet touch the Southern field only with the tips of the fingers when not one hundredth part of the needed work has been done. It means keeping silent instead of presenting clearly the needs of the long-neglected field, leaving cities unentered and barren, and using resources for greater comfort, convenience and display rather than for the benefit of the poor, beaten down, oppressed and neglected. Such indifference and cruel neglect of colored people living in ignorance of the message right within the shadow of doors shares the reproach resting on all who so pass by. That neglect is cruel and wicked, supreme selfishness that dries the soul, and calls for taking up responsibility with both practical and spiritual help and labor proportioned to circumstances.
Being neighbor means gathering in the needy, the oppressed, the suffering and the destitute, feeding the hungry, bringing the poor that are cast out into homes, reaching to the very depths of human misery, and helping those who cannot possibly help themselves. It includes finding work for the needy so he can support his family rather than leaving him to beg, sheltering disaster victims free of cost, and lifting the fallen with peace to aching hearts. Meeting immediate physical needs as far as possible opens the way to reach the heart with virtue and religion and gives favorable opportunity to set forth Christ the crucified One. This is the very work every church believing present truth should long since have been doing, requiring grace and strength gathered from God every day, first meeting temporal need then connecting sufferers with care.
Sanitariums are to do the Samaritan's work by giving suffering people a place of help with personal sympathy, welcoming and relieving them and not merely performing services without compassion. Physicians are to act vigorously to relieve suffering like the good Samaritan, giving the afflicted the safest, most comfortable care and best available comfort even at personal or organizational expense. Loving a brother as oneself means charging fairly and honestly for medical services, without excessive fees or large charges for services never given, since diseased bodies are God's property. Caring for Christ's disciple in this way is caring for Jesus, representing the Great Physician while resisting satanic agencies.
The lesson reaches brethren, the sick, the crippled and afflicted, the struggling poor, the discouraged and oppressed of another race, the intemperate, and helpless individuals like Brother Leininger and Edson. It means brethren feeling interested for one another, those blessed with health having kind regard and care for those without health and favoring them, pitying and sympathizing with a crippled brother, supplying his lack and comforting, cheering and strengthening his heart with even a little aid, doing as one would wish to be done by. It means showing tender love to discouraged and oppressed people and helping them find a way forward, and meeting the intemperate with physical help and uplifting influence rather than leaving them without aid. True neighbors seek the lost with self-denying love, restore the wounded and pour oil into wounds, making decided personal persevering effort with prayer and cooperation rather than prescribing impossible conditions, disheartening and discouraging, or pouring vitriol into wounds.
Neighbor love must become whole-being service with heart, mind, soul and strength, not confined to believers but becoming labor for unbelievers, becoming acquainted with them, seeking precious souls living up to all the light they have, placing truth before them and bringing them through the open door into fellowship. Benevolence must not be driven merely by impulse or personal preference but guided by careful judgment about how to show mercy, using entrusted resources to relieve temporal and spiritual distress without narrow or self-directed principles. Those who can help the perishing should humbly work to save them rather than turn away to their own way. The full meaning of who is neighbor is learned through a life of such service, consummated in joyful companionship in heaven.
This love lifts above prejudice of color or caste into a pure heavenly unselfish atmosphere, loving as Christ loved with hearts filled with faith that takes hold of eternal realities, works by love and purifies the soul. That love uplifts the divine Author of truth and brings triumph of humanity over prejudice in seeking the salvation of souls.
To see need and pass by on the other side and leave one to die is cruel and wicked and deserves righteous indignation, hot and intense as the grief and love of parents whose child might have lived if men had been more neighborly. To see souls in peril ready to die and say nothing and do nothing, giving all attention to the ninety and nine within the fold while lost souls around are unwarned, is to fail as neighbor, for every man's sufferings are the sufferings of God's child. Passing by fellow beings without pity or help provokes God's grievous anger, while being faithful to fellow men and loving the world as God loves it pleases God.