Who is the Good Samaritan, Really?

Few parables have generated as much controversy as the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Jesus told this story to a lawyer who was asking questions about how to inherit eternal life. In the story, a traveler from Jerusalem to Jericho is attacked by brigands and left for dead (see Luke 10:25–37). What is it about? What is Jesus saying?

Allegory or literalism?

Early church fathers such as Origen and Augustine believed the parables were allegories riddled with layers of meaning.

According to Augustine, the traveler represents Adam, the brigands are the devil and his angels, Jerusalem is heaven, and Jericho is the waxing and waning moon. The inn symbolizes the Church, the innkeeper is the apostle Paul, and the beast of burden represents the incarnation of Christ.

Phew!

Augustine and the allegorizers go too far, say some. If we can write our own meanings onto the stories, we can make them say anything we want.

And we do.

For centuries, the parables of Jesus have been used to promote legalism, liberalism, existentialism, rationalism, feminism, pietism, postmodernism, universalism, and every other kind of –ism.

The remedy to this sort of abuse, said Reformers like John Calvin and Martin Luther, is to read the parables at a surface level only. Resist the temptation to allegorize and don’t look for hidden meanings because there aren’t any.

The Good Samaritan, said Calvin, is about being kind to your neighbor. Nothing more. But if the parables have no deeper meaning, they cease to be parables, and Jesus is just another moralizing rabbi.

Surely, both viewpoints are in error. If Augustine and the allegorizers go too far, then Calvin and the literalists don’t go anywhere at all.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan, like the stories of the Prodigal Son and the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, can be read two ways, depending on whom you identify with. If you see yourself as the fallen traveler, you will read it as a parable of grace. You will say, “Thank you, Lord, for being the true Good Samaritan who rescued me.” Your takeaway will be, “Go and reveal the Good Samaritan by showing mercy to the lost and the hurting.”

But if you identify with the Good Samaritan—that is, you see yourself as an essentially good person who does good works—you will read it as a parable of law. Your takeaway will be, “Go and show mercy to everyone, even your enemies.” And you will fail, because they’re your enemies. Like the nervous lawyer looking for loopholes, you will worry that your good works are not good enough to merit eternal life.

Which they aren’t.

Eternal life is received, not earned

Well-meaning preachers urge you to “be like Jesus,” but none of us are like Jesus. We all fall short.

But the Parable of the Good Samaritan reveals that Jesus accepts us as he finds us. He heals our hurts and lifts us up. Like the fallen traveler, we don’t have to do anything except receive his mercy and grace.

If this message of receiving is hard to grasp, consider what Jesus did next. After telling the parable, he went to Bethany to visit Martha and Mary. One sister toiled while the other sat at his feet and received, and Jesus praised the latter for choosing the thing that mattered most (Luke 10:38–42).

The life Christ offers is not something to earn but a gift to receive. We will either receive it like the wounded traveler, or we won’t take it at all.

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If you liked this, you will love Paul’s new book, The Grace Bible: The Parables of Jesus. With more 1200 entries covering every verse and phrase in every parable Christ told, this easy-to-read book cuts through centuries of confusion to reveal the grace at the heart of Christ’s most powerful teachings.