Study Guide
How to Be a Neighbor
The Gospel of Luke
Vol. 5 (Luke 10-12)
Luke 10:25-37
The Text
And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
Introduction:
In Luke 10, we’re learning what it means to be a disciple. The first part of chapter ten says disciples are messengers; sent out to proclaim the gospel to everyone! At the end of chapter ten, Jesus explains that disciples are also neighbors.
The two go together: Christians care for spiritual needs through gospel announcing and we care for material needs through good neighboring.
So, how can you be a good neighbor? This passage teaches us:
- The Expectation of Neighborliness – it’s not optional.
- The Extent of Neighborliness – it stretches us.
- The Engine of Neighborliness – what motivates it.
- The Expression of Neighborliness – what it looks like in practice.
- The Expectation of Neighborliness
In this story, a lawyer stands up to question Jesus. Now, when we think of a lawyer, we think of civil law, but in first-century Israel, this would have been someone trained in the religious laws of the Old Testament. This is a man who has dedicated his life to learning and applying the moral, ceremonial, and judicial laws of Moses.
Notice that it says the lawyer stood up to “test” Jesus. He’s not here to seek truth. He’s here to put Jesus to the test and trap him in his words.
Why does he want to do that? It’s because Jesus has constantly been welcoming people to himself, and not just white-collar, clean-cut people. He’s been welcoming sinners and ethnic outsiders, and he’s eating with them, teaching them, and tuning them into his followers.
He doesn’t asking the question because he doesn’t know the answer, but because he sees Jesus’ welcoming of sinners and outsiders as a dismissal of God’s law. He wants to expose Jesus as a lawbreaker.
So, he expects Jesus to say something like, “Well, it doesn’t matter how you live. You can’t keep the law perfectly. But God will accept you anyway.” Then he’ll be able to say, “See? Jesus rejects God’s laws. He’s an antinomian.”
And then Jesus does the opposite of what he expects when he asks, “What does the law say? How do you read it?”
And there’s basically two ways to answer that question. You could start listing off all 613 commands from the Mosaic Law, or you could summarize it. And that’s what the lawyer does. The whole law of God is summed up in two commands: “Love God” and “Love your neighbor.” All the law of God hangs on those two commands.
That’s the summary the lawyer gives, and Jesus says, “That’s right! Go do that and you will live.”
In the martial art of Judo, you never use your own brute strength to pin someone to the ground. You leverage your opponent’s momentum against them. You redirect the energy coming at you back at them in order to break their balance. And Jesus is a judo master.
He doesn’t fall into the trap. Instead of diminishing the law he affirms God’s law and turns it around on the lawyer. He breaks his balance and forces him to consider his own life.
Does the lawyer really love God? Is he truly content, in every situation and every circumstance, that God is his God. Has he truly loved his neighbor as he loves himself? Does he serve his neighbor with the same joy, speed, and commitment that he show to his own personal needs?
If eternal life depends on obedience to these two commands, how is the lawyer measuring up?
Do you feel the force of that? Does that feel weighty to you? It should. It ought to make you a little uneasy.
You see, Jesus never softens the law. In fact, he ratchets it up. You have heard it said, “You shall not murder.” But I say unto you, don’t even hate. You’ve heard it said, “Don’t commit adultery.” But I say, “Don’t even lust.” You’ve heard it said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say, “Love your enemies.”
The chess move Jesus completes is brilliant. Because, on the one hand he says, “The Law of God is good. It’s perfect. You are expected to be a neighbor!”
On the other hand, Jesus knows, just as we know, that we are not just unable to keep this law, we’re also unwilling.
This lawyer is not just too weak to love his neighbor as himself—he doesn’t want to.
- The Extent of Neighborliness
Now the lawyer is caught in his own trap. The onus is now on him to admit to affirm love of God and neighbor. But if he affirms God’s law, he also has to affirm his own failure to keep it.
He’s caught between the horns. He can’t say the law is wrong. But he also knows that he has failed to keep it. In other words… he knows that he’s really no different than the sinners Jesus has been welcoming. And that’s too much for him. He will not allow himself to be pumped in with sinners and outsiders.
So, he does what every good lawyer does in this situation. Instead of giving an answer, he asks another question. Very helpful to remember! When someone asks you something you don’t want to answer, just ask another question. Look at verse 29:
29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”
He wanted to justify himself. He won’t say the law is wrong. He asks, “But what does the law mean?”
But he wants to establish his own boundary around the law, so that he can claim he’s kept the commandment. He reduces the law to something he can achieve in his own strength and on his own terms.
The premise of this guy’s life is this: “God will only accept me if I’m good enough.” And therefore, he wants to know, “How good is good enough? Jesus, give me some manageable terms. What’s the extent to which I must love my neighbor?” He wants to reduce the law to the bare minimum.
And Jesus says, “That reminds me of a story…” But before we look at the parable itself, I need to clear away a common misunderstanding. In recent years, this passage has been used to argue that Christian love requires us to erase the distinctions of family, community, and nation. This is not what Jesus is teaching.
This passage does not abolish the ordered nature of our love and responsibilities. We do not owe the same degree of responsibility to every human being on the planet that we owe first to our family, second to our church, and third to our nation. Scripture itself establishes the family, the church, and the nation as valid categories. (1 Timothy 5:18; Galatians 6:10; Acts 17:26)
A doctor working a shift in a local emergency room is not obligated to abandon her patients because there are sick people in another town or country. At the same time, we’d rightly condemn her if she passed by someone with a life-threatening injury because she didn’t like their ethnicity or their religious views.
The parable forbids sinful exclusion, but it does not forbid ordered responsibility. Jesus is not erasing the natural and biblical order of loves. He is forbidding us from using that order as an excuse to harden our hearts against the person God places in front of us.
Nonetheless, Jesus calls this lawyer (and us) to extend our neighborliness far beyond our limits.
And the first way we limit our neighborliness is by similarity. I’ll show mercy to people who look, think, or vote like me. only the people who are like him, doesn’t really love them. He only loves himself in them.
Second, we limit neighborliness by convenience. “I’ll help if it doesn’t take too much time.”
Third, by deservedness. “I’ll help them because they’re grateful, they’re responsible, they’re worthy.” Quick note here: there is a time and place for someone to feel the consequences of bad choices. But bad choices alone is never an excuse for us to deny mercy.
Fourth, by abstraction. Many people today care about “the poor” in general; but they avoid the messy real relationships right in front of them.
Fifth, we outsource mercy. “I pay taxes. I give to my church.” Good, you ought to do those. You are also to open your heart personally.
In this parable, Jesus says we are not free to draw the circle of “neighbor” according to who we want to serve, when we want to serve them, or what we’re willing to do.
When someone lying in our path is in need, we ought to help them. Mercy is required, even if that person belongs to a group that opposes and hates us. And when Jesus widens the extent of mercy, it reveals just how narrow the lawyer’s heart is.
Notice what the lawyer still won’t say. Jesus asks which of the three was a neighbor to the wounded man. The lawyer will not answer, “The Samaritan.” He can only manage, “The one who showed mercy.”
The Samaritan was someone the Jewish lawyer would have despised. They were ethnic and religious antagonists. Jews and Samaritans had different cultures and different religions, and neither liked the other.
If you only love someone because they are like you, then you don’t really love them. You only love yourself in them.
Second, it wasn’t a convenient moment. Showing mercy would expose the Samaritan to the same robbers who had assaulted the man he stops to help.
Third, it wasn’t cheap. It took some of his own supplies, his own horse, and his money to pay the inn keeper.
Jesus is saying, “True neighborliness, which pleases God, doesn’t put limits on who, when, or what.”
So, what could possibly motivate that kind of mercy and generosity in us?
- The Engine of Neighborliness
Jesus ends the conversation with a command: “You go, and do likewise.” End of the story. Luke gives us no further resolution. We don’t know if the lawyer obeyed, repented, or walked away still trying to justify himself. The story stops with the full force of the command, and that’s the point.
The command stands. Neighbor-love is required, and it’s required without the limits we keep trying to place on it.
But here’s the critical question we’re forced to face: Why would anyone ever live this way? Why would anyone embrace this level of sacrificial living?
There are only two possible engines to motivate this kind of neighborliness.
Engine one is self-justification. This is what the lawyer was trying to do. You love others so that God will love you. You attempt costly mercy in order to feel secure, to quiet your conscience. You do something so that you can put God in your debt.
That was the lawyers entire project, and it’s the project of many today; even many who think they are Christians. They see Christianity mainly as something we must do.
Some of you are ambitious people. You love setting goals, and all of your religion, all of your mercy, is just an attempt to quiet your own nagging conscience through good works.
Listen – if you try to justify yourself, it will twist every good deed you do into evil, self-centered service. You will turn neighbor-love into a transaction. You won’t care about the person, you’ll just care about what helping their need can do for your standing with God. You’ll be like the man who visited his ailing mother because he hopes to stay in the will.
You’ll begin comparing yourself with others, only showing mercy to keep score and stay ahead. And in the end, you’ll become bitter when your mercy goes unthanked and unappreciated.
I’m telling you, I have known people who showed costly, extravagant service and sacrifice, and they only did it to please their self-justifying heart.
Friend, when you help someone, do you feel that God owes you? Do you get irritable when your kindness is ignored? If now one ever knew about your mercy, and God never gave you “credit,” would you still do it?
If removing the hope of God’s approval also removes your desire to show mercy, then the mercy was never for the other person. It was for yourself.
Some of you are tired of trying to be good enough. The command to love your neighbor without limits feels to heavy for you to carry. And it is, if the engine driving your life is self-justification.
The other engine is the gospel. You grow in neighborliness not in order to achieve God’s approval, but because it’s already yours in Christ. You show mercy, because you’ve already received it.
Look at how Jesus Christ loved you:
He did not limit the who—He loved us when we were his enemies.
He did not limit the when—It wasn’t convenient for him to rescue us.
He did not limit the what—He emptied himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of a cross. The Good Samaritan helped the beaten man at the risk of his life, but Jesus saves us at the cost of his life.
He did not love us by abstraction—He came personally, in the flesh, and dealt with our actual need.
Jesus is the true neighbor of mercy that the Good Samaritan only illustrated. He found us beaten by sin, left for dead by Satan, bound up our wounds, and paid the full price for our recovery.
And this is the only engine strong enough to produce the kind of neighborliness that Jesus demands. We do not love in order to get God to love us. We do not show mercy in order to receive mercy. We receive the love and mercy of God, fully through the Son, and therefore we show it and give it.
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation of our sins! (1 John 4:10)
- The Expression of Neighborliness (10:25-28)
Let’s end with some practical considerations. How is God calling us into practical neighborliness? Think back to the parable.
First: Keep Your Eyes Open. The Samaritan was travelling down the road and noticed someone in need. Who has God put in your path that you can serve?
Second: Sacrifice Your Schedule. The Samaritan had to pause his own itinerary to help. Showing mercy often means getting less of our own plan accomplished for the sake of our neighbor.
Third: Share Your Resources. The Samaritan didn’t just give money to the inn keeper. He looked into his own bags to find medicine and bandages. What resources has God given you?
- Time: You’re in a season of life with more free time and can commit to learning about the needs of others in the church and your neighborhood.
- Practical Help: Good cooks, mechanics, handymen, transportation, childcare, running errands. There are a thousand practical needs you can fill.
- Hospitality: Every one of us ought to make a point to stay a few extra minutes after worship to greet one another, greet visitors, get to know others so that we might serve them.
- Words: Sometimes what people need far more than money or a new job opportunity is just a word of encouragement—We are to encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, and be patient with the immature.
Conclusion
The command to “go and do likewise” will either crush you or free you. It will crush you if you think you must keep it in order to gain God’s love and approval.
It will free you if you hear it as the natural response of one who has already received unlimited mercy; if you know Jesus Christ as the True Neighbor, who did not pass by on the other side, but came to us when we were his enemies, when we didn’t deserve it, and at the cost of his life.
Because he has been this kind of neighbor to you, you are free to become this kind of neighbor to others. You go and do likewise.