Like this lawyer, he also thought that he could earn eternal life by doing some good thing. Jesus answers this lawyer in the same manner as He did the rich young ruler and that is by pointing them back to the law. By why did He do this?
The obvious level is this: Jesus taught the parable to show who really is a good Samaritan and who is their neigbour. It is about helping those that are in need instead of just turning a blind eye to their difficulty. We'll discuss some of this as we go but there is another level to this story as well. Let's have a look.
Instead, it pointed the lawyer to the One, the despised One... the Lord Jesus, who was the true good Samaritan who went out of His way to save mankind. Jesus didn't cross over to the other side of the road.
- Names of Jesus Why Was Jesus Called “Teacher”? It may interest you to know that Jesus was a teacher. Other words come more quickly to mind—Lord, Savior, Master, and Redeemer. But here’s an amazing fact. Of the 90 times Jesus was addressed directly in the gospels, 60 times he was called Teacher. This was the word the multitudes used.
Jesus used the Parable of the Good Samaritan as an example of loving those who may not be our friends. Jesus was asked to confirm what he meant by the word 'neighbour'. This is when he told the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), to explain that people should love everyone, including their enemies.
As Luke puts it, he wanted to “justify himself.” And so he asks the one question he believes will do just that: “Who is my neighbor?” He thought he knew what Jesus would answer, and he assumed that the response would shine a light on his respectability, would show him for what he was, a man on the right side of things.
But the teacher of the Law wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbour?” Jesus answered, “There was once a man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when robbers attacked him, stripped him, and beat him up, leaving him half dead.
Jesus recounts the parable in a conversation with a lawyer about the two fundamental commandments: loving God and loving a neighbor as oneself. The discussion is primarily taken up with the interpretation of the law, the Torah. Of all the questions that could be asked, the lawyer asks who his neighbor is.
When Jesus asks which of these three – the priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan – acted as a neighbor to the robbed man, the lawyer answers “The one who showed him mercy.” As Jesus often does, he turns the question of “who is my neighbor?” on its head and instead answers “who might be a neighbor to me?”
a person who lives near another. a person or thing that is near another. one's fellow human being: to be generous toward one's less fortunate neighbors.
Nor are you to be called `teacher,' for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!
He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself." He said to him, "You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live." But he, desiring to justify himself, asked Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?"
ThomasIn the King James Version of the Bible it is translated as: And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. The modern World English Bible translates the passage as: Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!"
The moral of the story is that you should put aside your differences and help those who are in need of help. The Samaritan did not think about the race or the religion of the man; he just saw a man who needed help.
The Good Samaritan The Samaritan can be understood to symbolize both Christ's message that the poor and outcast are blessed, and that Christ's message is for Gentiles as well as Jews.
The Levite was seen as representing the Old Testament prophets, whose words the Lord came to fulfill (see Matthew 5:17; 3 Nephi 15:2–5). A lesser class of priests, the Levites did chores in the temple. At least this Levite came close to helping; he “came” and saw.