Suppose I wrote you a letter, about five pages long, in which I explain in some detail a controversial behavior of mine a week ago that people have been misinterpreting. And suppose that in the letter, I describe the behavior in a paragraph, and I give the background for it, and I explain my motivations, and I tell you about the outcome and where it all led, and I explain how it relates to my faith in Jesus and how his death and resurrection give me hope.

And suppose you read the letter, and then you take the paragraph from the letter, the one that simply described the controversial behavior, and you lifted it out of the letter, and you ignored everything I said about the background and my motivation, and everything I said about the outcome of the behavior, and everything I said about how it relates to my faith and the death of Jesus, and you simply spread all over social media that “John Piper has this behavior” — with none of the context that I provided.

What would you be doing?

Love’s Surest Measurement

One answer to that question is that you would be disobeying this text. When the lawyer says at the end of Luke 10:27 that you should not only love God, but also love your neighbor as yourself, Jesus approved of that answer. Verse 28: “You have answered correctly.” So, one of the teachings of this text is that we should love our neighbor as we love ourselves — which is about as radical a thing as you can say.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” is not about self-esteem. It’s about the fact that every one of us does what we think will make us happy. We don’t walk in front of trucks. We don’t drink poison. We don’t jump off buildings. We put a roof over our head when it’s raining. We wear warm clothes in the winter in Minnesota. We try to get enough sleep and exercise to function. We want good grades for ourselves in school. We want a job that will put bread on our table. And we want to be treated fairly. We want people to read our letters fairly.

So, to love our neighbor as we love ourselves is to keep them from walking out in front of trucks, or drinking poison, or jumping off buildings. To help them have a roof over their heads. To help them have clothes in winter and sleep and exercise and good grades and jobs and be treated fairly. Because all of that we want for ourselves, which is what it means to love ourselves.

The apostle Paul applied this command to marriage in Ephesians 5:28–29, saying, “Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies [as they love themselves]. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it.” That’s what “self-love” means. And of itself, it’s not wrong. To love your neighbor as you love yourself is to make your own self-care the measure of your care for others. It’s very radical. Crazy radical. It’s absolutely life-revolutionizing. Churches full of people like this, scattered throughout the cities, would be gloriously strange.

Will You Love Luke?

To read my letter in a way that you would never want your letter to be read is to disobey this text. Why in the world am I pointing that out? Because that’s the way millions of people read the Gospel of Luke, especially when it comes to this parable — the parable of the good Samaritan. Millions of unbelievers love this parable and ignore what Luke teaches. And I’m saying that when you read the Gospel of Luke that way, you are disobeying the Gospel of Luke. You’re disobeying Jesus and not loving Luke.

It is disobedient to Jesus and unloving to Luke to take this parable, lift it out of its Gospel-setting, and use it to build your own wrath-omitting, repentance-omitting, faith-omitting, blood-omitting, justification-omitting ethic of good deeds. That is the playbook of theological liberalism, which rejects the authority of the Bible but keeps the Bible, picking and choosing the parts it likes, and treating the rest as legend or mythology.

And I’m saying that is disobedient to Jesus and unloving to Luke. When you treat a biblical author that way, you are breaking the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. In this case, to love Luke as you love yourself. If you love Luke, if you treat him the way you want to be treated — if you read him the way you want to be read — you will keep in mind the other crucial things that he says when you read this parable.

For example, John the Baptist warns about the wrath of God that is coming (3:7). Jesus warns that unless we repent, we will all likewise perish (13:3). Jesus said not to fear those who simply kill the body, but to fear him who, after he has killed, can cast into hell (12:5). So, one burning question not only for the lawyer, the priest, and the Levite in this text, but also for the Good Samaritan is this: Will they escape the wrath of God?

And if we say to Luke or to each other, “There’s no wrath in this story,” wouldn’t Luke say, “Do I have to put everything in every paragraph? Isn’t it enough that I tell you about these things all over my Gospel? Is it too much to ask that you would keep them in mind as you read? And, oh — this is a story about inheriting eternal life [verse 25].”

Another example is the forgiveness of sins. Jesus says in Luke 5:24 that “the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” And in Luke 7:47 he says, “He who is forgiven little, loves little,” implying that genuine love for others is going to flow from a sense of having been forgiven by God.

Luke’s List Goes On

Or then there’s justification. In Luke 18:11–14 Jesus says there was a boastful man who went up to the temple, and there was a broken man who went up to the temple. The broken man said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” To which Jesus responded, “I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.” That has something to do with eternal life.

And then there’s inner transformation. In Luke 6:43–44 Jesus says, “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit.” And later he says, “Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But give as alms those things that are within” (11:40–41). Outward good deeds without inward change is Pharisaism. So, what is the lesson of the Samaritan’s good deeds?

Or what about faith in Jesus, allegiance to Jesus? In Luke 12:8–9 Jesus says, “Everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.” Will the Good Samaritan be acknowledged before God?

Or what about that other time a man came to Jesus in Luke 18:22 and, like this lawyer, asked how to inherit eternal life? And Jesus says, after all the man’s law-keeping, this: “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Bottom line: “Follow me. Confess me. Without me, no eternal life.” Does it matter if the Good Samaritan follows Jesus?

Or most important, what about the blood of Jesus shed for the forgiveness of sin? Jesus says in Luke 22:20, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” And the new covenant is this: “You believe in me; I forgive your sins.” As Luke 24:47 says, “Repentance for the forgiveness of sins [will] be proclaimed in his name to all nations.”

“Jesus changed the question from ‘What kind of person is my neighbor?’ to ‘What kind of person am I?’”

So, when we come to read the parable of the good Samaritan, we should love Luke the way we love ourselves. We should read him the way we would want to be read. As I was preparing for this message, I heard Luke, so to speak, say to me, “Pastor John, as you talk about this parable, please remind people of what I said about wrath and repentance and justification and the blood of Jesus and forgiveness of sins and faith in Jesus.” Yes, Luke, I will.

With that great vision of reality, let’s watch this story unfold.

Law-Keeping Isn’t the Path

In verse 25, an expert in the Mosaic law, called a “lawyer,” puts Jesus to the test by asking, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” You don’t want to approach Jesus like that — putting him to the test. If you ask Jesus a question, it better be because you want to know, not because you want to trip him up. If you come to Jesus like the lawyer, he will trap you in your own words. We’re going to watch it happen.

In verse 26 he turns the test around and says, in effect, “You’re the expert in the law — you tell me.” The lawyer answers, “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” (verse 27). To which Jesus responds in verse 28, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

Now, there are two ways you can understand Jesus’s approval of the lawyer’s answer. Jesus may be saying, “That’s right, Mr. Lawyer, if you choose the path of law-keeping as a means of getting right with God and a means of earning your way into eternal life, then following these two commandments is the way to go about it. Love God with your whole being, and love your neighbor as yourself. And you must do it perfectly if you’re going to show that you deserve to be in the presence of the perfectly holy God by law-keeping.”

If that’s the way you understand it, then Jesus would be showing the lawyer that he’ll never be able to do that, and that he should look away from law-keeping to the work of Christ, the forgiveness of sins, justification by faith, and salvation by grace, not works. That would be a theologically, orthodox, and biblically faithful way of understanding Jesus’s approval of the lawyer’s answer.

Love Is on the Path

But there’s another way to understand this text, which I’m inclined to think is closer to the mind of Christ. Namely, Jesus agrees that loving God and loving your neighbor is the path that leads to the inheritance of eternal life — the only path that leads to that inheritance. It is the path that you are on right now, if you are a Christian — if you are saved by grace through faith.

Luke wants us to know, in the context of his whole Gospel, that Jesus died for our sins, and that we are justified, and that our sins are forgiven by faith, not by works of the law, and that we receive the Holy Spirit and are changed from the inside by turning to Jesus and renouncing law-keeping as a way of earning eternal life. But rejecting law-keeping as a way of earning eternal life does not mean rejecting love — for God and neighbor — as the path that leads to eternal life. And the only path.

The apostle Paul said to the Christian church at Corinth, “If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed” (1 Corinthians 16:22). No love for God, no eternal life. That’s true for Christians. And earlier in the same book he said, “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3). No love for people, no eternal life.

Why? This is not about earning life. The apostle John puts it like this: “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. . . . Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 3:14; 4:8). Loving God and loving neighbor is necessary to inherit eternal life not because it is a work of merit to earn life, but because it is a fruit of the Spirit that proves life is present.

So, in this parable, we are going to be shown the path of love that leads to eternal life. We can walk this path by faith, trusting the blood-bought promises of Jesus, or we can miss the path and join the lawyer in his desire to justify himself. Self-justification is the opposite of faith and the opposite of love.

A (Shocking) Story for an Answer

Verse 29: “But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” In other words, “Which groups of people don’t I have to love?” Jesus likes questions — but not that kind. Questions that are designed to escape the sacrificial path of love, Jesus won’t answer. So, instead of answering, he tells a story. And at the end of the story, he’s going to turn the lawyer’s question upside down — and look us right in the eye. Verses 30–35:

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho [a drop of about 3,500 feet in 17 miles], 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 [two days wages, maybe $400] and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, “Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.”

There are at least three shocking things here.

First, it is shocking that the people who pass by on the other side, leaving the man half dead to die, are the ones who serve most closely to the holy place of God: the priest, who serves in the temple, and the Levite, who assists priests. I thought maybe Jesus would make one of the bad guys a lawyer. That would work, wouldn’t it? But it seems that the point is this: getting religiously “close” to the most sacred acts, events, and places does not necessarily make you a loving person. This is very sobering to those of us who spend most of our lives with God’s sacred book and God’s sacred church. Very sobering.

Second, it is shocking that the hero of the story is a Samaritan. John 4:9 says that “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.” Luke 9:53 says that the Samaritans wouldn’t receive Jesus and his apostles because they were going up to Jerusalem. The Samaritans are Jewish half-breeds who intermarried with the pagan people of the land and set up their own temple. They are outcasts and unclean.

And the shocking thing is not that a Samaritan cared for a Jew (the half-dead man is never called a Jew), but that a Samaritan surpassed a priest in becoming the kind of person Jesus came into the world to create. The message is clear: this Christ does not limit his transforming work to one ethnicity.

Third, it is shocking how over-the-top lavish the Samaritan’s care is for a total stranger. Bound his wounds. Poured oil and wine. Let him ride the Samaritan’s animal. Took care of him at an inn. Gave him $400 for his needs. Promised to return and pay more. “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your [lavish] good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

“Christ died to create a people who are so secure, and so content in Christ, that we move toward need, not comfort.”

What’s the difference between the religious leaders and the Samaritan? The one difference that Jesus points out is that the Samaritan felt compassion. Verse 33: “A Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had [felt] compassion.” Compassion is a feeling, not an act. But oh, how it overflowed in lavish acts — gifts of time and money and risk. But the root was compassion. And compassion rooted in love for God requires a new heart.

How Compassion Moves

The story ends in verses 36–37 with Jesus turning the lawyer’s original question upside down. The lawyer asks, “Who is my neighbor? Which group don’t I have to love?” Jesus says,

“Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor [became a neighbor] to the man who fell among the robbers?” [The lawyer] said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

Jesus changed the question from What kind of person is my neighbor? to What kind of person am I? He changed the question from What status of people are worthy of my love? to How can I become the kind of person whose compassion disregards status?

How can I become the kind of person who, instead of moving to the other side of the road (or the other side of town), moves toward need and sacrifice and risk? For decades at Bethlehem one of our standing mottos for the neighborhoods and for the nations was this: “Christians move toward need, not comfort.”

And hundreds have found, as Jesus says, that “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). More blessed to move toward need than comfort. The risk of crossing the road, or the ocean, is worth it.

As we move to the Table, remember this: among the many things in Luke’s Gospel in which this parable is embedded, is this great word of Jesus: “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20). Christ died to create a people who are so secure, and so content in Christ, that we move toward need, not comfort.