We all have someone we’d rather walk past. Maybe it’s the neighbor who never waves back, the coworker who grates on your nerves, or the family member who has hurt you one too many times. Maybe it’s a stranger who makes you feel uncertain or uncomfortable. We tell ourselves we have good reasons, and honestly, sometimes we do.
But Jesus doesn’t let us off the hook that easily.
In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, He doesn’t just give us a lesson in kindness. He helps us understand the radical nature of the kind of love the law commands. Jesus wants us to shift our thinking from “Do I have to love this person?” to “What kind of person do I want to become?” He answers one of the most important questions we’ll ever ask: Who is my neighbor?
We find this parable in Luke 10:25–37.
A legal expert, seeking to test Jesus, asks what he can do to inherit eternal life. The lawyer’s correct response references Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18, emphasizing the commands to love God entirely and one’s neighbor as oneself. Jesus affirms him. “Do this, and you will live.”
But the lawyer keeps pushing. Wanting to justify himself (show he is righteous), he asks, “And who is my neighbor?” He’s looking for a boundary; a fence to build around his obligations.
Jesus responds with a story.
The Road to Jericho: Understanding the World Jesus Was Describing
To fully understand this parable, we need to understand just how loaded the word Samaritan was to Jesus’ audience.
Jews and Samaritans shared centuries of hostility rooted in intermarriage between Jews and foreigners after the Assyrian conquest. That created a mixed people whom both sides came to despise. John 4:9 tells us “Jews do not associate with Samaritans.“
Jewish society at the time also structured relationships with self and family first. Following that was the broader Jewish community. Narrowing down who was a neighbor would help them keep the law.
Foreigners living in Israelite territory were supposed to be treated with hospitality and love. (Leviticus 19:34) Jews at the time, however, considered Gentiles and Samaritans rivals and adversaries; not neighbors.
When Jesus chose a Samaritan as the hero of His story, it wasn’t a gentle nudge toward tolerance. It was a challenge that completely debunked their misguided theory. The lawyer and the crowd listening would have immediately felt the shock.
The setting matters, too. A well-traveled but perilous trade route, the road from Jerusalem to Jericho was winding, rocky, and notorious for bandits lying in wait.
The Priest and the Levite: When Religion Replaces Compassion
Jesus sets the scene:
“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.” (v. 30)
Notice that Jesus never tells us who the man is. He has no name, no ethnicity, no religious identity. He is simply a human being in desperate need, and that is the only thing that should matter.
Two men pass by. First, a priest, then a Levite, a temple assistant. Both see the man. Both cross to the other side of the road.
Why? Possibly because touching a body that might be dead would render them ceremonially unclean, disqualifying them from their temple duties.
It’s possible the Levite observed the priest crossing the road, then did likewise, without feeling guilt. The priest surely possessed superior knowledge of the law.
They may have feared the robbers were still nearby. They may have convinced themselves the injured man was not their issue, someone beyond their scope of duty.
Neither one certainly didn’t consider themselves villains. They were the religious ones. And yet their religion, in that moment, became their reason not to love.
It’s easy to judge them until we recognize ourselves in them. How often do we cross to the other side of our own roads? Our plates are full, our energy is gone, we’re genuinely afraid, or we simply don’t know what to say or do.
None of those feelings are wrong on their own. But Jesus challenges us: Are you being moved by love, or by what’s convenient/easy?
The Samaritan Stopped: What a Compassionate Heart Actually Looks Like
What happened next was a shock no one saw coming. “But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.” (v. 33)
The Samaritan saw him. He felt something. And then he acted.
He tended to the man’s injuries, placed him on his donkey, transported him to an inn, and settled his expenses, informing the innkeeper that he would pay for any additional expenses upon his return. He gave his time, his resources, and his attention to a stranger he had every cultural reason to ignore.
This is what a compassionate heart actually looks like. It’s not just a warm or compassionate feeling; it is making the love of Jesus real and visible to anyone in need.
Genuine compassion is eyes that are open to the person in front of you, not just the ones you planned to help. It’s a willingness to inconvenience yourself, push past fear, to spend something, to stay a little longer than is comfortable.
For us, that might look like noticing the exhausted mom in the school pickup line and saying something kind. It might mean sitting with a coworker who’s struggling instead of staying safely busy. Maybe it is extending a hand to someone whose background or beliefs differ from your own because they, too, are made in the image of God.
Jesus doesn’t define neighbor as someone living close by or who looks/thinks like us. He expands our “neighbor” to include whoever is in front of us with a need.
Jesus Is the True Good Samaritan, and He Came for Us
It is here that the parable offers us a magnificent truth that gets overlooked.
Jesus, who came as our Savior, was the most despised outsider of all- “despised and rejected by men.” (Isaiah 53:3). Still, He overcame obstacles, followed us down every dangerous road, and found us in our wretched state: stripped, beaten, and abandoned to spiritual death.
He was the one who saw us. Who stopped. Who bound up our wounds and paid a price we could never repay.
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10)
We love because He loved us first, at enormous cost. We widen our circles because Christ broke down every wall to reach us. Loving our neighbor as Jesus does is a natural response to the perfect love He has poured out on us.
Alexander Maclaren observed, “The world would be a changed place if every Christian attended to the sorrows that are plain before him.”
What if we took this seriously, not out of obligation, but out of overflowing gratitude?
Loving the Neighbor You Didn’t Choose: Practical Steps Toward a Compassionate Heart
Growing a compassionate heart doesn’t happen all at once. It’s cultivated slowly (and imperfectly) in the ordinary moments of daily life. Here are a few ways to begin:
Remember to extend grace when you fall short. You won’t always get this right, and neither will I. But God isn’t looking for perfection, He’s looking for a willing heart. God’s grace, which He extended to us, is thankfully available whenever we fall. Receive it and let it make your heart more tender toward others.
You are not alone in this. God doesn’t ask you to manufacture compassion on your own.The Holy Spirit gives us guidance, strength, and even the desire to love well, especially in moments when it doesn’t come naturally.
Kenneth Bailey reminds us,“It is very hard to love the unlovely neighbor until the disciple’s heart is filled with the love of God, which provides the energy and motivation necessary for the arduous task of loving the neighbor.”
Make a conscious effort to cultivate empathy. Ask questions. Listen more than you speak. Put yourself in someone else’s story and pause for a moment before responding. Understanding doesn’t require agreement; it just requires a willingness to see others as God does.
Let Scripture shape your heart. “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts.” Colossians 3:12.
Compassion isn’t just a character trait; it’s an intentional choice we are to make daily.
Pray for it honestly and in earnest. One of the most powerful prayers you can pray is simply: “Lord, break my heart for what breaks Yours.” Ask Him to show you who is on the road in front of you today.
Release judgment and forgive freely. Jesus tells us to examine our own motives and conduct instead of judging others. (Matthew 7:1-2)
Ephesians 4:32 calls us to “be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Forgiveness frees us to love.
“Go and Do Likewise”- A Heart That Looks Like His
Jesus closes the parable with a question of His own. He asked the lawyer: which of the three men proved to be a neighbor?
“The one who had mercy on him,” the lawyer replies, unable, perhaps, to even say the word Samaritan.
“Go,” Jesus says, “and do likewise.” (v. 37)
Not “feel likewise.” Not “think about doing likewise.” Go.
Once we grasp the extent of our own need for God’s love; when we see ourselves as the one left on the side of the road, helpless and hurting, and remember that Jesus stopped for us, loving others stops being a burden and becomes a beautiful, natural response.
The world is full of hurting people. Some of them are in our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our neighborhoods. Some of them look nothing like us and may even be people we’ve been taught to distrust or consider our enemy.
But Jesus is asking us to stop. To see. To act.
Go and do likewise.
Reflection Questions: The Parable of the Good Samaritan
- Is there someone in your life you have been “crossing the road” to avoid? What is one small step you could take toward them this week?
- The priest and the Levite both had reasons for their inaction. What reasons do you most often find yourself using to justify not helping others?
- How does seeing Jesus as the “true Good Samaritan”- the one who stopped for you– change the way you feel about loving difficult people?
A Prayer for a Compassionate Heart
Lord, thank You for being the One who stopped for me when I was broken, when I was lost, when I had nothing to offer. You saw me and You loved me anyway.
Forgive me for the times I have crossed the road. For the times I chose comfort over compassion, convenience over kindness, and fear over faith.
Open my eyes today to the people You have placed in my path. Give me the courage to stop when I would rather hurry past. Give me the wisdom to know how to help, and the humility to ask when I don’t.
Break my heart for what breaks Yours, Lord. Make me a neighbor to the ones who are easy to love, and especially to the ones who are not.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Blessings!
AnnMarie
All Scripture is taken from the New International Version unless specified otherwise.
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