CRITICAL NOTES
Luke 10:25. A certain lawyer.—One whose business it was to teach the law. It was probably in Judæa that this conversation was held; as we read (Luke 10:38) that Jesus was on His way to Bethany. Tempted Him.—The word seems to mean nothing worse than putting His skill to full proof, i.e. consulting Him on difficult questions. He probably wished to see if Jesus would teach him anything new; and an air of self-conceit is manifest in what little is said of him (see Luke 10:29). What shall I do, etc.—This question was put to Christ more than once: see Luke 18:18; cf. with them Acts 16:30-31.
Luke 10:26. How readest thou?—“A common Rabbinical formula for eliciting a text of Scripture. What? not how? i.e. to what purport” (Alford).
Luke 10:27. Thou shalt love, etc.— Deuteronomy 6:5; Deuteronomy 10:12; Leviticus 19:18. His answer was intelligent; his summary of duty such as Christ taught; it was in knowledge of himself that he came short.
Luke 10:28. This do, and thou shalt live.—“True in all cases: any one who can and does love God and his neighbour thus has already begun to live, has an earnest of eternal life” (Popular Commentary).
Luke 10:29. Willing to justify himself.—I.e. to declare his obedience to this summary of the law, unless some other definition of “neighbour” than that which he held could be given—his definition excluding Samaritans and Gentiles.
Luke 10:30. Answering, said.—Lit. “taking him up”: it is perhaps not too much to say that the phrase implies that Christ did more than answer him—made the answer the basis of teaching which corrected his faulty ideas. A certain man.—We are to understand that he was a Jew; but no stress is laid on this. The Samaritan saw in him simply a wounded man. Perhaps this is not a fictitious story at all; it may be that the lawyer himself had been the traveller, had received kindness from a Samaritan, which he had not repaid, and which had not led him to form truer ideas as to who his neighbour was. Down from Jerusalem.—About twenty-one miles, Jericho lying on a much lower level than Jerusalem. The road here described was, and one might almost say is, haunted by robbers. Jerome says that in his time it was called “the bloody way,” and that a Roman fort and garrison were needed there for the protection of travellers. Fell among thieves.—Rather, “robbers,” “brigands”: into the midst of them, they surrounded him. Wounded him.—Rather, “beat him” (R.V.), lit. “laying blows on him.”
Luke 10:31. A certain priest.—Probably on his way home from duties in the Temple; for Jericho was a priestly city. That way.—“Rather, ‘on that road.’ It is emphatically mentioned because there was another road to Jericho, which was safer, and therefore more frequently used” (Farrar). Passed by.—Without showing the mercy inculcated by the law and the prophets (see Exodus 23:4-5; Deuteronomy 22:1-4; Isaiah 58:7).
Luke 10:32. The conduct of the Levite was rather worse than that of the priest.
Luke 10:33. Had compassion.—It was this feeling which differentiated him from the priest and the Levite; and from this feeling sprang his deeds and words of kindness to the wounded man.
Luke 10:34. Oil and wine.—The usual remedy for wounds in the East. His own beast.—Thereby depriving himself of the use of it. An inn.—Not a caravanserai, as in Luke 2:7, but a house for travellers kept by a host. Two different words are used in the respective passages.
Luke 10:35. Two pence.—The denarius was worth about eightpence halfpenny of our money, and was the day’s wages of an ordinary labourer (see Matthew 20:2). Probably the smallness of the sum named is intended to suggest that the Samaritan was a poor man, and thus to bring into clearer relief his generosity and kindness on this occasion.
Luke 10:36. Was neighbour.—Rather, “proved neighbour” (R.V.), lit. “became neighbour.” “The neighbour Jews (priest and Levite) became strangers, the stranger Samaritan became neighbour, to the wounded traveller. It is not place, but love, which makes neighbourhood” (Wordsworth).
Luke 10:37. He that shewed mercy.—It may be that Pharisaic haughtiness led to this indirect answer, as though the lawyer disdained to use the hated name, “Samaritan.” But no great stress need be laid on this. “The lawyer was taught how one really becomes the neighbour of another, namely, by active love, irrespective of nationality or religion. His question, ‘Who is my neighbour?’ was answered: He to whom you ought thus to show mercy in order to become his neighbour is your neighbour. The question is answered once for all. All are our neighbours, when we have thus learned what we owe to man as ma?” (Popular Commentary). Go, and do thou likewise.—The question had doubtless been asked in the spirit of hair-splitting casuistry; Jesus gives the matter a practical bent.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Luke 10:25-37
Who is my Neighbour? versus Whose Neighbour am I?—This lawyer merely wished to test our Lord’s orthodoxy. He was quite sure that he knew what to do to inherit eternal life. Christ shifts the question from intellect to conscience and practice, and that pinches. The scribe’s wish to justify himself refers to his failure in conduct, which, though unaccused, he tacitly confesses. The obtuseness as well as sensitiveness of conscience is brought out by the fact that he evidently thinks that he has kept the first requirement of perfect and all-engrossing love to God, and is only sensible of defect in the second.
I. The question, meant to excuse, but really condemning.—“And who is my neighbour?” The lawyer pleads the vagueness of the precept, and wishes a clear definition of terms, that he may know whom he is bound to love as himself, and whom he is not. He fancies that love is only to run like a canal in a straight, artificial cutting. He will try to love all within the circle, but it must be clearly drawn; and, in the meantime, he does not feel any stirrings of love to anybody outside his own door. Is it not clear that to him love is simply a matter of obligation? and does not such a conception show that he has no notion of what it really is, nor has ever exercised it? “Tell me whom I must love” means, “Tell me whom I may escape the necessity of loving”; and he who says that has not a glimmer of what love is. In all matters of Christian living, the anxiety to have the bounds marked within which the action of the Christian spirit is to be confined, is a bad sign. It indicates latent reluctance and a total misconception of the free, spontaneous, all-embracing outgoings of the life which comes from Jesus.
II. The details of the lovely story.—It is not a parable which needs to be interpreted; but a story framed as an example, and needing not to be translated but copied. It gives three pictures—of the poor victim, the selfishly absorbed passers-by, and the compassionate helper. The sufferer is “a man,” nothing more. The others are designated by profession or nationality, but he has no label round his neck to ticket him as “neighbour.” That is the beginning of an answer to the lawyer. The picture of the man’s desperate condition as he lay bleeding and insensible might well stir pity. What would the reality do? The two companion sketches of priest and Levite tell us. It does nothing. A glance, perhaps a thought of personal danger, but, at any rate, no stirrings of pity, and no pause, but, in the face of such a spectacle, they pass on. There is no sign that they were hindered by any pressure of time or duty from stopping to help. They did see, and it never struck them that they had anything to do in the matter. Is it an exaggerated picture of the conduct to which human nature is ever prone? How much less sorrow there would be in the world if we were not all guilty in this matter, and had not left misery which is forced on our notice to bleed or weep itself to death without lifting a finger to prevent it! The capacity for ignoring wretchedness and need is wonderful. Engrossment with self shuts eyes and heart to the piteous sights that fill the world. Christ might have taught His lesson without making the unsympathising pair a priest and a Levite. His boldness in thus weighing His story with unnecessary offence is striking. He sharpens it to a spear-point, and is careless about offending if He can reach the conscience. Toothless generalities offend nobody, and therefore do nobody good. “Thou art the man” needs to be pealed into the ears of culprits. But the lesson was not for the lawyer only. Formal religionists are always cold. It is possible to be so busy investigating the grounds and limits of religious duty as to forget to do it. So these heartless two teach us the terrible pitilessness of men, and its cause in self-absorption, and the special danger, in regard to it, of formal religion. The same boldness in bringing in causes of offence which might have been spared appears in making the rescuer a Samaritan. Note the details of his care. First, we have the source of all in compassion. He felt a shoot of love and pity in his heart to “the man,” and that set all in motion. His conduct may be taken as a picture of what true love to the neighbour should be. It is prompt, thorough, spares no pains, acts with judgment, is generous and self-denying (“set him on his own beast,” while he trudged by his side), provides for the future, and with all its liberality is not lavish, but thrifty and prudent. The lawyer had not asked, What is the love which I am bound to show? But Christ teaches him and us that it is not a mere lazy sentiment, but active, self-sacrificing, guided by common sense, and full of resources. It moves us to all kindly offices, and makes the needy sharers in our possessions, since they share our heart. But the nationality of the helper must not be passed by. Though the lesson could have been taught without it, it makes the lesson still more emphatic. It answers the question “Who?” by brushing away all national distinctions, all prejudices of race, all differences of creed, all enmities rooted in history. It is the first dawning of that great thought which nineteen centuries have been so slow to learn, the brotherhood of man. The very word “humanity” is Christian. The idea of “philanthropy” is Christian. And the practical realisation of the idea will only be attained when the great fact on which it rests is received. “One is your Master, … and all ye are brethren.”
III. Note Christ’s inversion of the lawyer’s question.—It makes a vast difference whether we say, “Who is my neighbour?” or “Whose neighbour am I?” for although the relation is, of course, mutual, to approach it on the one side is selfishness, and on the other is love. The one fixes attention on men’s claims on me, the other on my debts to them; and while these are the same, they have a very different aspect from the two ends. The truth, therefore, which Christ would have us learn is, that to be a true neighbour is to render help, and that we are neighbours to all men in such a sense that our compassion should go out to them all, and our practical aid be given, no matter what may be the barriers of race, or creed, or colour, or distance. True love to men will cut its own channels, will not wait to be commanded, nor ask how far it is bound to go, but spontaneously and universally will own its kinship with all the needy and sad, and will seek to be as wide and as deep as the love of God, of which it is a reflection:—Maclaren.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luke 10:25-37
Luke 10:25. Questions put to Christ.—Questions were sometimes put to Christ
(1) by meek, receptive hearers, like Nicodemus, prepared to drink the sincere milk of the word that they might grow thereby;
(2) by enemies, both of the Pharisaic and Sadducean parties, to ensnare and destroy Him; and
(3) as in this case, to put His skill and wisdom to the test.
“Do to inherit.”—The question as the scribe intended was incongruous: to “do” does not fit in with “to inherit.” It is as if one were to ask, What must I do to bring out sunshine? Without any bitterness, our Saviour takes up the question of the scribe in order to guide him to a knowledge of the fact that it was exactly that law of which he was so proud of keeping which condemned him. Our Lord wishes to teach him that if he only in real earnest will try to do, he will soon learn that he needs a Saviour who will do for him and in him what he himself cannot do.
“To inherit eternal life.”—In Greece men sought for truth: in Israel the object of pursuit was salvation, and righteousness as the means of attaining it.—Godet.
“Inherit.”—The phrase “inherit” alludes to possession of the land of Canaan, which the children of Israel had received as an inheritance from the hands of God, and which remained in Jewish thought as a type of Messianic happiness.
“What shall I do” etc.—Cf. the answer given by St. Paul after the Ascension (Acts 16:30-31).—Farrar.
Luke 10:27. “Thou shalt love,” etc.—As this summary of duty is given by Christ Himself on another occasion in answer to a scribe, we may perhaps conclude that it had become in the Jewish schools an approved method of declaring the essence of the law. Otherwise it would be difficult to reconcile the enlightened and spiritual reply of this lawyer with the narrow and bigoted tone of mind which he manifested.
Two Great Commandments.—The two great commandments of the law.
I. The duty of love to God.—
1. A divinely implanted principle in the renewed hearts of believers.
2. It implies a high esteem of God.
3. It implies an earnest desire for communion with God and the enjoyment of Him.
4. It is a judicious principle, and not a blind enthusiastic feeling.
5. It is an active principle.
6. It is also a supreme love.
II. The duty of love to man.—
1. It is, too, a divinely implanted principle.
2. It implies benevolent dispositions towards our neighbour.
3. Speaking well of him.
4. Doing him all the good offices in our power.—Foots.
The Service of God and Man.
I. The Christian religion is one which most powerfully engages its disciples to service.—It does so in two ways:
(1) it gives them a sense of boundless obligation;
(2) it exalts a life of service as the highest ideal of human life.
II. The service to which the Christian religion engages its disciples is the service of man.
III. The Christian religion brings us a revelation which makes the service of man hopeful.—Brown.
“Thy heart,” etc.—The “heart” in Scripture is the centre of the moral life; from it branch out the “soul” (the seat of feeling and emotion), the will (actual faculties), and the “mind” (the faculties of intelligence). Moral life proceeds from the heart, and displays itself in or by means of the other three forms of activity—emotion, energy (or “strength”), and knowledge.
Luke 10:29. “To justify himself.”—Aware that the test of charity would prove unfavourable to him, he seeks concealment under the word “neighbour,” that he may not be discovered to be a transgressor of the law. “But who accused him? Not the Lord. He had only said, ‘This do, and thou shalt live.’ The man’s own conscience was awakened and at work; well he knew at that moment that he had not done what his lips confessed he should do; he had not loved God with all his heart and his neighbour as himself” (Arnot)
“My neighbour.”—The design of the parable of the good Samaritan is to explain the word “neighbour.”
I. The explanation is rather the converse of what might have been expected.—We might have thought that the person who is beloved is the neighbour; in the narrative the “neighbour” is the person who loves. The fact is, the Samaritan and the traveller were “neighbours” equally, each to the other—the word being relative must be mutual; but the one who recognised the relationship is selected for the illustration, because there lay the example and the lesson. My “neighbour” then is every one who, in the providence of God, is brought into such connection with me, that I can and ought to affect him in some way for good.
II. The course of events is always being so ordered as to bring new persons within our circle, that we may act by them a neighbour’s part.—There may be a nation on the other side of the earth with which to-day I have nothing whatever to do; but to-morrow, let a way of access be opened and presented to me, by which I could approach that nation, and let an occasion arise of doing it good which, in my conscience, I feel to be providential, and at once our neighbourhood is established and complete, and I am constrained to perform a neighbour’s, i.e. a near one’s, part, whether it be for their souls, or whether it be for their bodies.—Vaughan.
Luke 10:29. The Law gave no Definition of “Neighbour.”—The scribe does not think there is danger of his not loving God, but thinks that the law is defective in giving no exact description of who is to be understood by one’s neighbour.
Luke 10:30-37. The Good Samaritan.—This parable reveals in the brightest light—
I. The Christian’s heart.—It is like the Samaritan’s. It is full of compassion. In the priest and the Levite prudence conquered humanity; in the Samaritan humanity conquered prudence, prejudice, and everything else. We are weak and slow in Christ’s work because we are weak in compassion. The religion of Jesus is the religion of humanity.
II. The Christian’s hand.—It is the ready agent of a compassionate heart. First the heart, then the hand—that is the order in the kingdom. Watch the Samaritan’s hand. It is not the hand of a sluggard. How quickly it moves! He did not linger till compassion was chilled by worldly prudence. First thoughts were best. I dare say he did not think of it at all; he just did it at once. Many a noble purpose dies of cold and decay in its infancy. It is not the hand of a weakling. It is not easily tired. It carries through what it begins, and leaves nothing half done, though the doing cost much. It is not the hand of a hireling. The Samaritan was not rich. He had one ass, and no servant. But he believed that it was more blessed to give than to receive. He could not be repaid, and knew it. Payment would have spoiled all his pleasure in the deed. He had reward enough in an approving conscience reflecting the smile of God. It is not the hand of earthly ambition. The Pharisees gave alms to be seen of men. Had the Samaritan been like them, he would have passed by on the other side. But there was nothing to feed the hunger for earthly applause in this adventure. And yet if he be a real man, if this is history as well as parable, what renown! Christ has immortalised him.
III. The Christian’s sphere.—The lawyer made it very narrow. He loved his friends, and hated his enemies, and was sure that the Samaritans were no neighbours of his. But Christ teaches that there is no limit or exception to the love of man; and that the sphere of the Christian’s heart is the whole world, and that the sphere of his hand embraces every one he can help. The Samaritan never asked, “And who is my neighbour?” Nearness and need constitute “neighbourhood.” In every suffering stranger there is a God-sent candidate for your pity and aid. Be neighbourly in Christ’s spirit. The home mission spirit is the very genius of the gospel. Be not content with sluggard sympathies. Be a good Samaritan among the needy in our land. Heathen lands too are near us now, and every year are coming nearer. The field of Christian service is the world.—Wells.
Luke 10:30. “A certain man.”—This answers the question, “Who is my neighbour?” No mention is made of nation, tribe rank, or character; but “a certain man,” some one or other. It is as men that we are related and owe love to one another.
Luke 10:31. “By chance.”—There is a certain touch of irony in the phrase; it was certainly not by “chance” that the priest and the Levite came to figure in the parable.
Chance a Nickname.—God’s unseen providence, by men nicknamed Chance.—Fuller.
Good Opportunities.—Many good opportunities work under things which seem fortuitous.—Bengel.
A Test of Character.—This is a very significant touch. The wounded man was not carried to the priest’s door, or did not even call aloud for aid, or else it would have been morally impossible to refuse to help him. The chance encounter rendered it more easy to deny the claim; in other words, it served the more perfectly to test the real character of the priest—to show whether mercy was in his heart or not.
“A certain priest.”—Perhaps now on his way to Jerusalem, there to execute his office “in the order of his course” (chap. Luke 1:8); or, having accomplished his turn of service, now returning home. But whether thus or not, he was one who had never learned what that meant, “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice”; who, whatever duties he might have been careful in fulfilling, had “omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith”—Trench.
“He passed by.”
I. All priests were not thus cold and heartless.—Ministers are generally warm-hearted men. They ought all to be so; they ought to be like Christ. He was ever ready to help any in trouble. Many of the Jewish priests would be kind and generous. This one was not. One may occupy a very sacred place, and yet have a cold, hard heart. It is very sad when it is so.
II. This priest did not even stop to look at the sufferer.—Much less did he ask how he came to be injured, or to inquire what he could do for him. Perhaps he even pretended not to see the wounded man. He had doubtless excuses enough to satisfy his own mind. He was tired, or in a hurry, or it was a hopeless case, or he could not bear to look on suffering. But whatever his motives—
III. Let us avoid repeating his fault.—Do we never pass by human wants that we know well we ought to stop to relieve? Do we never keep out of the way of those who need our help? This verse is an ugly mirror, is it not? It shows us blemishes that we did not know we had.—Miller.
Excuses for Inhumanity.—Excuses for inhumanity are only too easily found. The priest might allege—
I. That he was in haste—that his business was urgent or sacred.
II. That the wounded man was past hope of recovery.
III. That the robbers were not far off, and that it was perilous to linger near the spot.
IV. That another was coming along the same road who might be able to render more efficient help.
Luke 10:31-33. Two Kinds of Holiness.—
1. The spurious holiness of priest and Levite—sanctity divorced from charity.
2. The genuine holiness of the Samaritan—holiness inspired by love.—Bruce.
Samaritans and Levites.—All Samaritans were not compassionate; all Levites were not hard-hearted. They were Samaritans who would not permit Jesus and His disciples, when they were weary, to pass the night in their village (Luke 9:53); and he was a Levite (Acts 4:36) who was named Son of Consolation, and sold his property that he might distribute the proceeds among the poor.
Luke 10:32. “A Levite.”—The Levite in his turn may have thought with himself that it could not be incumbent on him to undertake a perilous office, from which the priest had just shrunk; duty it could not be, else that other would never have omitted it. For him to thrust himself upon it now would be a kind of affront to his superior, an implicit charging of him with inhumanity and hardness of heart. And so, by aid of these pleas, or pleas like them, they left their fellow-countryman to perish.—Trench.
“Looked on him.”—There are very few of us who have yet learned to exert ourselves as we might do for the relief of the general misery and destitution which we cannot but see about us. The world is full of it; but it is not full of that heavenly compassion which it was meant to call forth.—Marriott.
Luke 10:33. “Samaritan.”—He was one of a nation with whom the Jews had no dealings (John 4:9), whose name was a by-word of reproach (John 8:48), who were regarded by them as aliens and foreigners (Luke 17:18), and almost reckoned with the very heathen (Matthew 10:5). The wounded traveller could have no claims on him; and many reasons might have been found for passing him by.
The Law written in the Heart.—This ignorant Samaritan possessed spontaneously (“by nature,” Romans 2:14) the light which the Rabbis had not found or had lost in their theological investigations. There is a remarkable agreement between the conduct attributed by Jesus to the Samaritan and the saying of St. Paul about the law “written in the heart” and its partial fulfilment by the heathen (Romans 2:14-16).—Godet.
Heterodoxy and Orthodoxy.—We have here heterodoxy with humanity, and orthodoxy without humanity. Our Lord has shown elsewhere, abundantly, that He has no thought of conniving at heterodoxy, or of disparaging orthodoxy. Only He teaches that humanity is better than orthodoxy, if only one may be had, and that inhumanity is worse than heterodoxy, if one must be endured.—Schaff.
“Had compassion.”—Moved with pity as to the past, help for the present, considerate care for the future.—Stier.
A Mark of Genuine Love.—It is the characteristic mark of genuine love that it does not ask whether the neighbour deserves love, but whether he needs love.
Love of the Brethren and of One’s Neighbour.—There is a special distinction to be made between Christian love of the brethren (John 13:34) and the love of our neighbour.
I. Love of the brethren has for its object the fellow-believer, the love of Christ for its standard, and faith in Him as its condition.
II. Love of our neighbour embraces all men, loves them as one’s self, and is grounded on the natural relation in which all sons and daughters of Adam stand to each other as members of one great family here on earth.—Van Oosterzee.
Luke 10:33-35. Characteristics of Love.—True love renders help
(1) with promptitude,
(2) with thoroughness,
(3) with self-denial,
(4) with unwearying patience,
(5) with tact,
(6) without sentimentality.
Luke 10:34-35. “Bound up his wounds,” etc.—He leaves nothing undone to mitigate the miseries that excited his compassion.
I. He applies healing remedies to his wounds.
II. He is regardless of fatigue and danger in ministering to the sufferer.
III. He leaves him in good keeping.
IV. He supplies his immediate wants, leaves careful injunctions for his treatment in the inn, and generously promises to repay any expenses that may be incurred.
Luke 10:34. Manifestations of Love.—The attentive look, the compassionate heart, the helpful hand, the willing foot, the open purse.—Van Oosterzee.
Luke 10:35. “Take care of him.… 1 will repay.”—After having brought the wounded man to the inn, the Samaritan might have regarded himself as free from all further responsibility in the matter—he might have left him to the kindness of his fellow-countrymen, and have said to them, “He is your neighbour rather than mine.” But compassion, which has prompted him to begin, compels him to end.—Godet.
“When he departed.”—This detail gives vividness to the story: we see him as it were already on horseback and busied with giving the host injunctions as to careful treatment of the invalid.
Luke 10:36. Love like the Light.—The Lord shows His questioner that love is like light: wherever it truly burns it shines forth in all directions, and falls on every object that lies in its way. Love that desires to limit its own exercise is not love. One of love’s essential laws is expressed in those words of the Lord that the apostles fondly remembered after He had ascended, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”—Arnot.
“Which … was neighbour?”—The parable is a reply, not to the question, for to that it is no reply, but to the spirit out of which the question proceeded. “You inquire, Who is my neighbour? Behold a man who asked quite another question, To whom can I be a neighbour? and then be yourself the judge whether you or he have most of the mind of God—which is most truly the doer of His will, the imitator of His perfections.”—Trench.
“Was neighbour.”—Rather, “proved neighbour” (R.V.); literally, “became neighbour.” “The neighbour Jews became strangers, the stranger Samaritan became neighbour, to the wounded traveller. It is not place but love which makes neighbourhood” (Wordsworth).
Luke 10:36-37. A Picture of Christ’s Redeeming Work.—The older commentators find in this parable a typical representation of Christ’s redeeming love. The wounded traveller is man disabled by sin; the priest and Levite represent the law, which exercises no healing power; the good Samaritan is Christ; the inn the Church, etc. The suggestion is an ingenious one, though the identification of some of the details leads to grotesque results. We may, however, see in the parable a faint and unintentional reflection of the Saviour’s work. The wounds of the sick (Isaiah 1:6), which they who sat in Moses’ seat left undressed, He whom they reviled as a Samaritan (John 8:48) bound up with oil and wine.
Luke 10:37. “He that shewed mercy.”—He will not name the Samaritan by name, the haughty hypocrite!—Luther.
“Go, and do thou likewise.”—The lesson derived from the parable by our Lord Himself is not that “every one who needs our mercy is to be taken for our neighbour.” Nothing of the kind. Christ closes the conversation by proposing the conduct of the Samaritan—the active benevolence which he displayed even towards an enemy—as a model for imitation. Thus the practice of religion is revealed as the best help to the understanding of it. The attention is diverted from considering who is the fit object of love, and guided instead to the exercise of love itself. As in every other part of the Bible, the object proposed is to school the heart, not to inform the understanding.—Burgon.
A Reproof to our Shortcomings.—We should never read the story of the good Samaritan without thinking of it as a type of deeds of holy love done by many who may be grievously deficient in religious knowledge, and as a reproof to our shortcomings.
Love and its Reward.—Love of man is
(1) entirely unlimited;
(2) it reveals itself in unrestricted helpfulness; and
(3) its reward is in an approving conscience, the praise of those who witness it, and of the Lord Himself. It is true that mere kindness does not earn eternal life—that even if we perfectly fulfil the second table of the law, we are guilty of so many offences against the first table as to forfeit eternal life. But it is also true that he who violates the dictates of kindly feeling is not on the road that leads to faith and salvation (1 John 4:20-21).