The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

Jesus Debates with a Lawyer; The Good Samaritan

For most of the time Christ kept out of the way of Jesus, because he could rely on the words of his informant. He knew his spy was trustworthy, because occasionally he checked the man’s report by asking others what Jesus had said here, or done there, and found always that his informant was strictly accurate.

But when Christ heard that Jesus was going to preach in this town or that, he sometimes attended to hear for himself, always remaining inconspicuous at the back of the assembly. On one occasion when he did this, he heard Jesus questioned by a lawyer. Men of the law often tried their skill against Jesus, but Jesus was able to deal with most of them, though he frequently did so by what Christ thought were unfair means. Telling a story, as he so often did, introduced extra-legal elements into the discourse: persuading people by manipulating their emotions was all very well to gain a debating point, but it left the question of law unanswered.

This time the lawyer said to him, ‘Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’

Christ listened closely as Jesus responded: ‘You’re a lawyer, are you? Well, tell me what the law says.’

‘You must love the Lord God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind. And you must love your neighbour as you love yourself.’

‘That’s it,’ said Jesus, ‘you’ve got it. You know the law. Do that, and you’ll live.’

But the man was a lawyer, after all, and he wanted to show that he had a question for everything. So he said, ‘Ah, but tell me this: who is my neighbour?’

So Jesus told this story:

‘Once there was a man, a Jew like yourself, going along the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. And in the middle of his journey he was set on by a band of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, stole everything he had, and left him there by the roadside half-dead.

‘Well, dangerous as it is, it’s a busy road, and soon afterwards, along came a priest. He took one look at the man covered in blood at the roadside, and decided to look the other way and go on without stopping. Then along came a temple official, and he too decided not to get involved; he passed by as quickly as he could.

‘But the next to come along was a Samaritan. He saw the wounded man, and he stopped to help. He poured wine on his wounds to disinfect them, and oil to soothe them, and he helped the man up on to his own donkey and took him to an inn. He gave the innkeeper money to look after him, and said, “If you need to spend more than this, keep an account, and I’ll pay it next time I’m passing.”

‘So here’s a question for you, in answer to your question of me: which of these three men, the priest, the official, and the Samaritan, was a neighbour to the man who was robbed on the Jericho road?’

The lawyer could only answer, ‘The one who helped him.’

‘That’s all you need to know,’ said Jesus. ‘Off you go, and do the same thing.’

Christ knew as he wrote it down that, for all its unfairness, people would remember that story much longer than they’d remember a legal definition.