Daily Bible Reading 23rd August 2026 // Luke 10:25-37
25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 And he answered, “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 neighbour as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 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. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbour to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
These verses record one of the best known stories in all Scripture; but it is one - with the question that gave rise to it - that gives rise to major problems of interpretation which will have to be looked at before we can come to a meaningful exposition of the parable. The first problem concerns the question the lawyer asked Jesus and the answer our Lord gave. How to obtain eternal life - this is the question of questions, indeed! We should notice first of all that Jesus refers the man to the Scriptures for the answer to it (26 - cf also Matthew 19:17; John 5:39). There is deep significance in this. It is basic to everything in the Christian Faith. God has revealed Himself in His Son, and that revelation is inscripturated, in the sense that all we can ever know of Christ, and therefore of God Who has revealed Himself in His Son, is known through the Scriptures. The inevitable place, therefore, and the only place, to turn to for an answer to this question, is the Scripture. But, that having been said, we are faced with a real perplexity. For the Scripture seems to give two different kinds of answer to the lawyer's question. On the one hand, as here, the question is answered in terms of law (27); while on the other, it is answered in terms of faith alone (Acts 16:31). Nor is this disparity one that can be said to represent a difference between the teaching of Jesus and that of the apostles - for we find both emphases in Jesus' teaching and in the apostles' alike (cf Luke 18:20, contrasted with John 6:28, 29; Acts 16:31, contrasted with Romans 2:7). And we must concede to our Lord and the apostles that they were consistent, not only with one another, but also within their own teaching. They would not say one thing on one occasion and contradict it on another. It must be possible to regard these apparent contradictions as complementing one another. We shall look at this possibility in tomorrow's Note.