Tag Archives: Good Samaritan

A Good Question for the Week

March 30, 2026 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

…but few things are needed—or indeed only one.
Luke 10:42a (NIV)

Most mornings as I sit in the quiet and meditate on the chapter there is one thing that jumps off the page. Other mornings, like this morning, there is a flow and a thread that runs through the episodes.

Today’s chapter contains four episodes. Each episode has its own lesson, but together they have a cohesive thought to send me into another work week.

First, Jesus expands the mission. Not just the Twelve now—others. Seventy-two unnamed, ordinary people.

He sends them out with almost reckless simplicity:

No purse
No bag
No sandals

In other words: No safety net but Me.

And what happens?
They come back breathless—“Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!”

Jesus smiles, but gently redirects their joy:

“Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but that your names are written in heaven.”

Jesus is saying, “Your identity isn’t in your power… it’s in your belonging.”

I love measurable wins—success, influence, outcomes.
Jesus whispers, “Tom, that’s not your truest scoreboard.”

My worth today is not in what I accomplish but in the quiet, unshakable reality that I am known and named.

In the second episode, Jesus grieves the towns that were centers of His ministry. They saw and heard everything… and they shrugged.

Jesus compares them to Tyre and Sidon—ancient enemies of Israel. It’s a shocking reversal: The outsiders would have responded… but you didn’t.

Familiarity can numb the soul.

I don’t drift from God because I lack information.
I drift because what was once electric becomes… ordinary.

The danger isn’t rebellion. It’s indifference.

I need to pay attention to what I’ve grown used to—grace, truth, the quiet nudges. I need to let them surprise me again.

Speaking of familiar, the third episode is the well-worn parable of the Good Samaritan.

A lawyer wants Jesus to define the limits of his responsibility. Jesus blows up the boundary lines.

A man is beaten on the road and left half-dead.
A preacher passes by…
An upstanding church member…
Then stops…one of those people… a Samaritan.

Samaritans and Jews had centuries of hostility. This isn’t just unlikely—it’s offensive. Jesus casts the enemy as the hero.

And notice the verbs:

He saw him
He felt compassion
He went to him
He bandaged
He carried
He paid

Love is not an attitude.
It’s an action, a movement toward.

My neighbor today isn’t theoretical.
It’s the inconvenient interruption right in front of me.

The road to Jericho winds its way through my day.

In the final episode, Jesus is having dinner at Mary and Martha’s house.

Martha is busy.
Mary is present.

Martha’s frustration spills out:

“Lord, don’t you care?”

Ugh! How many times have I whispered that question?

Jesus responds with tenderness, not rebuke:

“Martha, Martha… you’re worried and upset about many things, but only a few are needed – or indeed only one.”

“Many things” vs. “one thing.” The Greek carries the sense of fragmentation vs. wholeness.

Martha is pulled apart.
Mary is centered.
I can be very productive… and very divided inside.

The invitation isn’t to do less for Jesus.
It’s to be with Him first.

Before the emails.
Before the noise.
Before the long task list of responsibilities…

Sit down at the table.
Listen.
Let my soul breathe, and center.

And the through-line of these four episodes is an important question for my day and my week: Where is my center?

Is it in what I do? (the seventy-two)
In what I’ve grown used to? (the cities)
In where I draw my boundaries? (the lawyer)
In how busy I keep myself? (Martha)

Or…

Is it in being with Jesus—and letting everything else flow from there?

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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Chapter-a-Day

Jesus’ Way

December 14, 2023 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

[Jesus] replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Luke 10:18-20 (NIV)

Not long ago, I mentioned in a post that Jesus’ teaching was directed, not at nations or human institutions, but to individuals. It was directed to me. This is just one example of God’s message through Isaiah when He says, “Your ways are not my ways.”

Human institutions from Government to businesses to universities to churches operate on a system of top-down power structure. For human beings, this can work relatively well depending on the level of corruption, pride, and greed that exists in the upper levels of the system. The messiah that those of Jesus’ day were expecting was simply another version of this top-down paradigm. They expected the messiah to show up, wipe out evil through domination, put the Hebrews in charge, and exert salvation via righteous tyranny.

But, “your ways are not my ways” God had already proclaimed.

In today’s chapter, Jesus exemplifies the paradigm of His ways both via example and via parable.

Jesus appoints 72 more disciples and sends them out by two-by-two as as advance teams to the towns where He would be visiting. Their charge is to humbly stay with whoever will put them up and eat whatever they are given. No extra clothing. No purse full of money for emergencies. They are simply to do what Jesus did. Heal the sick, drive out demons, and proclaim the same teaching they’d heard from Jesus. If they were not welcomed, they simply wiped the dust off their feet and went to the next town. No demands. No force. No threats. Act humbly, live simply, and love mercifully.

Then a teacher of the law approaches Jesus. He is part of a human religious institution that operates like all human institutions. The elite and privileged at the top institutional food chain demand submission from the masses below. They drive obedience by threat of expulsion. They squash dissension and threats to the system (especially threats to the power and authority of the elites at the top of the system) with swift retribution, violence is used if needed.

The institutional lawyer asks Jesus what the law demands. Jesus quotes the two commandments that Jesus tells the crowds sum up God’s law: 1) Love God. 2) Love your neighbor. The institutional lawyer then asks Jesus to define “neighbor.” This prompts Jesus to launch into the famous story of the Good Samaritan.

What is lost on most casual readers is that Jesus deliberately describes those who pass by the robbed, bleeding, and injured man on the road as elite members of the very religious institution the lawyer represents. They are part of the human system which had, in top-down power fashion, exempted themselves from basic human compassion by dictating and justifying who was worthy of their precious time, energy, and resources both emotional and financial. In passing by the victim of assault and robbery lying on the road, these powerful figures of the religious institution were acting as they’d been taught and conditioned to behave by that system.

Jesus then chooses to describe the man who has compassion for the needy and helpless victim as a Samaritan. Samaritans were the enemy. Samaritans were excluded from the institutional religious system. The lawyer had been taught by the system to ignore, avoid, and treat Samaritans with prejudice, judgment, and contempt.

The Good Samaritan highlights Jesus’ ways, God’s ways. An individual acts with simply humility, compassion, mercy, and extravagant generosity towards another human being in need – even a stranger. This act is a bottom-up, subversive, human religious system disruptor, and it’s how Jesus intends His followers to change the world one humble act of charity at a time.

This bottom-up disruptor paradigm of God’s kingdom versus the world’s top-down power paradigm is highlighted once more by Jesus in today’s chapter. When the 36 advance teams return to Jesus, they report that they cast out demons and exercised power and authority over the powers of hell. Jesus quickly warns them not to let it go to their heads and infect their hearts. Rather, He tells them to humbly find joy that they have received love, mercy, and grace from God to be simple citizens and participants in God’s Kingdom.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself endeavoring to be a disruptor in this world. I don’t want to be a disruptor through power, politics, and protest. I want to be a disruptor Jesus’ way. I want to disrupt through bottom-up acts of love, humility, mercy, and generosity one needy person at a time.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Spiritual Bankruptcy

February 23, 2018 Tom Vander Well 2 Comments

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
1 Corinthians 13:1-7 (MSG)

It is possible to be religious, but not loving.
It is possible to be righteous, but not loving.
It is possible to be generous, but not loving.
It is possible to be doctrinally sound, but not loving.
It is possible to be right, but not loving.
It is possible to be politically correct, but not loving.
It is possible to be a defender of truth, but not love your enemy.
It is possible to know all scripture, but not love those who mock you.
It is possible to have spotless church attendance, but not love.
It is possible to have spiritual discipline, but not love.
It is possible to have success, but not love.
It is possible to have a million followers, but not love.
It is possible to have good intentions, but not love.

Jesus said there were two basic laws:
1) Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
2) Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

When pressed to define who He meant by “neighbor,” Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. In the story, the person who had love was a foreigner and an immigrant. The person who had love carried scars from being the victim of racial prejudice, injustice and systemic social, political, and economic ostracization. The person who had love held heretical doctrinal beliefs. The person who had love stood condemned by the prevailing institutional religion of which Jesus was a part. But, the hated, heretical, outcast foreigner had love, and Jesus’ story made clear that love was the one thing that mattered to God.

On this life journey I’ve taken a good hard look at myself, and the prevailing institutional religion of which I am a part.

We still haven’t learned the simple and most basic lesson Jesus ever taught. All of my spirituality, righteousness, and religion is bankrupt without love.

Lord, help me love.

featured image is a detail from the St. John’s Bible

Chapter-a-Day

Needed: A Good Samaritan in a Hell-Fire and Brimstone World

December 4, 2014 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

An illustration of the Parable of the Good Sam... — An illustration of the Parable of the Good Samaritan from the Rossano Gospels, believed to be the oldest surviving illustrated New Testament. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Such is the fate God allots the wicked,
the heritage appointed for them by God.”
Job 20:29 (NIV)

Zophar now responds to job, and there is a subtle yet major twist to the rhetoric. Up to this point, the three amigos have been making the case that, in this life, the righteous are blessed and the wicked suffer. Job continues to argue that he has done nothing to deserve the calamities he is suffering.

Zophar now expands the rhetoric and introduces the theme of death into the mix:

Though the pride of the godless person reaches to the heavens
    and his head touches the clouds,
he will perish forever, like his own dung;
    those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’
Like a dream he flies away, no more to be found,
    banished like a vision of the night.
The eye that saw him will not see him again;
    his place will look on him no more.
His children must make amends to the poor;
    his own hands must give back his wealth.
The youthful vigor that fills his bones
    will lie with him in the dust.

Their appeals are clearly not working, and the self-righteous trio are hell-bent on satiating their judgmental blood-lust. Zophar decides on escalate things to another level. It’s time to pull out the big guns. He brings out a little hell-fire and brimstone from the rhetorical arsenal to convince Job to repent before he dies and returns to the dust and remembered no more.

http://www.cbsnews.com/common/video/cbsnews_video.swf

I remember seeing a story on CBS Sunday Morning several weeks ago (the show is part of the Sunday morning ritual for Wendy and me) exploring our concepts of heaven and hell. They interviewed an old hellfire and brimstone preacher and included a clip of his fear inducing rants from the pulpit. It seems to me he must be a spiritual descendant of Zophar. I sometimes have a hard time reconciling the appeal to fear with the example of Jesus who said He didn’t come to condemn, but to save. At the same time, even Jesus was known to utter a stern warning now and then, and I have come to realize along the journey that God uses all sorts of messengers and messages to reach the ears of His lost children.

Today, I am thinking about Zophar and his friends, who seem more concerned with proving themselves right than about loving, comforting, and easing Job’s pain. It’s as if their spiritual world view carries more importance than a simple act of kindness. They seem like the good religious folks who passed by the mugging victim in the parable of the Good Samaritan. It wasn’t the righteous, religious folks who acted in accordance with the heart of God, but the unrighteous, on-his-way-to-hell-in-a-handbasket bloke from the other side of the tracks in Samaria who simply acted with compassion and kindness.

Job needs a Samaritan. So do a lot of other hurting people. That’s who I want to be.

Chapter-a-Day

Good Samaritan Redux

October 9, 2014 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

Solomon conscripted the descendants of all these peoples remaining in the land—whom the Israelites could not exterminate—to serve as slave labor, as it is to this day. But Solomon did not make slaves of any of the Israelites; they were his fighting men, his government officials, his officers, his captains, and the commanders of his chariots and charioteers. 1 Kings 9:21-22 (NIV)

I find it fascinating that throughout history almost every tribe, nation, and people on this earth have practiced some form of racial or tribal differentiation, dominance, and inequity. The systemic system of conscripted slavery described during Solomon’s reign is not unlike what the Israelites themselves experienced in Egypt, and what they would someday experience again with the occupations of Assyria and Babylon. What goes around comes around.

I sometimes hear people speak as if the world is getting better all the time, and that humanity is moving towards peace, harmony, and universal political correctness. Then I watch the evening news. Beheadings, genocide, mass graves, tribal conflict, racial discrimination, and religious intolerance are commonplace. We are all guilty.

Next to the major problems of the world that get pushed to the home screen of my phone on a constant basis, I sometimes feel small and insignificant living in my little Iowa hometown. I hear Humphrey Bogart’s voice in my head from Casablanca as Rick says to Laszlow: “The problems of the world are not in my department.”

And yet, they are in my department. I affect the people and world around me in my sphere of influence. I can recognize and fight the prejudices in my own thoughts, words, relationships, and actions. Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan was about the reality that the “neighbor” in His command to “love your neighbor as yourself” was not just your homogenous tribal group but also the person who is your tribal, racial, social and political enemy. The Jews and Samaritans hated each other the same way the Jews and Palestinians hate each other today. THAT was the whole point of the story.

This morning I wake up far from home amidst a culture very different from my own. I can choose to hold these people, who are very different from me, at arm’s length. Or, I can fight my natural inclinations and choose to understand them, listen to them, feel for them, and love them as I love the quirky white people of my Dutch American heritage back home.