At first reading, this parable seems to be easy to understand, although that may be at least partially because it has entered the culture at such a deep level. In a cultural context, the good Samaritan is the person who responds to the need of others, binding up their wounds. It is the individual who does good deeds, who is compassionate, and behaves as a good neighbor within the community as a whole. The good Samaritan is a valuable person within the community.
However, in the form in which it is embedded in the culture, the parable of the good Samaritan has lost some of its rougher edges. It retains some sense that it is not always the professed religious person who behaves in the most loving way, but it does not retain the association of marginality that the original contained. In addition, there is little attention given to the original question that begins the parable: And who is my neighbor?
There are several questions that occur upon reading the passage. These include:
1. Was Jesus making the Samaritan an example of the kind of person who would inherit eternal life?
2. Was Jesus telling the lawyer to behave like the Samaritan?
3. Was Jesus implying that the Samaritan was the lawyer's neighbor whom he needed to love as himself?
In thinking about the context, as well as the passage itself, it seems as though Jesus is attempting to open up the lawyer's understanding to a more inclusive concept of community and neighbor. It is not just his family, not just members of his town or of his religion who are to be considered as neighbors, but all those who were in situations requiring compassion and care.
The first focus for understanding this parable is its context within the Bible itself. It seems very disconnected to the verses that immediately precede it, but the story that follows it seems to have a similar sort of message. In that story, Martha is the one who is doing the conventional right thing, whil...