Luke 10: 30-37, in verse 33, in the early 1st century, during Passover, Samaritans scattered human bones inside the Jerusalem Temple courts, an act of deliberate desecration that would have rendered the space ritually unclean. This was not a theological disagreement between denominations, this was generational hostility, layered and reinforced over centuries. Jews viewed Samaritans as compromised at best, heretical at worst, Samaritans returned the contempt in kind. Interaction between the two groups was minimal, sharing a meal was out of the question for many and Luke has been setting this tension up.
Luke 9:51-56, Jesus sent messengers ahead into a Samaritan village to prepare for his arrival, the village refused to receive him, because he was heading towards Jerusalem. The disciples James and John were so offended they asked Jesus, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them? Jesus rebuked them and moved on, but the incident hangs in the air. The audience listening to his parable has already been primed to think of Samaritans as hostile, so when Jesus makes the Samaritan the hero of his parable, he is not choosing a mildly unexpected character, he is choosing the last person his Jewish audience would want to owe their life to.
Jesus is forcing the Torah expert to look at his enemy and see the face of genuine love and the word Luke uses for what the Samaritan felt is about to change the entire weight of the parable, Luke 10:33, says the Samaritan saw him and had compassion. In Greek, the word is “splagchnizomai,” and this is where the parable goes from a good moral lesson to something far deeper, “splagchnizomai” comes from the noun splagchnon, which refers to the internal organs, the bowels, the gut. In the Greek world, the “splagchnon” were considered the seat of deep emotion, the way you might say something hit me in the gut or I felt it in my chest.
“Splagchnizomai” means to be moved at the deepest physical level, a reaction so strong it registers in the body before the mind has time too process it. This word appears 12 times in the New Testament and outside of this parable, it is used almost exclusively for one person, Jesus. When Jesus saw crowds wandering like sheep without a shepherd, the gospel says he was moved with splanchnizomai, Matthew 9:36. When he met the widow of Nain carrying her dead son to burial, he felt splagchnizomai, Luke 7:13.
When Jesus looked at a crowd of thousands who had followed his into a remote area and had nothing to eat, splagchnizomai, Matthew 14:14. When the father in the parable of the prodigal son saw his boy coming home down the road, the word is splagchnizomai, Luke 15:20. Splagchnizomai, this is not ordinary sympathy, it is the vocabulary the Gospels reserve for divine-level compassion, the kind that does not observe suffering from a safe distance, it enters it. Luke is making a deliberate choice by placing this word in the Samaritan’s chest.
Luke 9:51-56, Jesus sent messengers ahead into a Samaritan village to prepare for his arrival, the village refused to receive him, because he was heading towards Jerusalem. The disciples James and John were so offended they asked Jesus, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them? Jesus rebuked them and moved on, but the incident hangs in the air. The audience listening to his parable has already been primed to think of Samaritans as hostile, so when Jesus makes the Samaritan the hero of his parable, he is not choosing a mildly unexpected character, he is choosing the last person his Jewish audience would want to owe their life to.
Jesus is forcing the Torah expert to look at his enemy and see the face of genuine love and the word Luke uses for what the Samaritan felt is about to change the entire weight of the parable, Luke 10:33, says the Samaritan saw him and had compassion. In Greek, the word is “splagchnizomai,” and this is where the parable goes from a good moral lesson to something far deeper, “splagchnizomai” comes from the noun splagchnon, which refers to the internal organs, the bowels, the gut. In the Greek world, the “splagchnon” were considered the seat of deep emotion, the way you might say something hit me in the gut or I felt it in my chest.
“Splagchnizomai” means to be moved at the deepest physical level, a reaction so strong it registers in the body before the mind has time too process it. This word appears 12 times in the New Testament and outside of this parable, it is used almost exclusively for one person, Jesus. When Jesus saw crowds wandering like sheep without a shepherd, the gospel says he was moved with splanchnizomai, Matthew 9:36. When he met the widow of Nain carrying her dead son to burial, he felt splagchnizomai, Luke 7:13.
When Jesus looked at a crowd of thousands who had followed his into a remote area and had nothing to eat, splagchnizomai, Matthew 14:14. When the father in the parable of the prodigal son saw his boy coming home down the road, the word is splagchnizomai, Luke 15:20. Splagchnizomai, this is not ordinary sympathy, it is the vocabulary the Gospels reserve for divine-level compassion, the kind that does not observe suffering from a safe distance, it enters it. Luke is making a deliberate choice by placing this word in the Samaritan’s chest.
