Good Samaritan, Luke 10:37 Wall Art

The scene on the Jericho road

The Samaritan crouches over the injured man, a striped cloth wound around his head and a rust shawl thrown over a blue robe. With one hand he presses a folded cloth to the stranger's brow. The wounded man lies on his back in a torn tunic, eyes closed, a bandage already tied around his head and red scrapes along his arm and chest. Behind them waits a gray donkey loaded with blankets and bundles, and a clay jar stands on the stones, the kind that would have carried oil or wine.

Far off, a pale road climbs toward a hilltop town with cypress trees, the place both men were traveling from or toward. Above it all, in brown script, runs the command “Go, and do thou likewise,” with Luke 10:37 written more modestly below.

What does Luke 10:37 mean?

The parable begins with a lawyer testing Jesus. He knows the commandment to love his neighbor as himself, so he asks the follow-up question that might limit it: “And who is my neighbour?” (Luke 10:29). Jesus answers with a story instead of a definition. A man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho is robbed and left half dead. A priest sees him and passes on the other side; so does a Levite. Then a Samaritan comes along, bandages the wounds, pours in oil and wine, puts the man on his own animal, takes him to an inn and pays for his care.

For the first listeners, that hero was a shock. Jews and Samaritans had centuries of hostility behind them, disputing everything from the right temple to the right Scriptures. Jesus then turns the lawyer's question around. He no longer asks who deserves help, but “which now of these three” acted as a neighbor. The lawyer cannot bring himself to say “the Samaritan”; he answers, “He that shewed mercy on him.” Jesus replies with five words: “Go, and do thou likewise.”

That ending is why the verse works on a wall. It is not a comforting promise but an instruction, addressed to whoever reads it, about the next person on their own road.

For a church hall, a classroom or a baptism

This is one of the first parables children learn, so the print suits a Sunday school room, a youth ministry office or a church entryway where volunteers come and go. Pastors and chaplains often keep it near a desk as a reminder of what the work is for. It is also chosen for a baptism, for families who want the child's first Bible verse to be a call to kindness. Nurses, social workers and first responders recognize themselves in it too.