Bill Mounce

For an Informed Love of God

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Monday, March 18, 2019

Who “Is” or “Becomes” your Neighbor? (Luke 10:36)

(You can watch this blog on YouTube)

Changes in tenses are important to note. Even if it is subtle, there is always a reason. Take the parable of the “Good Samaritan” (or as I liked to say when teaching at Azusa Pacific University, the “Good Biola Student”).

The lawyer’s question is, “Who is (ἐστίν) my neighbor”? (Luke 10:29). It was a limiting question, designed to restrict his responsibility to a smaller group. I would guess the lawyer was thinking in ethnic and geographical terms. “For whom do I have to be responsible?” (Correct grammar can sound so odd at times, can’t it?)

Jesus tells the parable and concludes, “Which of these three do you think was (γεγονέναι) a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” (10:36, NIV, also NLT). The problem with this translation is that γεγονέναι is a perfect, not an aorist. Why use a perfect?

The first clue is in Jesus’ actual answer. The issue is not who am I responsible to help. The issue is who I am able to help. The neighbor is the person who you are able to help, regardless of racial and geographical restraints.

The second clue is the verb used, γίνομαι, which generally indicates coming into a new state, “to become.”

Thirdly, since the perfect indicates a completed action, it changes the time frame from who currently is my neighbor to the past in which I have become a neighbor.

Given these facts, an aorist would not have communicated properly. It isn’t a matter of who was a neighbor (as if the focus were on the person in need), but an issue of what you have become to those in need.

You can see most of the other translations recognizing there is some meaning in the perfect. Most have “proved to be a neighbor” (NASB, ESV, CSB); the NET has “became a neighbor” and includes this note: “Do not think about who they are, but who you are.”

The simple “was” misses the point. It is not a matter of who was a neighbor (as if the focus were on the person in need) but who has become a neighbor by helping someone in need.

I know that you and I can’t help everyone, and there are times that it is not possible to help anyone. But our mindset should be to be mindful of those in need who we can help, whether they are next door or in Nepal. It is a mindset change.

Comments

¶ When reading this, I also picked up on the fact that πλησιον is parsed as an adverb, not a noun, making it really mean "neighbor-ly" (but only denoting proximity, not in the usual English connotation of being synonymous with "friendly"). So, it would be "...and the neighbor-ly of-you as yourself." That means that it would be broader than what we normally assume in English -- not the guy next door, but anyone who is acting as a neighbor. This makes two people on a road "neighbors" according to the way they are, not as a "person, place, or thing" (i.e. a noun). ¶ Given the above, "neighbor-ly is not reciprocal, as in English (i.e. if you are a neighbor to me, then it follows that I am a neighbor to you). ¶ That then makes interesting the subject vs. object of the transitive verb "become." It was the Samaritan who became neighbor-ly to the man in need, not the man in need who became neighbor-ly to the Samaritan. If it was the intransitive verb, εστιν, it would make less difference. That may seem a bit subtle, but it is even more convicting of the lawyer's responsibility. Jesus could have asked, "Who was the neighbor (or "neighbor-ly") to the three men who could have helped?" Then the lawyer would be back to the same question he asked. But the Samaritan became the neighbor (by his behavior, adverbially, the way he acted), as the lawyer was forced to admit, "the one who had mercy on him." By admitting that the Samaritan became neighbor-ly to the man in need, he is now logically forced to treat the Samaritan, or any Samaritan, the same way, regardless of the fact that the Samaritans were considered a despised class of people. ¶ Well, Jesus is ingenious in the way he poses dilemmas for people to solve. ¶ By the way, speaking of subject vs. object, on a minor grammar mistake, you have a bunch of instances of "who" that should be "whom" in your post. "Who" is English subjective case, like "he" or "they," whereas "whom" is English objective case, like "him" or "them." What helps with discerning "who" vs. "whom" is if one mentally substitutes "he" or "they" for "who," or "him" or "them" for "whom," and see if it still works. For example, "The issue is who I am able to help" should be, "The issue is whom I am able to help." Think of it as, "I am able to help them," not "I am able to help they."