Jesus the Christ A Study of the Messiah and His Mission...

We have seen that the Pharisees and their kind were constantly on the alert to annoy and if possible disconcert Jesus on questions of law and doctrine, and to provoke Him to some overt utterance or deed.[905] It may be such an attempt that is recorded by Luke in immediate sequence to his account of the joyous return of the Seventy,[906] for he tells us that the "certain lawyer," of whom he speaks, put a question to tempt Jesus. Viewing the questioner's motive with all possible charity, for the basal meaning of the verb which appears in our version of the Bible as "to tempt" is that of putting to test or trial and not necessarily and solely to allure into evil,[907] though the element of entrapping or ensnaring is connoted, we may assume that he wished to test the knowledge and wisdom of the famous Teacher, probably for the purpose of embarrassing Him. Certainly his purpose was not that of sincere search for truth.

This lawyer, standing up among the people who had gathered to hear Jesus, asked: "Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"[908] Jesus replied by a counter question, in which was plainly intimated that if this man, who was professedly learned in the law, had read and studied properly, he should know without asking what he ought to do. "What is written in the law? how readest thou?" The man replied with an admirable summary of the commandments: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself"[909] The answer was approved. "This do, and thou shalt live" said Jesus. These simple words conveyed a rebuke, as the lawyer must have realized; they indicated the contrast between knowing and doing. Having thus failed in his plan to confound the Master, and probably realizing that he, a lawyer, had made no creditable display of his erudition by asking so simple a question and then answering it himself, he tamely sought to justify himself by inquiring further; "And who is my neighbour?" We may well be grateful for the lawyer's question; for it served to draw from the Master's inexhaustible store of wisdom one of His most appreciated parables.