DO WE LOOK AND PASS BY ON TO THE OTHER SIDE?
A crowd had gathered to listen to Jesus as He taught. A man who was a law professor, one skilled in religious dogmas of Jesus own tradition, a kind of "Ph.D." in rabbinical studies, stood up to ask a question. The crowd was no doubt, stunned to silence, for it seemed that a real confrontation had begun. A crowd likes a confrontation. Jesus, the barefooted son of a carpenter, on the one side and this Rabbinical expert, with his scholar's shawl draped over his shoulder, on the other. The question is asked. vs.25. (Discuss & read through vs. 28) He pressed further vs. 29.
He wouldn't give away the identity of the man's
We don't need to know any of that. Why do we need footnotes of him? Jesus left all that information out! A certain man .. Could have been anyone on this Jericho road.
The journey was 17 dangerous miles through lonely rocky, rough desert. And it's still 17 lonely miles. Robbers & muggers were known to attack travelers. They stripped him.
1. We cannot identify him by his clothes
2. We can't tell anything by the cut of his garments, the depth of the border, the hem of he cloth, or the color of the cloth.
3. We can't tell whether he was a poor man with a cheaply woven piece of cloth or a rich man with a cloth of smooth purple and a deep hem.
4. We don't have the advantage of getting our prejudices working. A certain man.
He was naked so there was no clue of his status. He was unconscious so we can't hear his accent
So since he was without clothes and without consciousness, we can't tell who was lying there. Jesus fixed it that way.
No special class or race, just a human being in need, half dead, beaten and robbed. We don't know how well educated he was or how poor he was. We don't know what family he came from nor what side of town he lived on.
Barely breathing, bloody & near death the "certain man" was left to die. But still as he lies there he...