Storytelling does not play a very significant role in modern life in the United States. Mostly we tell stories to children, although one occasionally hears stories in sermons and, less often, in other public speeches. Storytelling is now largely relegated to dinner tables and entertainments, but the situation was fundamentally different in first-century A.D. Mediterranean cultures.

In Greco-Roman society, storytelling ran the gamut of human activities from education (where the stories of Homer’s Iliad were copied, memorized, and recited), to philosophy (where stories of the philosopher formed a basic part of the teaching), to politics, religion, travel, and entertainment. Professional storytellers would be hired to entertain after dinner parties and other special events. Their stories might be the old classics or they might be new stories invented for the host. And a good storyteller was a valued traveling companion, because travel was a slow, boring process in the ancient world. (For an illustration of such story-telling travel, see the opening chapters of the Metamorphoses of Apuleius, a second-century comic novel.) Nearly all ancient literature and history, and a good deal of philosophy and religion, involved the telling of stories.

Much the same was true in Jewish culture, although their education centered on the stories of the Torah, from creation through the Exodus. When the prophet Nathan needed to challenge and condemn King David’s actions, he did it with a story (2 Sam 12). And when Jewish people gathered in their annual rituals to confess their faith in God, they did not formulate abstract creeds and doctrines. They told stories. Listen:
A wandering Aramean was my ancestor, who went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the LORD, the God of our ancestors; the LORD saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand ... and brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. (Deut 26.5–9)
Rather than abstract ideas about God, we find a story, or at least a summary of a story, about what God has done.

Given the pervasiveness of storytelling in Greco-Roman culture generally and in Jewish culture specifically, it is not surprising that Jesus is portrayed as a storyteller and that our understanding of him rests largely on stories told about him. These stories about Jesus circulated in various forms and activities, but most especially in early proclamations about Jesus, generally called sermons.

We should not think of these sermons as short lectures, however, but as lengthy story-telling events. The earliest reference we have to the shape and content of a sermon about Jesus comes from Acts. And the first sermon in Acts is what Peter is reported to have said on the day of Pentecost:

You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know—this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up… (Acts 2.22–24)

Again we have the synopsis of a story or, more accurately, of a series of stories. In actually delivering this sermon, the speaker would have filled out each part with stories about Jesus. Thus “a man attested to you by God with deeds of power” would have become a recital of a series of miracle stories; “handed over...crucified” would have involved the stories of Jesus’ betrayal, trial, and death on the cross; “God raised him up” would have included the telling of stories of the resurrection—the whole recital perhaps taking an hour or two. To be sure, the author of Acts is writing late in the first century and is adapting this sermon to fit the themes of the history of the church in which it occurs. For example, the sermon’s negative stance toward the Jews (or Israelites) fits the theme of Acts and probably represents an adaptation by the author. While we should not expect the stories in Acts to repeat for us just what was said in these early sermons, surely they represent the kind of story-telling sermon that early Christians expected.

In fact, many scholars believe that the basic shape of the four Gospels in the New Testament derives from such preaching, because they involve just these elements in this order: recital of powerful deeds, betrayal and death, resurrection. Whether or not there was a direct link from sermon to Gospel form, there is no denying that the Gospels consist almost entirely of a series of stories about Jesus—some of them involving stories Jesus told. We encounter one such double story with the parable of the Good Samaritan.

This parable is a story within a story, with the frame story shaping the hearers’ perception of the meaning of the inner story, the parable. Let us first consider how a parable works and then look at how the frame story influences our reading of the parable.

Parables are notoriously hard to define, in part because they exhibit a range of story types from allegory to riddle to example story. A parable is basically a compact story built on an implicit metaphoric comparison. This comparison can sometimes be direct (“The kingdom of heaven is like...;” see Matthew 13) but can just as easily be subtle and so leave the hearer to surmise what is being compared, for example, “A man had two sons...” in Luke 15.11-32. Some parables exhibit many individual points of comparison so that the parable moves toward allegory, for example, the parable of the sower in Mark 4. Other parables are best construed as having only one point of comparison, often an abstraction, for example, the parable of the unjust steward in Luke 16.

Rather than decide ahead of time just how the comparison works, it seems best to treat parables as unified stories. Explore how the story works: what is repeated? what is exaggerated? unexpected? what is the relationship between the characters? what is the climax of the story? Let the whole story make its impact before seeking for points of comparison. In the case of the Good Samaritan, the story is one of unexpected, even outrageous, benefaction. The first two characters (priest and Levite) show what one should expect, and the third character acts so generously that one could only conclude that he was either insane or a saint. To decide which, one would have to know a bit more about what was expected by the audience.

A great gap exists between the culture in which these stories were originally told and modern cultures. Rampant banditry, social stratification, laws of priestly purity, the value of denarii, and the status of Samaritans in Palestine are only a few of the things that need to be considered to understand the story. At a minimum we must understand that persons such as the lawyer in this story considered the Samaritans inferior in every way—not least in their (mis)understanding of the Law. To have a Samaritan hero turns the story on its head, or at least turns the hearers on their heads. Who can measure up to his excessive charity that not only goes to the aid of the victim but spends substantial money on his care and even promises to return to check on him and pay more if necessary? What is the point of such a story? What is being compared? Here one must notice a clear distinction between the parable and the story in which it is embedded.

Research about parables has made it quite apparent that they often served different purposes in their original context (as told by Jesus) and in their present context (in a Gospel). One should explore fully how the Gospel writer has shaped our reactions to the story by placing it in a specific context or frame and highlighting special emphases.

The Good Samaritan story is placed in a frame story of Jesus being tested by a lawyer and being forced to clarify what he understands by the Law’s demand that one should love one’s neighbor: who is the neighbor? Notice that neither the word nor the concept neighbor occurs in the parable itself. Yet the frame has so controlled our understanding of the Samaritan story that we readily accept that it is about the definition of neighbor.

A wonder of storytelling is that the same story can have quite different meanings when told in different contexts. One cannot exhaust the meaning of a story; stories take on new meanings as they are retold by new storytellers or in new contexts.