The situation was this: A young Jewish lawyer wanted to reassure himself that he was doing the right thing. To help him, Jesus took the opportunity to tell him a story. The story was designed to set the young man straight.

The story begins the way a lot of stories begin. "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho" (Luke 10:30). At this point, we aren't told anything about the man. Not his nationality or even his name is revealed to us. He was simply a man traveling down the road.

The road the man was traveling on remains, to this day, as one of the most dangerous roads in the world, the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. In a little less than eighteen miles, the road drops from 2,500 feet above sea level at Jerusalem to 770 feet below sea level at Jericho. For as long as anyone can rem…