Jesus, as he often does, turns things around, answering the question with a question: “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” He essentially sets up the hard truth that, “Sure, there IS a way to eternal life through your own efforts — but no one is capable of meeting that standard.”

The lawyer replies in verse 27, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” In verse 28, Jesus says, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

But then the bump in the road comes. In verse 29, the lawyer “desiring to justify himself,” asks Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

This is part of the human condition. We relentlessly strive to demonstrate our worthiness, to show how we earned this or that — and then we feel entitled. This lawyer wanted Jesus to qualify the law as a way to skirt around it, but in the end the lawyer knows he can’t love his neighbor as himself perfectly, no matter who the neighbor is!