There is a sentence in the Good Samaritan story that almost nobody puts on coffee mugs.
“The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have’” (Luke 10:35)”
That is the moment mercy hits the ledger.
By that point, the Samaritan has already done plenty. He has stopped on a dangerous road. He has interrupted his own schedule. He has cleaned wounds. He has lifted dead weight. He has walked while the wounded man rode. Any one of those actions would have made for a decent sermon.
But Jesus keeps going.
The Samaritan pays.
Then he promises to pay more.
When Compassion Becomes a Line Item
That is where the parable moves from sentiment to sacrifice. Compassion is no longer just a feeling in the chest. It becomes a line item. It touches the wallet. It changes the calendar. It rearranges the plans. It costs something.
And that may be one of the reasons we keep trying to soften the story.
We love the idea of mercy until mercy starts asking for access to the budget.
In my new book, The Road We Must Travel Again, I call this the denarii decision. It is the moment when compassion stops being something we applaud on Sunday and becomes something we fund on Monday all year long. The Samaritan does not offer a vague prayer and keep riding. He underwrites the man’s recovery.
Mercy that never reaches your money was never really mercy. It was just a mood.
Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). Notice the order. He did not say your heart leads and your treasure politely follows. He said your treasure goes first, and your heart eventually catches up.
That is true personally.
It is also true institutionally.
Open your personal bank statement, and you will see your discipleship pathway.
Open your church budget, and you will see your real mission statement.
Your Budget Preaches
That may sound a little intense, but budgets preach. They preach what we value, what we protect, what we fear, and what we are willing to risk. Every dollar tells a story. The question is whether that story sounds like the Jericho Road or just the comfort of our own campus.
We are living in a remarkable moment. The spiritual field is more open than many leaders realize. Barna research reported that 74 percent of U.S. adults say they want to grow spiritually, and 44 percent say they are more open to God today than before the pandemic.¹ At the same time, the tools available to reach, care for, disciple, and follow up with people have never been more powerful.
And yet, many churches still underfund the road.
Sadly, most church budgets in America will spend 85% of their revenue on facilities and payroll. Another 13% on operations and expenses, and only 2% on outreach.² And only a portion of those few dollars is spent digitally. That is not a condemnation. It is an invitation. I have a short video and article that dives deeper into the topic of “Building a Missions Focused Budget” that I would highly recommend you watch.
Can I just say it with a smile? We cannot say the road matters and then give it leftover gravel.
The world understands investment. McKinsey estimated that generative AI could add $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion in annual value to the global economy.³ Business leaders are pouring resources into tools that increase productivity, personalization, and reach.
So here is the pastoral question.
If the world is investing billions to reach consumers, what should the Church be willing to invest to reach people?
Not clicks. People.
Not impressions. Souls.
Not followers. Neighbors lying in the ditch.
The priest and the Levite were not cartoon villains. They were probably responsible, respected, and very busy. They may have had meetings to attend, obligations to fulfill, and legitimate reasons to keep moving. But history does not remember their schedules. It remembers their silence.
That should make every pastor pause.
Because busyness can become one of the most respectable and unidentified forms of disobedience. We can be busy maintaining ministry while stepping around mission.
We can be busy managing the room while ignoring the road. We can be busy counting attendance while missing the wounded.
The Samaritan shows us another way.
He does not just see the need. He assumes responsibility.
He does not just feel compassion. He builds a recovery plan and funds it.
He does not just start the rescue. He is willing to invest in the follow-through.
Better with Moments than Pathways
That is the part many churches must recover. We have become better at moments than pathways. Better at decisions than discipleship. Better at attracting crowds than carrying people to maturity. But the Good Samaritan does not merely get the man off the road. He gets him to a place of healing, pays for his care, and promises to return.
Pastors, leaders, and board members, this is where the conversation gets practical. If we want to move toward the primary purpose again, we need more than vision language. We need denarii decisions that give adequate funding toward reaching the harvest. We are truly in a Gutenberg moment and can’t miss our visitation (which will be a key topic in my upcoming book, The New Roman Road, which will be released shortly.)
Budget Considerations that Will Cost You Something
Audit the ledger.
Take the last twelve months of your church expenses and ask a simple question. How much of this directly helps us reach people far from God, care for the wounded, and form disciples who can carry others? Not how much sounds ministry-adjacent. Not how much keeps the machine running. How much actually gets mercy onto the road?
Create a mercy line.
Build a budget category that exists for costly compassion. Benevolence. Outreach. Digital evangelism. Follow-up. Community care. Foster families. Single parents. Recovery ministry. Counseling assistance. Local partnerships. Do not wait until a crisis appears and then scramble for compassion. P re-decide generosity.
Fund the front door.
Today, the first visit often happens before the parking lot. It happens through search, social media, texting, livestreams, digital ads, short-form testimony, and personal follow-up. If people are looking for hope at midnight, the Church should not be invisible until Sunday at 10:00 a.m. The digital road is not the enemy of the embodied church. It is often the first mile toward it. And by the way, we would love to help you with this at VisitorReach
Tell the stories.
Statistics inform people, but stories form people. Celebrate every time generosity puts someone on the donkey. Tell the story of the single mom who was helped, the teenager who was discipled, the addict who found recovery, the neighbor who found church through a text, the family who came because someone answered their message with warmth and prayer.
Lead personally.
No church will become more sacrificial than its leaders. Generosity is not taught only through sermons. It is modeled through choices. Leaders do not need to perform their giving, but they do need to live lives worthy of imitation. So goes the leader, so goes the church.
Here is the invitation.
Let generosity stretch you again.
Let your next yes to God reach more than your emotions. Let it reach your spreadsheet. Let it rearrange your Amazon cart. Let it interrupt a board meeting. Let it make your team ask better questions. Let it move your church from maintenance to mission.
Mercy that never costs you will rarely change you.
But mercy that costs you might just change your city.
The Samaritan had no idea his two coins would echo through history. He did not know pastors would still be preaching about his decision two thousand years later. He simply saw a wounded man and decided that love required more than sympathy.
That is still the call.
Jesus is still walking the road.
People are still lying in the ditch.
And heaven is still looking for churches and leaders willing to say, “Put it on my tab. I’ll come back and check on them” (Luke 10:35).⁴
It’ll cost you something.
But on the road, we must travel again; that is where the miracles live.
For more on this call back to mercy-driven evangelism, order Marc Estes’ new book, The Road We Must Travel Again, now available through the Marc Estes website.
Endnotes
- Barna Group research, reported by The Christian Post, found that 74 percent of U.S. adults said they wanted to grow spiritually, and 44 percent said they were more open to God than before the pandemic. See the link below. https://www.barna.com/research/rising-spiritual-openness/
- VisitorReach video and article, “Building a Mission Focused Budget.”
- McKinsey Global Institute, The Economic Potential of Generative AI: The Next Productivity Frontier, June 2023. McKinsey estimated generative AI could add $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion annually across analyzed use cases.
- Luke 10:35, New International Version. Bible Gateway notes that a denarius was the usual daily wage of a day laborer.