And one of them, a teacher of the law, asked Him a question to test Him, and said.
From among the Pharisees one comes forward, a teacher of the Law—that is, a literate man, deeply familiar with the Mosaic Law. The purpose of his question was not ignorance, but testing Jesus; he wanted to trap Jesus by asking a question that could stir up contradiction both among the Law’s various interpreters and among the people. The teacher of the Law tried to measure the wisdom of the Son of God by human knowledge, but, as we will see next, he would meet an answer that would reveal the essence of the Law: love. This verse exposes spiritual blindness, when a person has knowledge, yet that knowledge is not used to grasp the truth and to guide people on the path of salvation, but is used to test the Son of God.