In Pagan Surroundings
Opening Prayer
Jesus, draw me to You. May I thirst for Your Living Water.
Read John 4:1–26
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
Think of the kind of woman this was. Would you have had the conversation Jesus had with her?Traditionally, Jews avoided Samaria. They regarded the Samaritans as an unclean race. Yet we read that Jesus had to go via Samaria. Why? Because he had an appointment. We don’t know her name. But her one-on-one chat with Jesus is the longest recorded in Scripture.
Note who opens the conversation: the woman certainly doesn’t. She knows the rules. Jews may not speak to Samaritans, nor may a rabbi ever speak to a woman like her. In any case, women may only speak to men with their husbands present. But Jesus ignores the rules. He is more concerned with reaching this woman with the Gospel.
Jesus starts where the woman is (7). She needs water. Jesus highlights that and offers her a gift in response. A gift? Living water? Jesus certainly knows how to catch a person’s attention. “Go call your husband,” he says. This would make their conversation acceptable, but is that why Jesus said this?
With disease, war, crime and easy divorce laws, the woman may well have come by all her
husbands legitimately. But she is now living in sin, and Jesus knows that. So she does what people still do when they are confronted by the Gospel: she starts a religious debate. How do you suppose she felt when Jesus made his startling statement (26)?
Apply
We have an incredible gift to offer the world. Is there someone you know who needs the water of life? Share the gift!
Closing prayer
What are you thirsty for? Speak to Jesus about it now.
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