“Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’ (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?’ (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink,” you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come here.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am he.’ Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you seek?’ or, ‘Why are you talking with her?’ So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?’ They went out of the town and were coming to him. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, ‘Rabbi, eat.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Has anyone brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, “There are yet four months, then comes the harvest”? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, “One sows and another reaps”’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.’”
The encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well may be one of the best known stories from the gospels. That being said, before diving into the particulars of the account, it’s crucial to understand the dynamic between Jews and Samaritans that existed at the time, so that the profound nature of Jesus’s actions can be taken into consideration, and the situation viewed through the right lens.
2 Kings 17:24-41,
“And the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel. And they took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities. And at the beginning of their dwelling there, they did not fear the LORD. Therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which killed some of them. So the king of Assyria was told, ‘The nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the god of the land. Therefore he has sent lions among them, and behold, they are killing them, because they do not know the law of the god of the land.’ Then the king of Assyria commanded, ‘Send there one of the priests whom you carried away from there, and let him go and dwell there and teach them the law of the god of the land.’ So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel and taught them how they should fear the LORD. But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the shrines of the high places that the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities in which they lived. The men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, the men of Cuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima, and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. They also feared the LORD and appointed from among themselves all sorts of people as priests of the high places, who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places. So they feared the LORD but also served their own gods, after the manner of the nations from among whom they had been carried away. To this day they do according to the former manner. They do not fear the LORD, and they do not follow the statutes or the rules or the law or the commandment that the LORD commanded the children of Jacob, whom he named Israel. The LORD made a covenant with them and commanded them, ‘You shall not fear other gods or bow yourselves to them or serve them or sacrifice to them, but you shall fear the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm. You shall bow yourselves to him, and to him you shall sacrifice. And the statutes and the rules and the law and the commandment that he wrote for you, you shall always be careful to do. You shall not fear other gods, and you shall not forget the covenant that I have made with you. You shall not fear other gods, but you shall fear the LORD your God, and he will deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies.’ However, they would not listen, but they did according to their former manner. So these nations feared the LORD and also served their carved images. Their children did likewise, and their children’s children—as their fathers did, so they do to this day.”
It should be noted that the ending, “so they do to this day” does not reflect this behavior throughout time, but up to the point of the writing of 2 Kings, which Jewish tradition attributes to the prophet Jeremiah, and would have been recorded during the Babylonian exile, which is also when we see Ezekiel and Daniel written. Regardless, this shows the framework for the establishment of Samaria. We see that their practices were not all that different from that of God’s people, especially up to the point of the Babylonian exile and the destruction of the temple. Much of 1 and 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles deals with God’s people offering up some of their worship to Him, but also maintaining the “high places,” these sites of worship devoted to false pagan gods and idols, which Soloman first sets up in 1 Kings 11. In all this we see that the practices of the Samaritans and those of the Jews, at least up to a certain historical point were very similar. But the Samaritans, being a mixed people of Jews and other people groups, are considered unclean, even into Jesus’s time. They worship God, but they have their own version of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible, which incidentally are all the Sadducees counted as cannon), not being permitted to worship in the temple in Jerusalem, they have their own temple site in Samaria. This is in sharp contrast to what we see from most gentiles. While the Samaritans may have severe flaws in the execution of their worship and teaching concerning God, their aim is still to worship Him. The Samaritans, though of mixed ancestry and culture, come from some of the same descendants as the Jews, with the woman at the well acknowledging Jacob as their father much the same way we see the Jews refer to Abraham as theirs. The Samaritans were a people with so much historical and Spiritual groundwork laid, they should have been ripe for proper teaching and instruction. Jesus illustrates the connection by using a Samaritan as an example of one’s neighbor in Luke 10:29-37, though this parable is of course not limited to Samaritans. But despite the rich framework laid within the Samaritan people, they are openly rejected by most Jews, with some of the most stringent and devout even refusing to cross through Samaria to go between Judea and Galilee, for fear of becoming ritually unclean. It helps illustrate the prejudice, to think that there were those who would cross the Jordan river to move north or south on the opposite bank before crossing back, rather than go straight through Samaritan territory. We see the reverse play out in Luke 9:51-56,
“When the days drew near for him (Jesus) to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, ‘Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?’ But he turned and rebuked them. And they went on to another village.”
It doesn’t say that Jesus was rejected purely because He was Jewish, but because “his face was set toward Jerusalem” which underpins the Samaritan contempt or bias toward the ruling Jews. Bearing all of these variables in mind in makes sense that Jesus, with a ministry that is steadily gaining momentum, begins the process of tearing down these walls and reaching the Samaritan people.
“Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.”
While there are a significant number of times throughout the Gospels where Jesus squares off with religious officials, we also see Him maneuver at times to avoid direct contact or interaction with them. We see in John 7 that Jesus is not moving openly around Judea, because the Jews are actively seeking to kill Him and His “time has not yet come.” In Luke 4:16-30, Jesus’s proclamation and teaching enrages those in the Synagogue at Nazareth so that they actively move to kill Him by throwing Him from a cliff, but He moves through the crowd and leaves. John 8:31-59 shows such a heated exchange between Jesus and the ruling Jews that, following His declaration in verse 58, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” they move to stone Him, but Jesus hides himself and leaves the temple. It’s important to see all of this with the proper perspective. It’s not that Jesus was afraid to die, or feared any earthly thing for that matter, but that the hour of His sacrificial death was perfectly orchestrated. He went willingly to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. He cleanses the temple (again), and then teaches in the temple with such boldness that it forces the Sanhedrin to take action against Him, despite them not wanting to during the Passover. Jesus was crucified and the wrath of God poured out on Him, taking the place of all mankind. But as the Good Shepherd, He was not killed, but offered up His life. Both Matthew and John’s gospels use the phrasing that Jesus “yielded” or “gave up” His spirit in His death (Matthew 27:50, John 19:30). Luke’s account (Luke 23:46) records Jesus saying, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” Quoting Psalm 31:5,
“Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God.”
This once again emphasizes the point that His death was divinely orchestrated and entirely voluntary. Seeing that His ministry is growing and surpassing that of John the Baptist, and that the Pharisees had learned about this, it makes sense that Jesus moves the geographical focal point. This seems to serve the dual purpose of reaching out to the Samaritans who were in desperate need of proper teaching, and going somewhere that the Pharisees were highly unlikely to follow Him.
“And he had to pass through Samaria.”
Use of the phrase “had to” is significant here. It reinforces that the trip through Samaria was one of intent and purpose, not simply the shortest route from point A to point B. This in itself affirms the divinity and overarching perfection of the plans of Christ.
“So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.”
Sychar gives us a point of geographical reference that puts Jesus almost in the very center of Samaria. He didn’t start His ministry on the fringes of the region, but proceeded to the very heart and began His work there. The reference to the field that Jacob gave to Joseph and the well there, which points back to Genesis, once again emphasizes the historical connection between the Jews and the Samaritans, their shared ancestors and land. While John’s gospel has reemphasized the point of Christ’s deity again and again, here we’re plainly allowed to see the human side of Jesus. It’s around noon, and Jesus, tired, stops to rest.
“A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’ (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?’ (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)”
Historical information, but also, common sense, tells us that one of the hottest parts of the day is not when people would have normally left their town to go to the well to draw water, so the woman coming to the well now stands out as out of place. Jesus being there, alone while His disciples go to purchase food, coupled with the odd timing of the woman’s arrival helps point us again to the master plan functioning in the mind of Christ. This wasn’t an accidental meeting that Jesus used as an opportunity, it was orchestrated. Jesus speaking to her and moreover, requesting a drink is culturally odd, which is reflected in her response. But this helps emphasize the desire for reconciliation from God between Him and His people.
Ezekiel 37:26-27,
“I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Luke 15:3-6,
“So he told them this parable: ‘What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.”’”
Luke 19:10,
“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
So Jesus, having divine foresight and knowing that He will meet this woman at the well, breaches social norms and addresses her first. She questions Him asking for a drink as well, since the Jews would have considered Samaritans to be in a constant state of ceremonial uncleanness, and wouldn’t have touched them, or shared drinking vessels. But Jesus shows Himself unconcerned with ceremonial rules and customs that aren’t grounded in the Spirit, and that is where He directs the conversation.
“Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink,” you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’”
To the woman, this is nothing more than an earthly interaction between two people, albeit an odd one given cultural implications. She is understandably focused on the physical, practical elements of the situation. Jesus however, showing concern for the Spiritual implications of the exchange, points her toward things that are unimaginably grand and progressively draws their exchange in this direction. She lacks understanding of the gift of God and of course doesn’t know what it is that Jesus can offer her.
Revelation 21:6,
“And he said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.”
Revelation 22:1-2,
“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city…”
Revelation shows us in the new heaven that the water of life is given freely, flowing in abundance from the throne of God and the Lamb.
John the Baptist says in Mark 1:8,
“I have baptized you with water, but he (Jesus) will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
This is clarified further in John 7:37-39,
“On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
My Bible cross references Jesus’s quote with Proverbs 18:4 which says,
“The words of a man’s mouth are deep waters; the fountain of wisdom is a bubbling brook.”
Putting all this together we have a clear picture of what Jesus offers all who come to Him: Wisdom and understanding, the gifts of God, and a baptism in Spirit that sates a thirst that exists on a level far beyond our flesh. This again attests to the co-equality of the Father and Son, with the river flowing from the throne of “God and of the Lamb.” Only God can give these gifts, and in His offering of living water, Jesus again reveals His deity.
“The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.’”
While still not grasping the full scope of the conversation, the woman gets that there is something beyond the normal being offered. Having nothing to draw water with, Jesus producing water here would be a physically impossible feat. Producing “living water” would be a miracle, and so she references the religious figure who first claimed their land and who their lineage would stem from, Jacob, asking if Jesus is greater than him? It was acknowledged in verse 6 that Sychar was “near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.” We see the land originally obtained in Genesis 33:18-20,
“And Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, on his way from Paddan-aram, and he camped before the city. And from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, he bought for a hundred pieces of money the piece of land on which he had pitched his tent. There he erected an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel.”
And the land left to Joseph in Genesis 48:21-22,
“Then Israel said to Joseph, ‘Behold, I am about to die, but God will be with you and will bring you again to the land of your fathers. Moreover, I have given to you rather than to your brothers one mountain slope that I took from the hand of the Amorites with my sword and with my bow.’”
Not to derail things from John 4 entirely, but there are some discrepancies between these two passages that I would like to clarify. First is that Genesis 33 says that the land was in Canaan, but Genesis 48 specifies that it was taken from the Amorites. In doing a little research, I found this,
“The term Amorites as used in the Bible is sometimes interchangeable with Canaanite. At other times Canaanite is more general, and Amorite is a specific group among the Canaanites.”
The second possible discrepancy is that Genesis 33 states that the land was bought, while Genesis 48 says that the land was taken “with my sword and with my bow.” Both are true. Jacob purchases a plot of land, and we see in Genesis 34:7 that his sons return from being out in the field, supporting that they were occupying the property with their livestock. But the primary story of Genesis 34 is considerably darker. When Shechem the son of Hamor sees Jacob’s daughter Dinah he “seized her and lay with her and humiliated her.” But after mistreating her in this way, he seems to fall in love with her and seeks to marry her. Jacob’s sons are (understandably) not happy about what has been done to their sister and through deceit (read Genesis 34 for the full account), they kill not just Shechem and his father, but all the men and conquer the city. This means that the region as a whole was purchased in part, and the rest won by force of arms.
Returning to John 4, the Samaritan woman making a point to reference Jacob as their father and ancestor reflects again the predisposition the Samaritans have toward receiving the message of Christ because of their mixed history. They don’t count themselves as a people who adopted worshiping God but look to it as an ancestral right and privilege. They seem to consider themselves God’s people in the same way that the Jews do. Her mentioning that Jacob owned the well and drank from it along with his sons and livestock shows a sense of permanence and ownership. This wasn’t just a place that he passed through but was his land and home. Although she doesn’t mention it, Joshua 24:32 also shows us this land is where Joseph’s bones were laid to rest,
“As for the bones of Joseph, which the people of Israel brought up from Egypt, they buried them at Shechem, in the piece of land that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for a hundred pieces of money. It became an inheritance of the descendants of Joseph.”
She is referencing the strongest, most spiritually affirming ties she knows in questioning Jesus about His offered miracle. Jesus, speaking as a Jew, doesn’t tell her she’s wrong or argue lineage with her. He ultimately does the same thing for her that he’s done for the Jews – He takes a focus that’s centered on physical validation and turns it to the Spirit.
“Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.’”
Instead of contradicting or arguing with what the woman has said, Jesus begins to explain that what He is offering is greater than historical ties, land ownership or lineage. What He offers is refreshment for the soul and eternal life. The woman however, is still hung up on the physical elements of things (which I don’t hold against her). Water that sates thirst forever would be a miraculous gift and keep her from having to return to the well again and again. She still doesn’t grasp exactly what’s being offered, but she does express a desire for it. Moving past her request, Jesus gives her instruction that brings us to why she’s coming to the well alone, in the hottest part of the day, instead of with the rest of the women at the customary time.
“Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come here.’ The woman answered him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, “I have no husband”; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.’”
As we’ve seen multiple times up to this point, particularly in calling His disciples, Jesus shows His divine foreknowledge. We don’t know why she has had five husbands, but putting together some cultural pieces can give us some clues. While Hellenist women were technically free to leave their husbands and divorce them, this was not something available to women under Mosaic law. Men on the other hand (depending on their particular interpretation of the law), had a very different set of options. While adultery was (and is) the most prevalent Biblical example of grounds for breaking the covenant of a marriage, there were those that held that simple things were grounds for divorce. Ranging from something as trivial as burning dinner, to the man finding someone he found more desirable, to cases where the wife couldn’t produce children within a given time, there were those who held many loopholes and excuses to justify divorce. These backward legal interpretations and twisting of the law help show why Jesus is so firm and resolute on the concreteness of marriage throughout the gospels. In Matthew 5:31-32 He says,
“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
Also see Mark 10:1-12 and Luke 16:18.
While it’s possible that the woman at the well has been divorced due to adultery, this seems highly unlikely as, assuming that the Samaritans were at least following a similar Pentateuch to the Jews, she would have been put to death for this. It seems most likely that she has been divorced and set aside by five men for trivial matters, and now lives with a man she isn’t married to. This also explains her going to the well at noon instead of in the morning or evening when the other women would, as her marital past and current living situation could easily cause her to be looked down on or shunned by the other women. While we can only guess as to the specifics of her situation, Jesus had a deep and intimate understanding of it all. He leads her with His initial instruction, knowing what her answer will be and then tells her more about herself than any stranger met by chance could have known.
“The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.’”
Jesus’s words seem to bring her guard back up, and while she concedes that He must be a prophet, she turns the subject back to cultural differences. Her ancestors, the same ancestors as the Jews, worshiped here, in the land where they currently stand, and yet it’s held over their heads that Jerusalem is where God is to be worshiped – in a temple they’re not permitted to enter.
“Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’”
I’m struck by one of the things listed about glorified Christ in Revelation 1:16,
“… from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and this face was like the sun shining in full strength.”
Jesus’s words are cutting – not as a man’s might be, seeking to wound, but cutting through distraction, through lies and confusion. His words cut through the haze of worldliness and expose Truth. The woman is distracted by worldly matters, by cultural prejudices and differences, but Jesus cuts through it all to the heart of things. Matthew 10:34-39 says,
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
People twist these verses sometimes and use them out of context to paint Jesus inaccurately, as though He was a rebel sowing discord. But this speaks to the mixed reception of the gospel and the conflict that will arise from friends and loved ones who reject Christ. Paul writes of this conflict as it exists both internally and externally in Romans 7:21-23,
“So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.”
We see what is said in Revelation played out in the gospels: that the sword of the mouth of Christ has two edges. It seems that while one may wage war with the sinful desires and ambitions of the world through the truth of the gospel, the other cuts down barriers, lies and misgivings and creates unity and peace. One example is the way He calls His disciples, not seeking men among the learned religious elite, but taking common, legally uneducated men, removing a barrier, and raising them up into His service. Another is the way He sought the sinners and tax collectors, eating among them. He didn’t join them in their sin but sought them where they were to minister to them and lead them from the darkness. The greatest symbol of created unity may be the veil in the temple that tore from top to bottom upon His death, not in an act of destruction, but showing that in His sacrifice He had removed a barrier between man and God.
Here at the well, we see Jesus removing a barrier of geographic worship. He does clarify that she worships what she does not understand and that proper teaching and the path to salvation (which is Him), does come from the Jews. This is true in the sense that they were given the law originally, but also that prophetically, the Messiah comes from Jewish lineage, from the house of David. But Jesus dispels this limitation on worshiping God, saying that He must be worshiped, and is seeking those who worship Him “in spirit and truth.” What exactly “spirit and truth” means can be taken in contrast from the improper worship of the Pharisees. In Matthew 6:1-8 Jesus says,
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”
We do not worship God for personal gain, to virtue signal or assert superiority over others. We worship God because He deserves to be worshiped. It’s not about a specific worship site, for some to be excluded from so that those who worship there feel superior. It’s not about praying loudly for all to hear, thinking that you’ll seem righteous or pious for your words. We worship God in spirit, our desire, or aim and intent must be toward Him, not worldly things. We worship Him in truth, with sincerity and earnest devotion, not out of obligation or for appearance’s sake. These means of proper worship are made available through Christ to all people. As Paul wrote in Galatians 3:28-29,
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”
“The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am he.’”
Her response seems hopeful, but it’s not unrealistic to think that it could also be a little dejected. She has hope in the coming Messiah, that things will be set right in the world and that people’s relationship with God will make sense. But there had been 400 years of silence since God had spoken through the prophet Malachi, so while she hoped, there was no assurance that this hope would be realized in Her lifetime. Jesus does something again that we’ve seen before. In John 1:39, when His first disciples ask where He is going, and in John 3:3 after Nicodemus has acknowledged Him as a teacher from God, we see a desire expressed in a somewhat indirect way and Jesus immediately meets the expressed need. The woman expressed a desire for the understanding that will come from the Christ and at once Jesus reveals to her “I who speak to you am he.”
“Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, ‘What do you seek?’ or, ‘Why are you talking with her?’ So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?’”
We’re cut off from seeing the woman’s immediate reaction by the return of the disciples. Given all the cultural elements we’ve covered, it makes sense that they’re surprised to find Him speaking with her, but it also makes sense that they don’t question Him. They have traveled with Him, witnessed His teachings and miracles firsthand, so them not questioning His actions makes sense. Then we get to see the woman’s reaction. In Matthew 14, Mark 6, Luke 9 and John 6 we see accounts of Jesus feeding the 5,000. While each account gives a slightly different perspective on the miracle, John’s gospel gives us context for the events that followed. John 6:22-59 shows some of the 5,000 following after Jesus seeking more food. First Jesus tells them not to work for perishable things but for “food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.” When Jesus tells them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” They respond by asking Him what sign or work He performs so that they might believe Him. This has always blown me away, that those who witnessed His multiplying the loaves and fish and actually ate of this meal have the shortsighted audacity to basically ask, while following Him to get more food, “well what are you going to show us so that we know you’re legitimate?” John 6:31-34 says,
“’Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.” Jesus then said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.’ They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’”
But when Jesus clarifies that He is the bread of life, the unperishable sustenance that leads to salvation, they grumble and scoff. They want food, and are blinded by their desire for worldly things. This all presents a sharp contrast to what we see from the Samaritan woman. John 4:15 shows her saying, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water” before she understands the spiritual implications of their conversation. Similarly, those in John 6 say in verse 34, “Sir, give us this bread always.” But where they scoff, despite witnessing and partaking of the miracle of thousands being fed from a meager amount of food, she begins to believe. With Jesus claiming that He is the Christ, the pieces of their conversation fall into place, and she abandons her water jar, the thing that brought her to the well in the first place to go share the news. We see that Jesus’s display of His divine insight becomes the core of her testimony. She didn’t witness Him turn water into wine, feed thousands from virtually nothing, heal the sick or raise the dead. His personal knowledge of her life was sufficient to begin the development of her faith. That she could say He, “told me all that I ever did” was enough for her to share the word and send others to Him.
“They went out of the town and were coming to him. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, ‘Rabbi, eat.’ But he said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Has anyone brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.”
We see that her testimony is received and that the people of Sychar begin to come to Him. The disciples meanwhile are encouraging Jesus to stop and eat, but He continues with what we’ve already seen, prizing spiritual nourishment over that of the body. This parallels with what He teaches in John 6 to those following, after He feeds the 5,000, which was so poorly received. To carry out the will of God takes precedence over earthly needs and desires.
“Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.’”
This helps see the sense of urgency in sharing the gospel, but also to see the Samaritan people for what they are instead of through cultural or religious prejudices. There is a period of time that must pass between sowing and reaping a harvest for the crop to grow. But Jesus tells His disciples, there is no waiting, the harvest is here. While this ultimately applies broadly to the Jews and the gentiles beyond, in this specific scenario it helps show the primed nature of the Samaritans. They have some understanding of the law and the prophets; they are waiting on Christ’s coming in many regards just as much as the Jews are. The sowing has been done, most recently by John the Baptist as he prepared the way, but looking all the way back to the time of Abraham, these people who previously belonged to God’s people have been trying without proper knowledge to reenter the fold for generations. It is now before the disciples to do the work of God and share in the spreading of the news of salvation to a people who are thirsting for the living water that is found only in Christ.

Pastor Chris’s sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDnoGehWp3Y

Amorite vs. Canaanite: https://groups.io/g/AncientBibleHistory/message/84498#:~:text=The%20term%20Amorites%20as%20used,eastern%20Canaan%2C%20described%20in%20Gen.