The Woman of Samaria
John 4:1–6
Therefore when the Lord knew that the
Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than
John (although Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were),
He left Judea and went away again into
Galilee. And He had to pass through Samaria.
So He came to a
city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his
son Joseph; and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His
journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
John 4:7-14
There came a woman of Samaria to draw water.
Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” For His disciples had gone away into the
city to buy food. Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that
You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews
have no dealings with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew
the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would
have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to
draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water?
“You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and
drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?”
Jesus answered and
said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but
whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but
the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water
springing up to eternal life.”
1.
Who are the Samaritans?
“For the thing shall surely come to pass which he cried
by the word of the LORD against the altar in Bethel and against all the houses
of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria.” (1 Kings 13:32)
History
The history of the Samaritans is derived
from sources that often conflict, or are polemically charged. Josephus is the
principal source for Samaritan history, though his accounts are not entirely
trustworthy. The Samaritans are first
mentioned during the Persian period at the time of Nehemiah. Ezra and the
Elephantine papyri reveal a schism between the Jews and the Samaritans during
the rebuilding of Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity. Ezra 4 states that
people who lived in Samaria opposed the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem
and the city walls (Ezra 4:17; Neh 2:10).[1]
Ezra
4:17
Then the king sent an answer to Rehum the
commander, to Shimshai the scribe, and to the rest of their colleagues who live
in Samaria and in the rest of the provinces beyond the River: “Peace. And now
(Ezra 4:17)
Neh
2:10
When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the
Ammonite official heard about it, it was very displeasing to them that someone
had come to seek the welfare of the sons of Israel.
Religion
“The Samaritans’ religious practices were similar to the Jews with a few
major exceptions—mainly, the Samaritans thought of Mount Gerizim, not
Jerusalem, as the proper place of worship. The Samaritans, like the Sadducees,
were more “conservative” than other Jews in that they the rejected the authority
of the prophets and writings, and relied exclusively on their edition of the
Pentateuch (Samaritan Pentateuch). The Samaritans also did not celebrate Purim
or Hanukkah.
A primary difference between Samaritans and Jews is that they believed
that Yahweh should be worshiped in Shechem rather than Jerusalem. The Samaritan
Pentateuch declared that God’s people should worship Him in Shechem, thereby
making the worship in Jerusalem illegitimate (Purvis, “Samaritans and Judaism,”
89).
2.
Why do the Jews avoid the Samaritans?
a.
Following the examination of a
Jewish ruler, as a sample of the Pharisitical belief, the author now moves to a
half-breed, Samaritan woman. As such she was typical of those who were
dispersed, but worse in the eyes of a Jew since these northern tribes had intermarried
with the Assyrians…During the captivity of the Northern tribes when Assyria
took them off,” (Baylis, Charles Th.D., http://thebiblicalstory.org/baylis/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/John3-4lec060315.pdf
)
b.
“By contrast the Jews had been in
Babylon for 70 years and had returned pure in race (Of course, Nehemiah and
Ezra record that they really weren’t all that enthusiastic regarding purity as
they intermarried with the neighboring Gentiles.)” (Baylis, Charles Th.D.)
c.
8:48. To call Jesus a Samaritan
was to use a term of abuse, referring to a heretic or one with a faulty
worship. [2]
3.
Who is He that speaks to the
woman?
4.
What is the significance of the
verbiage “gift of God”?
5.
Water: 478X in 428 verses in the
NASB95 Bible (71X in 63 verses in NT)
6.
What is the purpose of physical
water?
a.
Humans & Livestock
b.
Plants
7.
What is it to “Thirst”?
8.
What is Living Water?
a.
“For My people have committed two
evils: They have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters, To hew for
themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns That can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)
b.
“And in that day living waters will flow out
of Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea and the other half toward the
western sea; it will be in summer as well as in winter.” (Zechariah 14:8)
c.
“He who believes in Me, as the
Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”
But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to
receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” (John 7:38–39)
9.
What and Where is Jacob’s well?
10.
What is significant about the
location and depth of Jacob’s well?
a.
“Abram passed through the land as
far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanite was then in
the land. The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give
this land.” So he built an altar there to the LORD who had appeared to him.” (Genesis 12:6–7)
b.
“Jacob, like Abram, purchased a
portion of the land and there, like Abram, Jacob
set up an altar (12:7) and named it El
Elohe Israel (“El is the God of
Israel”). In this way he acknowledged that the Lord had led him all the way
back to the land.”
c.
Since Jacob’s well was so deep how
could Jesus get this living water? Today this well is identified by
archeologists as one of the deepest in Palestine. Are You greater than our
father Jacob? she asked. In Greek this question expects a negative answer. She
could not conceive of Him as greater than Jacob.[3]
11.
Why did Jesus choose to meet this
woman at this location?
Application:
1.
Do you consider the significance
of the intertwining of people, location, and timing of your interactions
throughout your day?
a.
Prayerfully consider, “Lord, why
did you have me and “so and so” me in this location, in this moment?”
b.
Do you inquisitively seek possible
historical significance of people and location?
2.
Regardless of your personal and
ancestral past, you are given the gift of Living Water found only in the Lord
Jesus Christ.
3.
Do you recognize the presence of
Jesus Christ in your day-to-day life?
4.
How are you responding to God’s
gift of Living Water?
a.
Are you Sipping, taking an
occasional Swig, or Gulping the Living
Water?
i. Prayer
ii. Reading and Studying God’s Word—the Bible
5.
How does Knowing, Recognizing, and
freely Drinking the Living Water
affect your life:
a.
Physically
b.
Emotionally
c.
Spiritually?
[1]
Maiers, B. (2016). Samaritans. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R.
Brown, R. Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair Wolcott, … W. Widder (Eds.), The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Bellingham,
WA: Lexham Press.
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