seekeroftruth
Well-Known Member
John 4:1 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.[a])
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.”
a. John 4:9 Or do not use dishes Samaritans have used
I taught Youth Bible Study in Florida and children's Sunday School in Maryland. This story gets sanitized for the young. I think that's a great idea because this is actually a very racy story.
First of all... it takes place at Sychar better known as Shechem. Shechem is the place where another seedy story took place. In the town where this takes place.... Jacob's daughter.... way back in Genesis 34.... Jacob's daughter Dinah was raped. To get even with the rapist and his family..... Jacob's sons got the men involved to have themselves circumcised. This was so the rapist could marry Dinah.... supposedly.... but really it was to weaken those men.... because while all those full grown men were dealing with a healing penis... unable to fight... the brothers of Dinah walked in and slaughtered them. That's where this well was located... in Shechem where the sons of Jacob slaughtered their enemies.
Then when the Babylonians conquered Israel.... they also invaded Shechem.... lesser known as Sychar. In Samaria as in Jerusalem... the Babylonians murdered or castrated the men and raped or murdered the women. The babies.... were bashed against the rocks until they died. The the Babylonians moved their own people into the homes of the dead descendants of Jacob [Israel]. The only people the Babylonians left behind.... were the people who were too poor to do anything about the invasion.
On top of that.... the people of Shechem were use to worshipping God from their mountain.... and the descendants of Jacob insisted that the only place to worship God was at the Temple in Jerusalem. So since the people in Shechem refused to travel all the way to Jerusalem... on foot.... with bandits along the road.... where they would have to cough up a temple tax on top of the expense of finding lodging [ir there was any available] while leaving everything they have unguarded back in Shechem, just didn't make sense. So they didn't worship in Jerusalem.... snubbing the "law" of the descendants of Jacob [Israel].
Since the Jewish people in Shechem worshipped on their own mountain instead of going to Jerusalem to the Temple.... the descendants of Jacob [Israel] refused to allow their people to marry anyone from Samaria. They hated each other.... apparently.
To add to the racy part of this story..... descendant males of the family of Jacob [Israel] were forbidden by Jewish law.... to be talking to a woman without proper chaperone. This woman was alone.... and Jesus was too... His disciples had gone to pick up supplies.
Women in that day were property. Like our pet dogs.... like our dishwasher.... like our vacuum cleaner.... women were property and they could be stoned to death for doing the wrong thing. This woman was hardened.... she didn't run when Jesus talked to her... I bet she even smiled a little when she said
“You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?
So... now that I have all the complications in this conversation on screen.... I can use my imagination to see the scene the way it might have gone down.... [paraphrased of course]
Now Jesus was starting to get flack from the Pharisees about Baptism again. It didn't seem to matter that Jesus wasn't the one baptizing people... His disciples were doing the baptizing while Jesus was teaching and healing. Jesus had already angered the Pharisees in Jerusalem when He dumped all the tables of the money changers making it impossible for them to get their books right.... and He ran off all the animals, leaving them without an ox to throw on the altar. He knew they were angry.... and He wanted to avoid them until the time was right. He had other stuff to do... more people to teach and heal. Getting tied up with those idiot Pharisees.... would slow the Mission.... and let's face it... Jesus was going home to Heaven when this mission was over... so He wanted the timing to be right... but He wanted the Mission to keep moving.... He didn't have time for idiots. So He and His disciples were on the move.
He was alone... and tired from all that walking.... and when He got to the well.... He "sat down" on the wall of the well. One of the commentaries described that when He "sat down" it was like "finally a place to sit and rest until those disciples catch up".
The woman at the well was not a demure Jewish woman. This was a woman who had been divorced several times. She was smart.... getting a man to marry a woman who had been married before.... well it took a lot of feminine allure.... if you get what I am aiming at. Elizabeth Taylor comes to mind.... she married a lot of men..... and they enjoyed being married to her. The woman at the well reminds me of an Elizabeth Taylor without the Hollywood glitz and glamor. I figure she was smart and very sexy..... most of all.... to a Jewish man.... she was supposed to be ignored... avoided even.
The women in town would have had nothing to do with her either. In the movie "Gone with the Wind" there is a whore who helps Rhett Butler. She stayed in her carriage because she was not a "proper" woman like Scarlet O'Hara. I figure the women in town would have thought they were too good to hang out with the woman that Jesus met at the well. She wasn't a hooker.... and since she had several husbands.... she must have been a "free spirit" who took care of herself and left when the "ownership" part of the man woman relationship started to grow. I have liked this woman since the first time I heard about her.
The only difficult part of this story to imagine is the "living water". The human Jesus would get tired and thirsty. I'm sure He missed being God. He actually had to rest, feed and add water to this human body. That in itself must have been exhausting to God.
The human body requires H2O to survive. The human body has to refuel regularly. Jesus missed Heaven... I'm sure. He knew He could offer this woman a place in Heaven.... where she wouldn't have to worry about divorcing men who required that horrid action..... where she wouldn't have to go to the well alone.... Jesus was offering this woman Heaven. She was a Samaritan.... hated by the descendants of Jacob [Israel] because of the church she chose, the clothes she wore, this history of her people, and maybe even the color of her skin or the jut of her jaw that defined her as "wicked Samaritan". Jesus was offering her Heaven!
This is the first woman Jesus talked to in the Gospel of John except His mother, Mary. This woman was a woman of ill repute in a town that full of people who hated descendants of Jacob [Israel].
So as we leave Jesus with this woman.... and we must leave this scene for now.... Jesus is sitting on the well... and this woman is standing near Him... they are all alone.... and she says "Can I pour you that drink now?"
I love this story! Almost as much as the left handed swordsman who gutted the fat king in the bathroom.