Chapter # 4 Paragraph # 2 Study # 4
March 10, 2024
Broadlands, Louisiana
(Download Audio)
Thesis: Jesus, by The Father's "showing" (
John 5:19-20), departed into Samaria in order to bring "living water" to "Samaritans", and to teach His disciples to regard the nature of their "true food".
Introduction: In our last study, we focused upon Jesus' "diligent labor" to get to Jacob's well by six o'clock in the evening because The Father had shown Him what He needed to do there. This was Author-John's prelude to his reinforcement of Jesus' declaration in
3:17-18 that The Father had sent Him into a condemned world to save those who "believed into Him" from that condemnation under which they labored in vain all of their lives.
This morning we are going to do some "stage setting" for Jesus' revelation to a Samaritan woman that He IS GOD'S CHRIST, and, as such, has "the living water of Life" to give to those who "ask".
- I. The Details.
- A. First is the picture of Jesus determinedly pursuing The Father's revelation of how important it was for Him to be at Jacob's well by six P.M.
- 1. As I said in the introduction, John 3:17-18 declares that it was God (The Father) Who sent His Son into the world so that all who "believe into Him" might be "saved" from the "condemnation" under which the world labors in vain to "Live".
- 2. Also, it is important to see this picture of Jesus as "The Revelation" of how tied to "Life" is The Father's input.
- B. Second is the backdrop to this record in the larger picture of God's Eternal Plan to bring "many sons to glory" (Hebrews 2:10).
- 1. First among this backdrop of details is the reality of The Father's Plan and the inevitability of its eventual fulfillment.
- a. In Matthew 10:5-6 we are told that Jesus commanded His disciples to refrain from going to the Samaritans with the message which He had commissioned them to preach.
- b. But in Acts 1:8, after The Son's accomplishment of redemption for condemned men, we are told that The Father's Plan was for the disciples of Jesus to be His witnesses beyond Jerusalem and Judea so that they were to go to Samaria, and, from there, to the remotest part of the earth.
- c. In Acts 8 we are told of the initial proclamation of the Gospel to the Samaritans.
- d. Thus, this record in John 4 is the "ground breaking prelude" to the "official" move into Samaria by the Gospel.
- 2. Second among the details of this backdrop is the attitude of the Jonah-Jews who, rather than being concerned for the Samaritans, hated them with a passion.
- a. The greatest insult these Jews could aim at Jesus while He was busily doing what the Father revealed to Him was recorded by John in 8:48: "Say we not well that You are a Samaritan and have a devil?"
- b. In Luke 10:33 Jesus revealed the blind arrogance and hatefulness of the religious Jews by telling them a story about a "Samaritan" who showed more mercy toward a victim of thieves than those who prided themselves on being "the exemplars of truth and light".
- c. In Luke 17:16 Jesus is shown to have healed 10 lepers of their leprosy and the only one who "fell down on his face and gave Him thanks" was a "Samaritan".
- 3. Third among these details is the fact that the Samaritan woman was a deliberately given contrast to the Jewish man of John 3.
- 4. Fourth among these details is the fact that Author-John made it a "linguistic point" to lift this record into our imaginations so that Jesus' dealings with the woman would linger after the "vision in our minds" faded.
- 5. Fifth among these details is the way Jesus elevated the most basic of human "needs" out of their natural setting into a most basic "relational" setting.
- a. Thirst is a graphic metaphor of the relational need of men to have peace with God; this is the lesson of the woman of Samaria.
- b. But hunger is also a graphic metaphor of the relational need of men to regularly "eat" the words of Life from the mouth of the Living God; this is the lesson of the disciples of Jesus.
