Introduction
If you have you ever been in a group situation where someone else asked a question that you were desperate to ask but too afraid, you will know the thankfulness felt towards the person who asked for the clarity finally received. There are many conversations and encounters which took place in the Bible where many must experience the same sense of thankfulness for the light of God’s truth and word revealed. Where, for example, would we be if Thomas had not commented on not knowing where Lord Yeshua was going and therefore not knowing the way to the Father’s house (John 14:5-6)!
Surely this nameless Samaritan woman with a questionable “past” has come to be regarded with benevolence by all Spirit-born believers in Yeshua for her encounter with the Messiah which brings so much light from the Holy Spirit to this day for us who believe. As we consider her story in this discussion may we be encouraged to continue to share the good news of the salvation of Almighty God by His grace through faith in Yeshua the Messiah with those around us and who are brought into our paths.
Overview on the Samaritan woman
Please take the time to read John 4:1-43.
From the above passage we learn the following of the Samaritan woman:
- She came from a city called Sychar, in Samaria in the northern territory of Israel. This was unfortunate for our woman of the moment for in her day Samaritans had long been despised by the Jewish people in general and a mutual dislike and distrust existed between them. A commentary on the historical background to this state of affairs can be read at 2 Kings 17 however in brief, Samaritans were considered a “mixed” people, through the historical intermarrying between the people of Israel who remained in the land and the pagan Gentiles transported into Samaria at the time of the Assyrian captivity. This ultimately led further separation of religious practices between those who worshiped the Lord God in Jerusalem and those who followed the religious traditions of the Samaritans “worshipping” in Samaria. If you follow the trail, a path of idol worship of false gods can be seen back beyond the days of Jeroboam, who became king over the 10 tribes of Israel and led the northern tribes into further sin back to king Solomon’s spiritual unfaithfulness to God (see 1 Kings chapters 11-12).
- She claimed an ancestral line going back to Jacob(v12). I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a defensive note in her voice when she spoke!
- She was a woman with, at the very least, questionable morals. She had had a suspicious number of husbands – who very probably did not all die off leaving her free to marry again – and the man she was living with when she met Yeshua was most definitely not. She was living in sin in a sinful relationship when she met Yeshua.
- Her being at the well to draw water at 12 noon, noted by some bible commentators as unlikely to be the usual time to do this, draws further aspersions to her character. Was she there at that time – and alone – because she was frozen out by other women unwilling to risk being tainted by association with “such a one as she”?
- She had an amazing encounter Yeshua which reveals to her the long-awaited Messiah (vs. 25-26). It may be possible that she was not consciously aware that she too had been waiting for Him until Yeshua reveal that He Himself was the Messiah.
- Through this encounter she learns many things, including what her true need was – salvation – and that this salvation is of the Jews.
- She not only comes to believe in Yeshua but goes back to her city to testify concerning Him and her encounter, becoming an instrument used by God to bring the good news to Samaria.
The Encounter
Let us consider a few points from the Samaritan woman’s experience with Yeshua.
It seems as though the Samaritan woman came to where the Lord was – but actually, it was the Lord who travelled to the place where she might encounter Him, a place where she would need to go (the well) in the ordinary course of life. A fitting place perhaps! It appears that she was indeed among many who “thirst” for things which all the natural solutions offered by the world could never bring enduring satisfaction in permanently quenching that thirst.
It is interesting to note that it is the Lord that initiates conversation with the Samaritan woman, considering who she is. She is not only ‘a Samaritan’, with the automatic inference that brought, but also a woman . It was not the done thing to be talking to a woman alone in public. Certainly, the Jewish religious leaders and Rabbis of the day would not, and this accounts for the surprise of the disciples (John 4:27) on their return from buying food. The act of speaking to this woman highlights that the true Yeshua transcends cultural barriers, disregards status and discounts social conventions in bringing the salvation of God to the world. This remains true to this day, glory to God!
As I considered His request for a drink of water at John 4:7, it brought to mind the words of Lord Yeshua through John at Revelation 3:20:
‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock.
If anyone hears My voice and opens the door,
I will come in to him and dine with him,
and he with Me.’
It was, as it were, Yeshua’s “first knock” at the “door” of the heart of this Samaritan woman.
Her initial reaction at John 4:9 seems very similar to the response of many when encountering the gospel of Yeshua the first time. Just as she was surprised that this Jewish Man was asking for a drink of water, out of her personal container, so many are often surprised that God would be calling them – personally. One wonders whether, perhaps expecting to meet with hostility from Yeshua, the Samaritan woman was taken by surprise that she instead met with a gentleness she was unfamiliar with from some among the Jewish people she may have met before.
The Lord continued to “knock”.
At verse 10, we see Yeshua begin to speak beyond her present physical need to the deeper and more pressing need to know the true God and the means by which she could come to do so. Yeshua says 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.’
Consider the words of Yeshua to this Samaritan woman. Yeshua, who knew every last detail of who she was, what she was, what she did, what she thought. Everything! Consider again these words of Yeshua at verse 10. Yeshua didn’t say He would have given her theological reasonings and arguments as to why she should believe. Yeshua did not begin with Law but with grace and truth – as John 1:17 says ‘..the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.’ The “meat” and even “the pure milk of the word” which Peter the Apostle mentions (1 Peter 2:2) would come later – first she needed God Himself, the revelation of Him.
In the book of the prophet Jeremiah, we learn that God says He Himself is the fountain of living waters:
‘For My people have committed two evils; They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,
and hewn themselves cisterns – broken cisterns that can hold no water’.
Jeremiah 2:13
‘Those who depart from Me shall be written in the earth,
because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.’
Jeremiah 17:13b
It is He Himself who is the gift, through His Spirit in His Son, Yeshua. John 7:37-39 says this:
‘….Jesus stood and cried out, saying,
“If anyone thirst, let him come to Me and drink.
He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said,
out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
But this He spoke concerning the Spirit,
whom those believing in Him would receive;….’
It is clear as the conversation continues that the Samaritan woman does not know who Yeshua is, and she seems unfamiliar with His ministry thus far (note John 4:11-12). Whereas other encounters recorded in the Gospels show the other person referring to the Yeshua as ‘Lord’, ‘Teacher’, ‘Master’, ‘Son of David’, ‘Rabbi’ and so forth she refers to Yeshua as ‘Sir’ (vs. 11, 15, 19). There is almost a sense that as she stood there, so near, within touching distance of the Messiah, hearing His voice, receiving the ministry of His word she may as well as have been a billion miles away – distanced by blindness and blinded by sin.
The Lord continued to “knock”.
Perhaps facing the well of water or perhaps indicating to it as they spoke, Yeshua goes on to say:
“Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water
that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water
springing up into everlasting life.”
(John 4:13-14)
Her response at verse 15 suggests the penny had not yet dropped – but it was well on its way! She mentions her thirst but was possibly still thinking only of natural thirst and certainly in terms of having the inconvenience and burden of having to come to the well to draw water taken way. She is thinking in terms of temporal matters – Lord Yeshua goes beyond to deal with the eternal, deeper matters. As always is the case, there is no bargaining with God. There used to be saying often banded about: “It’s my way or the highway.” With God, it’s just His way, which is the “HIGH way” – there is no other way. But His way is always the best way and the only way to His Shalom, the truest peace – peace with God, peace in God and the peace of God (Romans 5:1). As with this Samaritan woman here, it always begins with the sin issue in our lives.
In the conversation concerning her “husband” (verses 16-19), Lord Yeshua gave her the opportunity to recognise her need to deal with the issue of sin in her life, not just her immoral lifestyle. It wasn’t reformation she needed; it was regeneration. There were far more weightier breaches of God’s law in her life! Recall, for example, the first and greatest commandment (see e.g., Mark 12:29-30). She could hardly love the Lord God with all her heart, soul, mind, and strength if she didn’t know Him in the first place!
However, as noted above, it is never really just about individual sins – it is about the issue of sin full stop.
Let’s consider the Samaritan woman’s response at verse 17 to Yeshua’s request that she first gets her husband, and both come to Him before saying any more about the Living Water. Here is the opportunity to “fess up” and acknowledge her sinfulness – yet bound and blinded by sin, she conceals the truth. She was not about to readily admit the real deal and yet, there is the suggestion of something being stirred in her which possibly could have been the beginnings of conviction. Perhaps there was also the sense of being unable, at that particular point, to gloss over what appears to be a lousy situation any longer. The man she was with was not her husband. Perhaps it didn’t matter in the neighbourhood she came from – after all, Samaritans already had an association with wickedness, right?! Perhaps it didn’t matter amongst her friends and acquaintances. Perhaps she managed to keep it concealed and put a respectable face on the real situation. But it mattered to her – it mattered a great deal! When Yeshua asked her to call her ‘husband’ she could have taken the opportunity to run off back to the situation on the pretence of doing so – and never come back. Why didn’t she?
She heard His word, deep down where it mattered, perhaps not understanding it all that point, but knowing “this Man” appeared to offer the answer to a deeper thirst for something beyond material existence, which she had begun to be awakened to.
The scales begun to drop from her eyes as Lord Yeshua spoke to her conscience with words that left her with no place to hide before Him (note verses 17- 18). In the foolishness of unregenerate man, it is that spiritual blindness which hinders seeing that which the Spirit of God alone teaches us, as for example, spoken through Jeremiah:
‘For My eyes are on all their ways: they are not hidden from My face,
nor is their iniquity hidden from My eyes.
Jeremiah 16:17
and again:
‘For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth….’
2 Chronicles 16:9
and again:
‘And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open
to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.’
Hebrews 4:13
We – our truest self – can never hide from the eyes of God.
How often we also, now believers in Yeshua, fail to remember or even, at moments, fail to believe as we should these same words which are both a comfort and a warning to us all.
The Samaritan woman did not yet at this point recognise the One who stood before her uncovering sin, exposing the attempted cover-up, as she supposed Him to be merely a prophet (v.19). It almost seems, by her comments concerning place of worship that she quickly acquired a religious veneer in attempt to shield off her discomfort in exposure in the presence of “a Man of God” (verse 20). It brings to mind a picture of people who have never seriously been bothered about joining a church, once confronted with the issue of sin, become terribly concerned about the different types of churches and problems in and between them. Yet churches are full of sinners – some saved, cleanse and regenerated by the grace of God through faith in Yeshua in the continuing work of sanctification by the Holy Spirit and some are not. The Lord God knows those who are truly His – not matter was it looks like by outward appearances. The issue is – surely – for us individually to ensure we ourselves our right with God!
Just as we see Yeshua begin to take away confusion from the Samaritan woman concerning the true worship of God the Father (John 4:21-24), when Yeshua really has entrance in a person’s life, He deals with our confused blindness about who He is and how we can know the one true God. Note how Yeshua began to show her that outward religious observance and practices at a specific location could not bring her near to God or peace with God. Even though the Jewish people had God’s law (though they disobeyed it), God’s house (The Second Temple – at that time – in Jerusalem) and the promise of Messiah who would bring salvation coming from their line (the tribe of Judah), the Lord shows her that neither in Jerusalem nor Samaria (Mount Gerizim) was the place God wanted to be worshiped. In the words of Yeshua, at verse 23 particularly, we see an allusion to the New Covenant spoken of by God through the prophet Jeremiah at Jeremiah 31:31-34, particularly concerning God’s law being written on hearts and minds. Worshiping God was no longer to be about outward form and ritualistic but rather from within – from spirits made alive by the Holy Spirit (John 3:5-8) and through believing upon Yeshua who is The Truth (John 14:6). Yeshua explained to her, ‘God is Spirit’ and He cannot be worshiped through the flesh, or by flesh (see e.g., Philippians 3:3). Worship of our great God must be in Spirit – those born of the Spirit of God and made alive through the Spirit in His Spirit and must be in Truth, in obedience to the Word of God, Yeshua.
Her response at verse 25 shows light was beginning to dawn though not enough for her to see clearly yet. It is interesting that she knew that the Messiah would be coming and yet had continued on in a life of sin. One wonders what she thought He was going to her to her when He came! Again, her statement suggests that underneath the sinful lifestyle, she may well have been looking for a way out.
Finally, it came. With the last recorded words we have of this incredible encounter, the last of the scales falling from her eyes, enabling the beginnings of her beholding the Messiah (v.26). Her Messiah Yeshua.
The Testimony
There was undoubtedly much more to the conversation the Samaritan woman had with Yeshua during this encounter than is recorded by the Scripture, but it is reasonable to believe that if not that day, very soon after, she became a believer in the Messiah of Israel. Following the arrival of Yeshua’s disciples with the food, she went back to her city and began immediately to testify that she had met the Messiah. The simplicity of her testimony of what she had personally experience with Yeshua (v.29) was powerful enough to draw the men of the city to come to see the Lord (v30). Consider – it was just a simple testimony of her experience with Yeshua, yet it drew many of the Samaritans of her city to Yeshua and ultimately led to their faith in Him (verse 42). It was what she heard, what she saw and why she believed. It is so simple and yet, this simplicity seems at times overlooked in the zeal to reach others with the good news of Yeshua the Messiah. Sometimes we get so overly concerned about how “the gospel should be presented” or ensuring all “the correct biblical terminology” is used in our witness, or whether we have all the information about all that we might need to be aware of concerning all the different beliefs, issues and problems we might come across that we overlook simplicity. The simplicity in what we ourselves have personally experienced of Yeshua, no matter how high or how low we were when we met Him. Consider John’s words at 1 John 1:1-3:
‘That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life – 2 the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us – 3 that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us;….’
It is not our words, or intellect, or oral skills or persuasiveness but by the Spirit of God alone who works as we, His willing vessels, share the good news of Yeshua the Messiah who brings salvation to those who believe. Of course, there are times we need to equip ourselves with information outside our knowledge base but perhaps we ought to reconsider how far this should go considering Who it is that equips us for His work.
The Fruit
It is interesting that at one time Lord Yeshua commanded His disciples not to go to any cities of the Samaritans when He sent them to preach the message of the Kingdom before Him (Matt 10:5-6). Yet, at this time He Himself has come to bring the good news and no doubt much more teaching during His two day stay with them. It reminds us that what seems to be a closed door now, may in another time or season be quite unexpectedly opened for the gospel to go through into hearts of those we have long been seeking to reach. Here is encouragement to persevere and to seek to build ourselves up in the faith and prayer (Jude v20) that we may be readiness ‘in season and out of season’ for the opening of doors. It is easy to become despondent along the way, particularly where the ground is hard, but God may yet send rain and soften the ground! Among the Samaritans in her day, it began with the word of the Samaritan woman and having been drawn to hear from Yeshua themselves, many more of the Samaritans came to believe (John 4:39-42). A fruitful harvest indeed!
The Legacy
Amongst the “gems” the Samaritan woman’s story of her encounter with the Messiah brings us, there are two small but precious gems which we may keep with us for our times of sharing the good news of Yeshua:
- Encouragement. Let us be encourage by faith in Almighty God through His Son Messiah Yeshua who reigns!. Whether sowing or watering – however long, however stony the ground, let us not grow weary and still hope that in due season, God will give us a harvest, especially amongst those we love. Consider 1 Corinthians 15:58.
- Remembrance of our personal testimony of God’s power in our lives. Let us not forget our own testimony of encounter with Yeshua when He first saved us as well as the testimonies God gives us as He continues to work in us. It makes our witness authentic!
Conclusion
Let’s consider this woman one final time: a Samaritan, a woman and living an immoral life. Yet, she was not considered too unworthy to receive the Lord’s time, mercy, ministry and grace. May we never overlook those who society may consider unworthy, no good, wicked – or whatever label appears to suit – as we go along our life-journey sharing the gospel. Perhaps they may even be some in our own neighbourhood, families or social circle who we may have avoided sharing the good news with contrary to inner convictions? Yeshua’s precious blood was shed for all souls that God may make for Himself treasures out of darkness, just as He did with us. And who know how fruitful their testimony of God’s grace in their lives may be in bringing others into the saving knowledge and love of God through Messiah Yeshua the Lord.
God bless you.
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