1 When Jesus knew that the Pharisees heard He was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (though Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were), 3 He left Judea and went again to Galilee. 4 He had to travel through Samaria, 5 so He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the property that Jacob had given his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, worn out from His journey, sat down at the well. It was about six in the evening.
7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
“Give Me a drink,” Jesus said to her, 8 for His disciples had gone into town to buy food.
9 “How is it that You, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked Him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.
10 Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would ask Him, and He would give you living water.”
11 “Sir,” said the woman, “You don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do You get this ‘living water’? 12 You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are You? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”
13 Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again—ever! In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up within him for eternal life.”
15 “Sir,” the woman said to Him, “give me this water so I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”
16 “Go call your husband,” He told her, “and come back here.”
17 “I don’t have a husband,” she answered.
“You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’” Jesus said. 18 “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, yet you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 Jesus told her, “Believe Me, woman, an hour 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, because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship Him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”
26 “I am He,” Jesus told her, “the One speaking to you.”
27 Just then His disciples arrived, and they were amazed that He was talking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do You want?” or “Why are You talking with her?”
28 Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the men, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They left the town and made their way to Him.
31 In the meantime the disciples kept urging Him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32 But He said, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”
33 The disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought Him something to eat?”
34 “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work,” Jesus told them. 35 “Don’t you say, ‘There are still four more months, then comes the harvest’? Listen to what I’m telling you: Open your eyes and look at the fields, for they are ready for harvest. 36 The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life, so the sower and reaper can rejoice together. 37 For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap what you didn’t labor for; others have labored, and you have benefited from their labor.”
39 Now many Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of what the woman said when she testified, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 Therefore, when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and He stayed there two days. 41 Many more believed because of what He said. 42 And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world.”
43 After two days He left there for Galilee. 44 Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. 45 When they entered Galilee, the Galileans welcomed Him because they had seen everything He did in Jerusalem during the festival. For they also had gone to the festival.
Read John 4:1-45 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!
One of the most profound conversations in Jesus’ life and ministry is shared in John’s gospel, and it is a conversation Jesus has with a Samaritan woman. While Jews and Samaritans disliked each other, Jesus chose to cross the national and gender divide by first traveling through Samaria, then by striking up a conversation with this woman.
It is in this conversation that I find something both profound and perplexing. During the conversation, the woman shifts the topic away from herself and onto something that she had wondered about: “‘Sir,’ the woman replied, ‘I see that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, yet you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.’” (v. 19-20)
Basically, this woman is asking if the place where we choose to worship is important. She is asking if the “where” is as important as the “who”.
Jesus response is fascinating. He tells her, “Believe Me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (v. 21-24)
In Jesus’ response we see something interesting. Jesus minimizes the “where” in her question, but He elevates the “how”. This makes the “who” and the “how” of worship the most important factors in Jesus’ eyes.
The “who” is God. God wants us to worship Him. While the context is Jesus talking about worship directed towards the Father, I believe that worship that elevates any member of the Godhead is appropriate.
The “how” is where things get trickier. The description Jesus gives is “spirit and truth” and He gives this description twice for emphasis. Jesus compares the spirit side of worship to God being spirit, so there must be not only a spiritual side to our worship, but something that draws our attention away from our “physical” selves. Not only this, the only way we truly can bring spirit into our worship is with the Holy Spirit living and moving within us. This one side to worship that God wants from His followers elevates “true” worship past what most worship services supply on a given weekend.
However, the “truth” side of this challenge is where things get really challenging. It seems that everyone has their own flavor of what “truth” is. In this postmodern society, truth – in a spiritual sense – is becoming viewed at a more relative and less absolute. But one thing that most people can agree on is that worship should be aimed at pleasing the one we are worshiping. If we are choosing to worship God, then our worship should conform to what He views as truth.
God wants worshipers who have the Holy Spirit and His truth in their hearts – and when this is the case, it doesn’t matter where they are when they turn to Him!
This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!
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