SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
2/6/2016 10:19 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 The
Contrast
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 4:7-15
Message of
the verses: “7 There came a woman of Samaria to draw
water. Jesus said to her, "Give Me a drink." 8 For His disciples had
gone away into the city to buy food. 9 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.) 10 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." 11 She said
to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where
then do You get that living water? 12 “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?" 13 Jesus answered and
said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; 14 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." 15 The woman said to
Him, "Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the
way here to draw.’”
There is no doubt that what we see in this section
is Jesus evangelizing this woman, and He does it by talking to her about things
that she was familiar with. What we also
have in this section it what we have learned from out study and that is that
what we see in John 20:31 which is the theme of the gospel of John “but these
have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” We will see this theme being fulfilled
through each segment that we come to as we study this book, so it is good to
remember this verse and see how it comes true as we study this book of John.
Now we left off in our study from yesterday as
seeing Jesus sitting down at this well because he was exhausted and weary from
his 20 mile hike and was probably thirsty.
He sees a woman coming to draw water from the well and it is around noon
and this is something that is unusual, unusual not that it is a woman drawing
water, for that is something that women did, but unusual that it is done in the
heat of the day. Once we read about this
woman we will better understand why it is that she comes at this time of the
day for we will learn that she has had five husbands and the man she is living
with now is not her husband, so we can be sure that this woman did not want to
associate with the many women who would come out to draw water during the
cooler time of the day as we can assume that once the women came to draw water
in the evening that they would want to talk amongst themselves and probably
would be talking about this woman who came out during the hotter part of the
day. Let us look at Genesis 24:11 “He
made the camels kneel down outside the city by the well of water at evening
time, the time when women go out to draw water.” This section of Scripture speaks of Abraham’s
servant going to find a wife for Abraham’s son, Isaac. Another thing we may wonder about and that is
that it has been learned from historic searching’s that there were wells closer
to this town, and so we may also wonder why this woman came to this well. What we will see in this section is not only
the humanness of Jesus, but also His deity and so we can be sure that He knew
that this woman would be at this well at this time of the day.
Next we see that our Lord asks this woman for a
drink as He says “Give Me a drink.” We
will see that this is something that is very rare, probably not done having a
Jew ask a Samaritan woman for a drink, as even His disciples were surprised
that Jesus was talking to a Samaritan woman.
Notice the highlighted section from verse nine in our text. We read in Luke 7:39 “Now when the Pharisee
who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet He would
know who and what sort of
person this woman is who is touching Him, that she is a sinner.’” We also see that in a parenthetical note in
verse eight that His disciples had gone into town to buy food, so there was
only this woman and Jesus left at the well.
Now as we go on looking at this section what we will
see is that this woman was taken aback that Jesus would be talking to her, so I
think that it would be fair to say that the prejudice or bigotry was not only
with the Jews, but also with the Samaritans and so when the woman talks with
Jesus she is not being very kind to Him at first. We read “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask
me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?”
We see the words “being a Jew” in this narrative and one may wonder why
it is that she knew He was a Jew.
Perhaps since Jesus was a rabbi he was wearing tassels on the bottom of
His robe. At any rate she knew He was a
Jew. Jesus was not only willing to talk
to this woman, but as MacArthur points out “Even more astounding was His
willingness to ceremonially defile Himself by drinking from her water pot,
since He had no vessel of His own from which to drink (v.11). The word translated ‘dealings’ in John’s
explanatory note literally means ‘to use the same utensils.’) But Jesus was the
infinitely holy God in human flesh. He
could not be defiled by a Samaritan water pot.
Whatever He touched—even corpses (Luke 7:12-1 5) or lepers (Matt.
8:2-3)—did not taint Him, but instead became clean.”
Now I think that it is important that I also quote
from a section from John MacArthur’s notes to show more about the bitter
rivalry between the Jews and the Samaritans and we will close after that.
“The bitter rivalry between the Jews and the
Samaritans had been going on for centuries.
After the fall of the northern kingdom to the Assyrians, the ten tribes
of ‘Israel [were] carried away into exile from their own land to Assyria until
this day. 24 The king of Assyria brought
men from Babylon and from Cuthah and from Avva and from Hamath and Sephar-vaim,
and settled them in the cities of Samaria in place of the sons of Israel. So
they possessed Samaria and lived in its cities.’ The foreign not-Jews intermarried with the
population of Jews who had not been deported, forming a mixed race known as the
Samaritans (the name derives from the region and capital city, both called
Samaria). The new settlers brought their
idolatrous religion with them (2 Kings 17:29-31), which became intermingled
with the worship of Yahweh (vv. 25-28, 32-22, 41). In time, however the Samaritans abandoned
their idols and worshiped Yahweh alone, after their own fashion (for example,
they accepted only the Pentateuch as canonical Scripture, and worshiped God on
Mount Gerizim, not at Jerusalem).
“When the Jewish exiles returned to Jerusalem under
Ezra and Nehemiah, their first priority was to rebuild the temple. Professing loyalty to Israel’s God, the
Samaritans offered their assistance (Ezra 4:1-2). The Jews’ blunt refusal (Ezra 4:3) enraged
the Samaritans, who then became their bitter enemies (Ezra 4:4ff.; Neh. 4:1-3,
7ff.). Rebuffed in their attempt to
worship at Jerusalem, the Samaritans built their own temple on Mount Gerizim
(c. 400 BC). The Jews later destroyed
that temple during the intertestamental period, further worsening relations
between the two groups.
“After centuries of mistrust, there was a deep
animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans.
The writer of the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus expressed the scorn
and contempt the Jews felt for the Samaritans.
Claiming that God detested the Samaritan people, he derisively referred to them as ‘the stupid people living
at Shechem’ (50:25-26). The Jewish
leaders of Jesus’ day manifested this same prejudice. In fact, when they wanted to insult Jesus,
the worst they could do was to call Him a Samaritan (8:48). The Samaritans, of course, reciprocated the
Jews’ hostility—as was illustrated when one of their villages refused to
receive Jesus because He was on His way to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51-53).”
I just have to say that Jesus would tell this
Samaritan woman that He was the Christ, and this was the first person He had
said this to in the Scriptures. We know
who He is, but at that time the Samaritans did not know until He revealed it
first to this woman who had five husbands and was now living with a man who was
not her husband.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: This makes me think of the wonderful grace of
Jesus as I read this story, a story that is familiar to me when I think of when
I was saved.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Be so thankful for His wonderful grace.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “He caused her oil to be
increased” (2 Kings 4:1-7).
Today’s Bible
question: “According to the scripture,
what is the royal law?”
2/6/2016 11:15 AM
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