The way Jesus interacted with people was to get them to think. He treated each person as an individual.When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
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])
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.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 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?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 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.”
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.”
He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 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.”
“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.”
“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time 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, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
The Disciples Rejoin Jesus
Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”
Many Samaritans Believe
Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.
They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” John:7-42
Let’s unpack this verse by verse. In verse 7-9, Jesus did no preach equality, He demonstrates it by asking for a drink of water as if He were someone was like the woman. He did this just as He ate with anyone open to the Kingdom of God. The woman now draws her own conclusion as to who He is. She realizes that her being a woman and a Samaritan has no importance to Jesus. In practical terms the poor realize when you are real and when you are “doing ministry.” The woman answers this question in her mind and now is thinking and coming to conclusions.
In verse 10, Jesus leads her to two more questions. Who is this man asking me for water and what is this “living water’ He is is talking about. There is no great proclamation at this point and the conversation did not open with a spiritual gift of a word of knowledge. They are just having a conversation. This opens the woman to two more questions of how Jesus can get this water without the means of drawing it and if He is a prophet. Jesus did not have to announce Himself as a prophet. Someone who is a prophet should never need to.
In verse 13 Jesus speaks to a physical need, the need for water. But, in doing so He leads to the spiritual concept of “ living water.” Now, the woman is thoroughly invested in this conversation and she wants to know more. Jesus tells her to go get her husband. She replies she has no husband and Jesus tells her about her life. The importance of her statement, “I can see you are a prophet” can’t be understated. People have to “see” the reality of the Kingdom of God. The act of “seeing” connects their spirit. There is a difference between leading someone to Christ who hears about Jesus is and someone who sees who He is.
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