Atlanta Bethel Community Church

> the Samaritan Woman

the Samaritan Woman

The Bible says in John 4:9, “For Jews do not associate with Samaritans”. This something that John, the author of this book of the Bible, wanted to emphasize. He wanted the whole world to know and understand this. Why? Pastor Kim gave the members some insight into the reason. If you look at the typical male Jews of this time, they had three main ‘blessings’ to thank God for in their everyday life. Number one was thankfulness for not being born a slave or put into slavery. Another was gratitude for not being Gentile. And the final blessing was being born male.

If you look at this situation, not only was she a Gentile, but she’s woman. To the Jews of the time, she was someone that could not sit by the feet of the Lord. That would be preposterous! So for a Jew to speak to a Samaritan woman was very improbable.

In John, it says that this woman went out to draw water. If you look at verse six, she came at around the sixth hour. The pastor explained that if you calculate this, it was about twelve noon when she went to the well. In the desert, this is the hottest hour to get water, so many people avoided going out during this time. The Samaritan woman was trying to avoid the crowds when going out. Why? For some reason, this woman didn’t want to be seen by people. She was hiding from the gazes of others and because of this, we can presume that she wasn’t a very prideful person. To the prideful Jew, her actions were not very good. If she is hiding, then she must have done something shameful.

However out of everyone in the Bible, she had the longest conversation with Jesus. She was thirsty, not just for water but for the truth of God and admits that she has been waiting for Messiah. Jesus couldn’t talk with someone who’s pretentious, because they think they have everything they need already.

So, what is this eternal water that Jesus gives? The water that will always quench is the truth of love. In order to fully drink and absorb this true love, you must give up the thing that was once stopping you from consuming it. Jesus was telling the Samaritan woman, that her old husbands didn’t alleviate her thirst and weren’t her true husbands. Her husbands refer to the things that she loved and cherished, but in the end, never truly satisfied.What is Jesus telling her to do? She must clear out the thing that gave her temporary love.

It is the same for us as well, “We must do away with the false love we have in our lives; the love that never last. If this is done, then you can drink the Truth that you love. We have to clear our old husbands to accept the Lord as our true husband. That is, we must get rid of the thing(s) that never satisfies and replace it with something that never disappoints. To gain this eternal life, this doesn’t change. You need to forget your past loves. After that, then you can accept a new husband.”