Messiah

Context: Samaritans and the woman of Samaria (1 Kings 16:28-29,2 Kings 17:24-33)

• Samaria and Samaritans:
  • Originally the kingdom of Israel.
  • After Israel was thrown out, Samaria was filled with people from other nations
    • From Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim
  • These nations didn’t fear God of Israel so God sent lions which killed them
    • So these people petitioned the king of Assyria for help
    • King of Assyria sent a priest of Samaria back to them
      • Priest of Samaria is basically from Israel
    • These foreign nations feared God but
      • Made their own gods
        • Placed those idols in Israel’s high places
      • Set their own priests to sacrifice to their gods
• Food for thought: These nations thought that God was local to Samaria (2 Kings 17:26)

Why was the Samaritan woman surprised when Jesus asked for water? (John 4:4-9)

• Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans
  • Jews apparently preferred taking longer route to avoid going through Samaria
    • v4 Jesus needed to? To address a spiritual need of Samaria
    • Many believed Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world (v4:42)
  • Jews, also would avoid talking to women – including their own wife
    • Jesus was talking to a woman who was a stranger
      • Perhaps her reputation wasn’t that great too

Compare and contrast Samaritan woman with Nicodemus. (John 4:10-15)

• Both had hard time understanding how Jesus could support what he was saying
  • Nicodemus: how a person could be born again
  • Samaritan woman: how Jesus could get water from a deep well without tools
    • But she wondered if maybe he was greater than Jacob
• Both were thinking from earthly perspective
  • Nicodemus thought of being born again in flesh
  • Samaritan woman thought she would never have to come to draw water again
• Jesus expected Nicodemus, as a leader of Jews, to know better

What did Jesus reveal about Himself to the Samaritan woman? (John 4:16-26)

• Samaritan woman was plain and honest about her marital situation – no hiding
• Jesus acknowledged her truthfulness and revealed what he already knew about her
  • Samaritan woman realized he must be even greater – perhaps a prophet?
• If Jesus is a prophet, she has a question:
  • Where should one worship? Jerusalem or Samaria?
    • Neither! True worshipers worship the Father in spirit and truth
      • She declares that Messiah would reveal all truth
• What she didn’t know, and she just got to know was, she was talking to the Messiah
  • She responded by bringing the people of the city!

Conclusion / Application:

• Am I being real? Am I the same person everywhere – Church and home?
• How do I interact with people who may not be spiritually mature?

Main Passage John 4:4-26 – World English Bible (WEB)

4 He needed to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son, Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being tired from his journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.[a] 7 A woman of Samaria came 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 The Samaritan woman therefore said to him, “How is it that you, being a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered 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 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. So where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father, Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his children and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again; 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 that I don’t get thirsty, neither come all the way here to draw.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”

17 The woman answered, “I have no husband.”

Jesus said to her, “You said well, ‘I have no husband,’ 18 for you have had five husbands; and he whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly.”

19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour comes, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, will you worship the Father. 22 You worship that which you don’t know. We worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to be his worshipers. 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 comes, he who is called Christ. When he has come, he will declare to us all things.”

26 Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who speaks to you.”

Notes / Cross References

1 Kings 16:28-29 28 So Omri slept with his fathers, and was buried in Samaria; and Ahab his son reigned in his place. 29 In the thirty-eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab the son of Omri began to reign over Israel. Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty-two years.

2 Kings 17:24-33 24 The king of Assyria brought men from Babylon, from Cuthah, from Avva, and from Hamath and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they possessed Samaria, and lived in its cities. 25 So it was, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they didn’t fear Yahweh. Therefore Yahweh sent lions among them, which killed some of them. 26 Therefore they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, “The nations which you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria don’t know the law of the god of the land. Therefore he has sent lions among them, and behold, they kill them, because they don’t know the law of the god of the land.”

27 Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, “Carry there one of the priests whom you brought from there; and let them go and dwell there, and let him teach them the law of the god of the land.”

28 So one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and lived in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear Yahweh. 29 However every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities in which they lived. 30 The men of Babylon made Succoth Benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima, 31 and the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. 32 So they feared Yahweh, and also made from among themselves priests of the high places for themselves, who sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places. 33 They feared Yahweh, and also served their own gods, after the ways of the nations from among whom they had been carried away.