Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

Probing Your Own Heart

Have you ever withheld the Gospel from anyone because of their ethnicity or their social status?

Do you consider yourself superior to any individual or group of people?

Is your interest in people redemptive or corrective?

How genuine and free is your worship?

Building on Some Foundational Concepts

No ethnic or social group should be denied the Gospel.

She should have been denied an audience with the Master. After all, He was Jewish and she belonged to that ethnically, socially, and religiously inferior people, the Samaritans. No, she should not have been denied an audience with the Master! Her gender, her ethnicity, her social status, and her religious bent had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with her spiritual need. Her need and the Master's grace made that audience her "inalienable right." Not only does everyone have such a God-given right, everyone who knows Jesus has the God-given responsibility to generously and graciously share the Gospel with anyone and everyone who needs it.

Humility and compassion find entrance into many hearts.

Jesus' humility allowed Him to speak to this Samaritan woman (of all people!). His compassion moved Him to offer her the living water she desperately needed. She opened her heart to Him. We cannot expect to effectively convey the Gospel if we do not do so with genuine humility and compassion.

Jesus has chosen to reveal Himself to me!

"Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he" (John 4:26). The reality that God Himself has chosen to reveal Himself to us and call us to Himself ought to generate wonder and worship in our hearts and in our living.

Questions and Responses

Why ask her for a drink?

Perhaps because He was thirsty?

He also asked her because He knew she needed a drink and could not find one. He knew (and she knew) her spirit was parched. In breaking down society's barrier between them, He created an opening through which she could step to receive living water.

What gift of God was Jesus speaking of?

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6).

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 6:23).

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8).

"He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32).

"Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift" (2 Corinthians 9:15).

What limitations might we place on worship?

The insincerity of a misdirected focus limits and impedes our ability to worship. Take singing, for instance. A focus on the music alone will keep us from noting and personalizing the words and their message. And such a focus will certainly distract us from the purpose and object of Christian worship: God. (Of course, another angle to this is the problem of doing one thing with our mouths while our minds occupy themselves with something far different.)