By Roy E. Ciampa, Ph.D.,
S. Louis and Ann W. Armstrong Professor of Religion, Samford University
The Samaritan Woman: Faith Worth Sharing
John 4:10–18, 28–30
In this passage we see how Christ leads a Samaritan from a point of disorientation to a point of leading others to come to Christ to find life in Him. We also witness how Christ drew her to Him and how she came to lead others to Him as well.
Engage in conversation about things that others care about. (10–14)
Jesus finds a Samaritan woman who was presumably estranged from her community (given her unusual practice of collecting water alone in the middle of the day, her unusual number of husbands and current status of living with a man to whom she wasn’t married) and engages her in a disorienting and yet deeply engaging conversation. As a Jew, He unexpectedly engages a lone Samaritan woman in conversation, raises the question of His identity (“if you knew”), and suggests that if she knew the truth it would have led her to ask Him for a drink rather than Him asking her for a drink. He uses a wordplay to help move the conversation from the subject of literal water (with “living water” serving as an idiom for flowing water) to eternal life (with “living water” pointing to the provision of eternal life). She is initially very confused but clearly also extremely intrigued. Her felt need is for the water she seeks at the well each day, but Christ knows her real need is to find the eternal life that He has come to offer, and He finds a way to move the conversation from the one to the other.
Take the conversation deeper. (15–18)
Through verse 18 the woman seems to think the conversation is about water to quench her physical thirst. Christ lets the truth about who He is and what the conversation is really about sink in as the conversation develops. Whether the woman had lost her husbands to death (in which case she might have been perceived to be cursed) or by divorce (in which she would be considered morally compromised), she would have suffered shame. She is currently involved in a sinful extramarital relationship. But both she and Jesus seem more interested in what Jesus’ knowledge of her marital history says about Him than it does about her. He reveals His knowledge not to shame her, but so that she might begin to recognize who He is. Yes, she is a sinner, but then so was Nicodemus in the previous chapter, and every other person Jesus ever met.
Jesus focuses on the need to worship God in the Spirit and in truth (John 4:22–24). As He told Nicodemus, a person must be born of the Spirit, born again, to enter into the kingdom of God. And that truth places each person, whether a marginalized woman, like this Samaritan, or a respected religious leader, like Nicodemus, at the same level at the foot of the cross, whatever his or her prevalent sins may be.
Share your life-changing encounter with Christ. (28–30)
The woman’s conversion was, at the same time, a calling to share the good news about Jesus with her community. She did not need to be a trained theologian or Bible scholar to fulfill God’s purpose behind her encounter with Jesus. She only needed to be willing to share her personal experience with Him (he “told me everything I ever did”) and ask the key question that her experience raised for both her and others: “Could this be the Messiah?” Like starving people who have found food and water, those who have trusted in Christ and found eternal life in Him, must be prepared to let others know they can find life in Him as well!
Share with others: