As we continue our series on Women of the Bible, I want to take a moment and remind you of the invitations from the teaching on Hagar…
- Can we pray in a way that changes our perspective, not necessarily our situation?
- Can you reach out to someone who is in the middle of the messiness of life and wade in alongside them and be a support and help them encounter Jesus?
- Can we stop chasing a life of comfort and pleasure and faithfully journey where God calls even if it is messy and difficult?
This Sunday we will be looking at the Samaritan woman at the well. This story can be found in John 4:1-30…
4 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John” 2 (although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized), 3 he left Judea and started back to Galilee. 4 But he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
7 A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying 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 no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband,’ 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 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 is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”
27 Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” 28 Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, 29 “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” 30 They left the city and were on their way to him.
As we look at this familiar story, I invite you to look at the first six verses of this passage and determine which details are important to the story of the Samaritan woman.
Go ahead, I’ll wait…
Still waiting…
What stood out to you in these first six verses?
How do these verses help you understand the story of the Jesus and the Samaritan woman?
I am excited to explore this mysterious unnamed Samaritan woman.
How do you picture her?
Is she flawed, rejected, and lonely?
Or is she smart, outspoken, and a leader in the community?
Does it have to be one or the other?
Join us this Sunday as we explore this Samaritan woman and her interaction with Jesus?
What questions do you bring?
Let’s talk about it on Sunday.
Here is a short video for the children. Be sure to grab a coloring page of this story on Sunday morning.
~ Pastor Dustin
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Preview YouTube video The Gospel Project for Kids: Jesus and the Samaritan Woman
