I’m a new Christian (39 days) and just read this today.
What is the point of this scripture in your opinion? I notice a reference to Jacob from the OT but I’m unfamiliar with him too.
I don’t under the point of this scripture (John 4:1-26) and what it’s supposed to teach us.
please help. God bless Lenno
There is a common theme in all four Gospels where Jesus regularly engages with and interacts with people whom "polite society" didn't respect. For example prostitutes, tax-collectors (who were local Jews enlisted by the local Roman government in Judea to act as their agents to collect taxes from an oppressed and occupied people, and thus were often regarded as collaborators and traitors), lepers (who were frequently forced to live in leper colonies, ghettos where those with leprosy were hidden away from the rest of society. The woman was not a particularly "respectable" woman, she would have probably been viewed as a "harlot" using more contemporary language by many.
Secondly, the woman at the well was a Samaritan. The Samaritans are an ethno-religious group that have their own form of Israelite religion: Samaritanism. Samaritans and Jews, therefore, were in a sense religious cousins--both traced their religion back to Moses, and before Moses back to Jacob, and Isaac, and Abraham, etc. Both Samaritans and Jews claim to be Israelites. The precise origins of the split between the two and all the causes are still not thoroughly understood, with several different competing theories and hypotheses being put forward over the centuries and in modern times. But relevant here is that because of these centuries-old disagreements and antagonism, Jews and Samaritans didn't typically get along very well, with Samaritans frequently viewed as no different than uncircumcised Gentiles, and regarded as such.
The significance of this encounter is one of the very first to recognize that Jesus is the Messiah was a Samaritan woman with infidelity problems. That also is a theme we see throughout Jesus' ministry: It isn't the "good" and "righteous" and "upstanding" people who welcome Jesus, recognize Jesus for who He is, etc--it is the underdogs, the unloved, those mistreated or disadvantaged. In fact, it is the powerful, the "righteous", etc who especially despise Jesus because what Jesus says and does made them very, very uncomfortable and it was a challenge to their very fragile sense of entitlement and authority.
It's made more significant when we understand that throughout the Old Testament, and throughout general messianic expectation and hope among Jews in the first century was that when the Messiah/Christ came, he would bring together all the Israelites from all twelve tribes scattered among the nations and bring them back together before God. As I said, the Samaritans, like Jews, have Israelite origins, though their religions had some very stark differences. One of the chief differences was that according to the Jews God chose the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to be the site of the Temple in which God's glory dwelt; but according to the Samaritans God chose Mt. Gerizim near the city of Shechem and so the Samaritans had their own Samaritan temple on Mt. Gerizim, and their own high priest and priesthood--while the Samaritan temple was destroyed over a century before the birth of Jesus, they continued to practice animal sacrifices at Mt. Gerizim (and still do, even today).
So Jesus says that the day is coming when it does not matter which mountain, for true worshipers of God will worship Him in spirit and in truth.
When Jesus was speaking with His Apostles after He had been raised from the dead, before He had ascended into heaven, He told them to wait in Jerusalem until they received the Holy Spirit, and when they did they would become His witnesses, beginning first in Jerusalem, then the towns and villages of Judea and Samaria, then to all nations and the ends of the earth (Luke 24:44-53, Acts of the Apostles 1:6-11)
In the Acts of the Apostles, the Apostles do just as Jesus said: It began first in Jerusalem, and into the towns and villages of Judea and Samaria. Jews and Samaritans, without distinction--both Israelites, both included in God's unifying and restoring work in Jesus (Acts of the Apostles 8:25)
Of course, as the Acts of the Apostles continue, we learn that not just Israelites, but Gentiles also are called and included.
God is not found at a mountain, or in a temple made of stone. Jesus Christ is Himself the Temple (John 2:19-22), and by our union together with Him as His Church, we too are that Temple, in which the Holy Spirit dwells (1 Corinthians 3:16, Ephesians 2:18-22). As God's people, under Jesus the Messiah, our Lord--whether Jew, Samaritan, or Gentile--we are all united together in Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit, in true worship of God as He has given and revealed Himself to us through our Lord Jesus, and the precious and Holy Gospel.
-CryptoLutheran
