Sermon: Who Was the Samaritan Woman at the Well?

#1720B
Ted E. Bowling
Given 29-Jul-23; 34 minutes 2023-07-29

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Today, I would like to speak about the Samaritan woman that Jesus met at the well. I think she is one of the undervalued personalities in the Bible.

When you look at the woman at the well, she does not have the reputation of many other women in the Scriptures, mainly because many of the commentaries paint her as a outcast, adulterer, or even a prostitute. Today, I want to make the case that she is not like that at all and that maybe the commentaries have it wrong. (I guess that might be being bold on my part.) But I do think this is one of the beautiful stories of the Bible. This interaction with her and Jesus Christ at the well is one of the most interesting stories in the Bible.

Here in chapter 4 of John, the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well is believed to be the longest one-on-one conversation He had in the Bible that is recorded. As well, He broke all the boundaries of the culture of that day to speak to a woman, especially a non-Jew. That was unheard of in that day.

Also, what is interesting though is that it follows another conversation, another long one-on-one conversation from chapter 3, and that conversation was with Nicodemus. And I do believe these two conversations are significant to each other. Romans 1:16 says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of God, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and then also the Greek." The Greek could also mean everyone else, all the Gentiles, to everyone else. First to the Jews and then to the Gentiles.

In chapter 3, Nicodemus was a Jew who came to Jesus Christ secretly to ask Him questions. He was a man that was respected, educated, a Jewish leader, wealthy, and of good reputation. But he wanted to ask Jesus questions; and Jesus speaks to Nicodemus about being born again and the Holy Spirit. And then in John 4, we have a Gentile, in the middle of the day, not by night, but in the middle of the day, Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well. She is a non-Jew, probably likely poor, uneducated, and it is Jesus that initiates the conversation with her. Jesus spoke to her about the living water, the Holy Spirit.

Jesus talked about God's Holy Spirit first to the Jew and then to the Gentile, so I believe these two conversations are connected. I do not believe that it is a coincidence that John put these in the order that he did in the Scriptures. Everything that Jesus did was always done for a purpose. So today I want to go to John 4 and I am going to focus on the conversation with the Samaritan woman. I want to start in verse 3 to get into the story.

John 4:3-9 He [that is, Jesus] left Judah and departed again to Galilee. But He needed to go through Samaria. So He came to the city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat by the well. It was about the sixth hour [that would be about noon]. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give Me a drink." For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" For Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.

Now first it says He departed, He was departing to go up to Galilee. And the quickest route to go up to Galilee is straight north. You had Judah-Samaria-Galilee, but devout Jews, which had no dealings with Samaritans, did not take that path. The practice of devout Jews was a detour around Samaria. They would go over through Jericho, cross the River Jordan, go up, and then come back over into Galilee without ever going into Samaria, because they did not want to deal with them.

So, why did the Jews not want to go through Samaria? Well, let me just give a little background here. Because there was a longstanding animosity, even a hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans. And it went both ways. It all goes back to 722 BC and it was because of idolatry. In 722 BC Syria conquered Israel, that is, the northern ten tribes, and they carried most of the people off to live in that area to be slaves and then they replaced them with their own people.

And so you have Assyrians marrying the Israelites that remained. And even though this was a mixed race, then, at this point, of Israelites and Gentiles, they claimed Abraham as their ancestor just as the Jews did. And they rejected the Jews. They called themselves the sons of Israel and considered themselves the keeper of the law. Now, they only recognize the books of the law. They did not believe in any of the other Old Testament verses. The Samaritans believed that they were the remnant of the ten tribes and they believed that the region was the primary area, and the Samaritans capital city was Samaria in that region.

But why does John in verse 4 call it Sychar? Well actually, before it was even that, this was the Old Testament city of Shechem, one of the cities of refuge. What happened back in Ezra 4 is that when Judah was in captivity to Babylon, when they came back to Jerusalem from their captivity, the Samaritans even offered to help them rebuild the city, rebuild the Temple. But the Jews said, absolutely not, which caused the animosity to grow even greater. And they rightly so, by the way, rejected their offer.

So in verse 5, we see this Samaritan city called Sychar. By the way, the word Sychar, it means drunkard, liar, or even rebel. You see, it was the Jews that call this city Sychar. See the Jews had a way of applying nasty names to anything that had anything to do with the Samaritans. That is how much they hated the Samaritans.

That sets the stage. That is what is going on here. Devout Jews would not travel through Samaria but they would go around.

But in verse 4, Jesus said He needed to go through Samaria. Now the word "needed" here means necessity. He had no intention of going around because He had business there, because Jesus never did anything random. He always was doing the will of His Father. And so there was a reason that Jesus was at Jacob's well that day—He was doing the will of His Father.

Let us get back into the scripture here.

John 4:9-15 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, "How is that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" For the Jews to have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it was that says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." Then the woman said to Him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?" Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life." The woman said to Him, "Sir, gave me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw."

Now, as we saw with Nicodemus, as he did not understand being born again or the Holy Spirit, the same thing happened here. She did not understand the term "living waters." But He did say, "If you knew." So He realized when He started talking to her that she would not understand. Maybe she thought that she knew the truth, but she had no truth. Unlike Nicodemus though, Nicodemus left Jesus confused, but she continued asking questions.

John 4:16-18 Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." The woman answered and said, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You have well said I have no husband; for you have had five husbands, and one whom you live with now is not your husband; in that you have spoke truly."

Here, I want to stop and look at this because this is where my study began, with this right here.

As I said at the beginning, writers automatically assume that this was a horrible outcast of a woman because she had had five husbands, placing all the blame on her. But that is not what the scriptures suggest to me. It is possible that her five previous marriages may have ended in different ways. It could have been ended by death or by divorce. She may have been widowed. We do not know, at least maybe in part of those marriages. And I appreciate Richard's sermon from last week because it is very timely for what I am saying here today. We must be very careful on how we judge, especially when we do not have all the facts.

We cannot read modern Western understanding of divorce into this woman, in which both spouses are generally the cause or both play a role. But in the first century, the power of divorce rested almost solely with her husband. He had all the power, the divorce regulations at that time had relatively few restrictions and generally divorce was an option only granted to the husband, not the wife. You might want to write down Deuteronomy 24:1 because that is a source that they would use.

But if this woman had been married and divorced five times, that means that five men had put her away. Widowed or divorced, both scenarios were potentially devastating to a woman in the ancient world. They usually had no way of providing for themselves and their children until they married again. Either way, we cannot know the pain and the suffering that this woman had dealt with throughout her life. Think of how she may have felt about herself. We are not told why she was living with a man that was not her husband. We do not have that information either.

By the way, John never claims that the Samaritan woman was an outcast and Jesus never condemned her. It does not say also that it was not necessarily her routine to come at the middle of the day. That was unusual. Most women came in the early morning or toward the end of the day; she was there in the middle of the day. So it is read into that, that maybe she must have been an outcast though. We do not know that, it is assumed.

John 4:19 The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive You are a prophet."

To me, this is interesting. She does not challenge Christ. She does not run off mad and upset. Instead, she responds to Him with terms of respect and without any sense of shame or anger, realizing that He is a man of God.

John 4:20-24 "Our fathers worshiped on this mountain and you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth."

It is really interesting that Christ was having this conversation, a very personal conversation, with this woman. And it is very unusual, we do not see that in the Scriptures.

But Jesus did make it very clear about the worship of God. Worship was not confined to one place, not on the mountain at that location, nor in Jerusalem. But most importantly, God must be worshipped in spirit and in truth. I would like to read a quote from John Ritenbaugh on this verse. John says,

Being Spirit, and a purposeful God, He is pleased only with what resembles Him. Thus, worship must be of a spiritual nature. The essence of true worship of God must be on His terms and in accordance to His nature. It must spring from a knowledgeable devoted heart under the influence of the Holy Spirit. What God is looking for in those who worship Him is a demonstration in their lives of the fruits of His Spirit: love of Him, love of the brethren, joy in living, peace through the security of living in faith, and faithful loyalty in keeping God's commands.

I could not say that any better. I had to use that. He put it all right here, what we need to know, how we should worship, and how our relationship with God should be.

I want to look at verse 21 again though.

John 4:21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, . . ."

This is a very important statement to me. It is like Jesus is desperately wanting her to understand, almost a plea. Now, I know how it is with me and my children or with someone I want to convince something of. I will say, "Trust me, believe me, listen to what I'm saying." And so, I see that in these verses here. And when I searched my Strong's Concordance, the only other place I found this term that Jesus used, "Believe Me," is in only one other place, and that is in John 14. And I am going to read that scripture too.

John 14:11 "Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me."

This was Passover evening and He was talking to His disciples. Christ was teaching His disciples, revealing the Father to them and Their relationship. And He said, "Believe Me." And I believe that He said this with the very same emotions that He said it to this Samaritan woman.

Now, with Nicodemus, He just said, "Verily, verily" meaning listen to what I have to say. That is how He spoke to the multitudes. But not here. This was personal, and I believe there was emotion in His voice as He spoke to her. This was a very personal conversation.

John 4:25 The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When He comes, He will tell us all things." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am He."

Another version says, Jesus said to her, "I am He, and I am speaking to you."

Now, you remember how God revealed Himself to Moses back in Exodus 3:14. He said, "I AM WHO I AM." Here, Jesus is saying to the Samaritan woman, "I am the I AM." Another powerful statement. Remember the Samaritan woman probably knew the books of the law. That is all they knew. Moses was a hero to the Samaritan people. And so I think, when Christ said this to her, it all sank in. First, He had told her about her background and then He said, "I am the I AM." Jesus is saying, "Believe Me, I am the Messiah."

Why do you think I see her as one of the undervalued personalities in the Bible? It is because this unnamed Samaritan woman was the first Gentile person that Jesus verbally revealed Himself to. He was the God of the Old Testament—the I AM WHO I AM. In the New Testament He was Jesus, He was the Christ.

Is it any wonder then that she totally forgot what was going on? Dropped her water pot and ran back to the city. Back in chapter 3 with Nicodemus, when he left Christ, it appears that he left confused without any true answers. But here the woman understood and rushes back to proclaim the good news to the others.

John 4:28-30 The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, "Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" Then went out of the city and came to Him.

She was so excited, she forgot why she went to the well. And as she talked to Christ, the news and everything He said become more and more real to her. And so she conveyed that information to those in the city. This passage to me reveals that she was an astute person who wanted to know the truth about worshipping God. Rather than being a social outcast, she was obviously respected because why would they take her word for it and leave the city and go listen, go see what she had to say?

Remember the Samaritans hated the Jews, the people in that city hated the Jews. And this woman just told them there was a Man at the well, a Jew, and that He was the Messiah. Now you might think those are fighting words. I would think that many of the Samaritans took it that way. That is why this is amazing to me. Because the Samaritans did not believe that the Messiah was going to come from the Southern kingdom. They thought it was going to come from them.

John 4:39 And many of the Samaritans of that city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, "He told me all that I ever did."

You know, if she had said when He first met her, when He says, "You're a married woman." And she goes, "Yeah, right." Or "You're a single woman." But He said to her, "You have been married five times." Well, there was much more understanding, there was a miracle happening right then, because there was no way He could have known who she was.

But look at this. God allowed her, everything that she had been through her life, all these husbands, all this turmoil in her life have built up to this moment. And this was not a coincidence. The Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of a woman. If her reputation was one of being an immoral person, an outcast, what credibility would that person have? You would not expect her to have any influence on them whatsoever.

Oh, and by the way, she did not say, this Man told me all my sins. That is not what she said. She said, "He told me everything that I ever did." He knew her. If the woman had been a complete immoral person of a reputation, they would never be believed or based anything on that single word of hers.

The Samaritan woman did not respond to Christ because of her exposed sins. I think she responded because Jesus understood the difficulty of the life that she had lived. He was aware of her pain and her suffering that she had endured all through her life. And that is the way it is for you and me at our conversion. God sees us and reveals Himself to us. He does something in our lives to make the light bulb go on in our mind. And then there is an excitement. I do not know what you remember, but I wanted to share this with everybody back then. When I first learned the truth, I wanted to share it just as this Samaritan woman.

John 4:40-42 So when the Samaritans had come to Him, they urged Him to stay with them; and He stayed for two days. And many more believed because of His own word. Then they said to the woman, "Now we will believe, not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world."

That is the first time this expression is used in the Bible. It is used one other time, which is in I John 4:14. By the way, you notice that John is very much connected with these terminologies. It has been John, John, John, if you noticed. There is something to that I think as well.

They realized though that Christ was not just Messiah to the Jews, but to everyone. That is understanding.

Brethren, everything Jesus did was for a reason. There was a reason He went to the city of Samaria, which was, again, Shechem, a city of refuge. Christ is our refuge. Christ brought refuge, He brought safety. He brings hope. He brings grace to His people. And Christ decided to reveal Himself to the Gentiles right here. That is what He did. And it was here, by the way, where God first appeared to Abram and gave him the promises to the inherit the land. And this is where Abram built an altar to the Lord, right here. That is in Genesis 12:7.

It is right there where Jacob lived and built the well, and that well is still there today. It is right there where the bones of Joseph are buried. It is right there where the blessings and the cursings took place. On one side of Shechem is Mount Gerizim and on the other side is Mount Ebal. They were so close, you could hear each other; and half of the Israelites sit on one side and half of the Israelites sit on the other side. And they read out those blessings and cursings.

This is a very special place. And so I believe it is not a coincidence that this is where Christ decided to go Himself to the Gentiles. And He chose this Samaritan woman. You see, it is not by chance that Christ went straight up through Samaria instead of going around. He had a purpose. He was doing His Father's business of bringing hope of salvation to them. Soon the New Covenant would be instituted after Christ's death and many of these Samaritans were already faithful followers and disciples of Jesus Christ. They were ready to receive the Holy Spirit because they believed Christ the Messiah because of a nameless woman.

I think it is safe to say that Christ completed His mission that day. He won over that woman and all the people there.

Here, we see a woman who lived a difficult life, that Jesus Christ had compassion on her that afternoon, and set her on a different path. And His compassion, that same compassion, He shows to you and me every day. Because He has personally put us on a different path for our salvation.

There are a few lessons you can take away from this story of the Samaritan woman at the well. Number one, Jesus shows us His human side like any other man. After walking for miles, He was weary and He was thirsty. Number two, but then Christ shows us His divine nature by revealing Himself as the Messiah and the provider of living water—the Holy Spirit—and demonstrating that He was willing to reveal Himself and share Himself with them.

Number three, God is willing to use women to spread the gospel in a very unlikely way here. This is probably the first person, the first woman to actually evangelize to the Samaritans, because the whole city came out at the strength of her word. Number four, to be used by God, we do not have to have any special education, special training. You do not have to be formally ordained by God, because here we see this unnamed individual, who had likely had a very difficult life, used by God to influence a multitude of people.

Brethren, you never know how God is going to use you. Our Savior knows and understands our troubles more fully than we even know ourselves. He is aware of the pain and the suffering that you go through on a daily basis as you endure this life.

But we have been given the living waters to sustain us, if we will worship Him in spirit and truth. That is what God is looking for. Those that will worship Him in spirit and in truth, and demonstrate through our lives the fruits of His Spirit.

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