Family Matters
How Does God Let Us Know Our Families Are Important?
Our Family Structure Matters (John 4:16)
Jesus wished, by mentioning her “husband,” to recall her to a sense of her sad condition, that thus the way might be opened for a fuller presentation to her of His message.
Upon the words πέντε γὰρ ἄνδρας ἔσχες κτλ. has been built a theory that the narrative of the Samaritan woman at the well is an allegory from beginning to end, and that the woman is a symbol of the Samaritan people. It is recorded (2 Kings 17:24f.) that the King of Assyria brought colonists from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and planted them in Samaria; and that each set of colonists brought with them the cult of their former national deities, who were worshipped side by side with Yahweh.
The woman’s truculent I have no husband was formally true, if her five former husbands were all deceased or divorced; but doubtless her intention was to ward off any further probing of this sensitive area of her life, while masking the guilt and hurt
Therefore Jesus confronted the woman with her life. When she tried to avoid the issue of a husband (4:17), just as she apparently sought to avoid coming for water along with the other women, Jesus spelled out clearly her ethical problem. After experimenting with five husbands (which should not be allegorized), she no longer found the marriage ritual necessary (4:18).
Family connections were important in the Jewish religion and would soon become a major metaphor for the church.
If the woman had five previous husbands who either died or divorced her, she would have exceeded the traditional limit of three husbands in Jewish law (according to the rabbinic text Babylonian Talmud Yebamot 64b; Niddah 64a).
However, the ambiguity of the word suggests the possibility that none of the five was a legal husband just as the current man is not her husband. This comment also reveals a reason why Jesus chose to speak with her about her place before God.
Jesus clarifies her ambiguous statement: she had been married five times and is not married to the man with whom she now lives. Samaritans were no less pious and strict than Jews, and her behavior would have resulted in ostracism from the Samaritan religious community—which would have been nearly coextensive with the whole Samaritan community.
Jesus suggested she get her husband and bring him back with her. This suggestion was designed to show her that He knew everything about her (cf. John 2:24–25). Her marital history was known to this Stranger, including the fact that she was living in sin. Thus in a few words Jesus had revealed her life of sin and her need for salvation.
Jesus now lays her past life completely bare, giving evidence that to Him the secrets of her life are an open book (see on ch. 1:48). She is a sinful woman, sorely in need of the “living water” He generously offers her.
Her blunt reply was not yet a confession. It meant, “I don’t need to. I’m not married.”
In that culture a married woman was not to talk with a strange man without her husband present
This is the point at which the treatment of the whole incident as allegorical is most strongly suggested. According to it, the woman represents the whole nation: her marriage is a symbol of the nation’s relation to religion (cf. 3:29); her five husbands correspond to the five gods whom the Assyrian settlers brought with them to Samaria
Jesus’s instructions gave the woman the opportunity to admit that she was living with a man who was not her husband.
Our Family Worship Matters (John 4:20)
The woman diverts the conversation to another subject, and proceeds to raise a theological difficulty, either to evade the personal issue, or because she was honestly anxious to learn what a prophet with such wonderful insight would say about the standing controversy between Jews and Samaritans
This verse is an assertion of the superiority of the Jewish religion to the Samaritan, not based on any difference as to the place of worship, rather on the difference as to their knowledge of the Object of worship.
Jesus has told the Samaritan woman that the old rivalries as to sanctuary are passing away, and that in the future “the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” But
To worship ἐν πνεύματι is, then, to worship in harmony with the Divine Spirit, and so to worship in truth (cf. 16:13 τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας).
Because the Samaritans accepted only the books of the Pentateuch as canonical (cf. notes on v. 4), they understood the words of Deuteronomy 34:10, ‘no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face’, to be absolute and in force until the coming of the prophet like Moses (Dt. 18:15–19; cf. notes on 1:21), the second Moses, the Taheb (as they called this promised ‘messianic’ figure).
If there cannot be another prophet between the first Moses and the second Moses, then to call Jesus ‘prophet’ is virtually to call him ‘the prophet’.
First, he announces the impending obsolescence of both the Jerusalem temple and the Mount Gerizim site as definitive places of worship (v. 21)
Under the eschatological conditions of the dawning hour, the true worshippers cannot be identified by their attachment to a particular shrine, but by their worship of the Father in spirit and truth.
The purpose of the woman’s referring to a prophet seems to have been to direct attention away from herself to the long-standing argument between the Jews and the Samaritans concerning the temple
Just as Jesus did not argue with the presuppositions of Nicodemus (John 3:2) and the paralytic (5:7), Jesus did not argue with the woman here.
He turned the conversation away from place of worship to nature of worship. In so doing, he modeled a correct evangelistic perspective.
Embarrassed by Jesus’ penetrating analysis of her moral condition, the woman turned the discussion to religion, notably the proper place of worship
We learn immediately that place is irrelevant and that worship is not primarily in body—through physical motions and activities—but in spirit. The text does not refer to the Holy Spirit but an attitude of heart which acknowledges God and his sovereignty over our lives. Furthermore, worship must be done in truth—honestly, biblically, centered on Christ.
True believers must stop this mindless, endless, meaningless bickering about sites and sounds of worship. God is not interested in Jews or Samaritans, Presbyterians or Methodists, Calvinists or Arminians. He is interested in worshipers who must worship in spirit and in truth.
Ought to worship (δεῖ). Better, must worship. She puts it as a divine obligation. It is the only true holy place. Compare ver. 24.
The phrase in spirit and in truth describes the two essential characteristics of true worship: in spirit, as distinguished from place or form or other sensual limitations (ver. 21); in truth, as distinguished from the false conceptions resulting from imperfect knowledge (ver. 22).
Jesus does not take up the debate over legitimate holy places. Rather, he points to a future time of salvation when worship will not be limited to any local sacred site, neither Mount Gerizim nor Jerusalem. How one worships is more important than where one worships.
Authentic worship involves an inward change of heart, not just outward observance. Real followers of God worship in complete sincerity.
A time is coming (cf. v. 23) referred to the coming death of Jesus which would inaugurate a new phase of worship in God’s economy
With the advent of the Messiah the time came for a new order of worship. True worshipers are those who realize that Jesus is the Truth of God (3:21; 14:6) and the one and only Way to the Father (Acts 4:12).
To worship in truth is to worship God through Jesus. To worship in Spirit is to worship in the new realm which God has revealed to people
The woman evades a discussion of her own life by changing the subject of conversation to a line of thought that has no personal implications
The worship of God would not be restricted to any particular locality—Judea, Samaria, or elsewhere.
True worshippers. That is, those whose worship is of the heart, rather than worship consisting essentially of ritual forms conducted at some particular place.
4:22 True worship must be based on true knowledge of God, and the Samaritans limited themselves to just the Pentateuch. Salvation is from the Jews means that in salvation history the Jews are the conduit through which salvation comes to the world.
Every Individual Matters (John 4:29)
The woman was so much impressed that she went off to tell her friends in Sychar.
In her excitement, she uses the exaggerated language of an uneducated woman, “Come and see a man who told me all things that ever I did.”
Many have suggested that, whatever her reason, John detects a profound symbolism: in her eagerness to enjoy the new and living water, she abandons the old water jar, and thus speaks of renunciation of the old ceremonial forms of religion in favour of worship in spirit and truth.
More striking is her eagerness to bear witness before the townspeople whom she had previously had reason to avoid. From
She left her water pot and returned to the town/city (4:28). Again we are not told why she left the vessel at the well, and again it is not difficult to surmise the reason.
Instead of a water pot she brought a testimony and a question to the “men” of the town. The NIV, RSV, and NRSV rendering of anthropois by “people” is certainly possible but probably misses the force of “men” here.
I think we have here a woman who probably knew where to find the men of the town, and her story also may well have been their story! So her comment “come, see” (a Johannine theme; e.g., 1:39, 46) a man “who told me everything I ever did” would be an interesting report to them.
A clay vessel made for carrying water. In her haste to tell the townspeople about Jesus, she abandons the original purpose of her trip to the well.
She had experienced desire, conviction, and decision (see on v. 7), and the next logical step was action—she went to tell others of her great discovery
4:28 The woman’s water jar was probably a large earthenware pitcher carried on the shoulder or hip. She abandoned her original purpose for coming to the well in order to tell her townspeople about Jesus.
This woman represents the working of a practical faith in Christ. Every true disciple is born into the kingdom of God as a missionary. He who drinks of the living water becomes a fountain of life. The receiver becomes a giver. The grace of Christ in the soul is like a spring in the desert, welling up to refresh all, and making those who are ready to perish eager to drink of the water of life.
