Year 8, Day 252: John 4

Theological Commentary: Click Here

I love this chapter.  John 4 is hands down one of my favorite chapters in the whole of God’s Word.  Here we see Jesus teaching in a manner that is near and dear to my heart.  Again and again Jesus sets up the person to whom He is talking so that they are going to have a mind-blowing, life-altering moment.  Jesus doesn’t just want to give them new information, He wants their perspective to change, too.  He isn’t just a conveyor of information like some dry, boring, lecturing professor.  Jesus is shattering the way that people construct their life to provide space for a new framework.

For example, take the woman at the well.  When Jesus asks her for a drink she reminds Him that as a Samaritan she isn’t qualified to give Him a drink.  Jesus seizes the opportunity and tells her that she needs the living water that He is offering.  She immediately is interested, and it gives Jesus the opportunity to draw her out of her focus on the physical realm and look into the spiritual realm.  She wants to end her thirst; Jesus takes the opportunity to show her a new level of thirst that she never knew existed.  He then shows her how to satisfy such thirst.

The next thing that Jesus does is to take her confession about not having a husband and shatter her perspective once more.  Jesus tells her that she doesn’t have a current husband but has been many several times prior.  The fact that Jesus knows this amazes the woman.  It is this conversation that forces the woman to no longer see Jesus as a Jew with whom she cannot interact and instead see Jesus as a spiritual prophet with whom she wants to interact.

Next, the disciples come.  They are startled to see Jesus speaking to this Samaritan woman but to their credit they say nothing.  The woman leaves and the disciples invite Jesus to eat.  In turn, Jesus questions them about food.  Jesus sees an opportunity to shatter their perspective.  The disciples are hungry and thinking about eternal food, but Jesus gets them thinking about the eternal and spiritual food.  In doing so, He teaches the disciples to see the Samaritans as a potential harvest instead of a people to be scorned.

In this chapter, Jesus really does show us what a master teacher looks like.  Jesus is all about using what seems like an outrageous claim to change the perspective of His disciples.  He knows that often the easiest way to open up people’s minds is to make a comment that takes them out of their comfort zone and then show them how a change in perspective and cause the knew thought to actually be within their comfort zone.  This is what great teachers do all the time.

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