Spiritual Goals and Values: Following Jesus in His Upside-Down Kingdomናሙና

The Woman at the Well (Part 1)

“Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” - John 6:35

Today and tomorrow’s passage (which is often referred to as “the woman at the well”) is the longest exchange we have recorded of Jesus speaking one-on-one with anyone. This is remarkable, for a number of reasons - as both the woman herself, and His disciples would agree.

In John 4:9, we read that the “Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)”

Before we go any further, we need to get to the bottom of this. What does it mean that Jews did not associate with Samaritans?

The answer is long and embedded within a brutal history, but the highlight (or more accurately, lowlight, perhaps?) version is this:

• Israel was divided into two kingdoms (the north and the south).
• The northern kingdom was conquered by Assyria in 722 B.C., and they took its people into captivity. These Assyrian invaders then brought non-Jewish colonists into the land, and they brought with them pagan idols and other non-God-approved practices, including inter-marriage (something that God had specifically asked the Israelites not to do…).
• Meanwhile, the southern kingdom was also invaded, and it fell to Babylon in 600 B.C., where its people were once again taken into captivity. But (and it’s important but), 43,000 of them were allowed to return to rebuild Jerusalem. The people who now inhabited the northern kingdom - the Samaritans - were very against this, and did everything they could to stop this reestablishment (by full blooded Jews) of Jerusalem (hopefully you’re tracking!).
• And thus began an I-can’t-stand-you war between the two groups. The Jews detested the mixed worship and intermarriage of the Samaritans, and this went on for hundreds of years.

It was therefore a racial thing, an ethnic thing, a history thing, a worldview thing, a spiritual thing, a colonisation thing, a practical thing, an elitist thing, and a family thing - an important thing that ran very deep, for a very long time. As we are told within this passage, the Jews did not even associate with Samaritans. It was a big deal.

This is strike one when it comes to the reasons why both this woman and later the disciples were surprised that Jesus was talking to her. Culturally, there are a few other factors at play as well:

First, Jesus wasn’t supposed to be talking to a woman, any woman, at all. This was strike two. The Roman Empire that Jesus was born into was not a kind place for women (huge understatement), as essentially they had no rights. For example, you could legally leave your female babies out to die of exposure to the elements, but not your male babies (talk about a double standard…).

What's more, women were the property of their fathers if they were unmarried or their husbands if they were married. This meant that they were hardly their own person, so much so that the men in that society had three names, while the women had only their clan name (which was just the feminine form of their father's name!). This meant that sisters often had the same name, distinguished only by ‘the older’ or ‘the younger’. Women, therefore, were seen as inferior to men, which is why both the disciples and this woman were so shocked.

And secondly, Jesus especially wasn’t supposed to be talking to this specific Samaritan woman because she was clearly a woman of great sin. She’d had 5 husbands in her lifetime, and she was living with a man who was not her husband. It was not a good look for Jesus to be associating with this woman. What if somebody saw? What would they think? Strike three.

Despite all of this, we see so clearly in this passage that Jesus bypassed the gender bias, the cultural bias, and her sin - He ignored all of that - to have this conversation with her. This long conversation with her actually becomes the first example that we see of the Gospel being shared outside of the Jewish culture. This woman, therefore, was the first evangelist sent out by Jesus (and a Samaritan woman at that!).

What does this tell us about Jesus and the value system by which He operated?

Take the time to properly think that question through because it’s important.

Finish out your time today by journaling the answers to the following questions and spending some time in prayer:

Do you have any values that divide you from other people?

Are there any types of people that you do not associate with? Why is that? What would Jesus say about that?

What do we learn from this encounter about judging other people for their sins?

Ask God to reveal any bias within your heart.