John chapter 4
Jesus leads a Samaritan woman to faith in himself. She leads many other Samaritans to faith. In Galilee, Jesus is welcomed. He heals an official’s child.
JESUS DEPARTS JUDEA
VERSE 1. Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John
VERSE 2. (although Jesus himself didn’t baptize, but his disciples),
VERSE 3. he left Judea and departed into Galilee.
A WOMAN OF SAMARIA
VERSE 4. He needed to pass through Samaria.
VERSE 5. So he came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son, Joseph.
VERSE 6. Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being tired from his journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
tired from his journey. Even though Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, he still experiences the same foibles as all of us humans. He is tired.
Hebrews 4:15. For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin.
It was about the sixth hour. That is, it was about “noon.”
VERSE 7. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
VERSE 8. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
VERSE 9. The Samaritan woman therefore said to him, “How is it that you, being a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
VERSE 10. Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
VERSE 11. The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. So where do you get that living water?
VERSE 12. Are you greater than our father, Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his children and his livestock?”
our father, Jacob. The Lord Jesus uses the word “our.” That means the Samaritans, like the Jewish people, were descended from Abraham!
VERSE 13. Jesus answered her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again,
Revelation 22:17. The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” He who hears, let him say, “Come!” He who is thirsty, let him come. He who desires, let him take the water of life freely.
VERSE 14. but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
a well of water springing up to eternal life. What was the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ? How did he himself define it? Here are the verses we find in the four gospels »
Some people say that Jesus never meant to be a “messiah-figure.” They say the notion of Jesus as giving eternal life was an idea he never thougth of. Rather, they say, after he died, his followers dreamed it up so “the Jesus myth” would be more compelling.
That argument does not fit the New Testament narratives. In this verse, for example, Jesus sees himself as giving eternal life to people.
Revelation 22:17. The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” He who hears, let him say, “Come!” He who is thirsty, let him come. He who desires, let him take the water of life freely.
VERSE 15. The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I don’t get thirsty, neither come all the way here to draw.”
VERSE 16. Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
VERSE 17. The woman answered, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You said well, ‘I have no husband,’
VERSE 18. for you have had five husbands; and he whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly.”
VERSE 19. The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
VERSE 20. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”
VERSE 21. Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour comes, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, will you worship the Father.
VERSE 22. You worship that which you don’t know. We worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews.
salvation is from the Jews. The Lord Jesus Christ says salvation is from the Jewish people!
We Christians need to have great respect for Jewish people.
VERSE 23. But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to be his worshipers.
VERSE 24. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
This verse is fantastic! Would you consider memorizing it? More great verses to memorize from the Gospel According to John and from the entire Bible.
worship in spirit. Many people have a mechanistic view of worship. Worship consists of appeasing an angry God, usually by slaughtering animals or offering gifts or making noise. However, Jesus says we are to worship in spirit.
Even though we are fleshly, we know the law is spiritual. What matters is that we worship in spirit and in truth. Read more »
VERSE 25. The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah comes, he who is called Christ. When he has come, he will declare to us all things.”
VERSE 26. Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who speaks to you.”
JESUS INSTRUCTS HIS DISCIPLES
VERSE 27. At this, his disciples came. They marveled that he was speaking with a woman; yet no one said, “What are you looking for?” or, “Why do you speak with her?”
VERSE 28. So the woman left her water pot, went away into the city, and said to the people,
VERSE 29. “Come, see a man who told me everything that I did. Can this be the Christ?”
VERSE 30. They went out of the city, and were coming to him.
VERSE 31. In the meanwhile, the disciples urged him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”
VERSE 32. But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”
VERSE 33. The disciples therefore said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?”
OUR FOOD IS TO DO AND TO FINISH
VERSE 34. Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
This verse is fantastic! Would you consider memorizing it? More great verses to memorize from the Gospel According to John and from the entire Bible.
What was the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ? How did he himself define it? Here are the verses we find in the four gospels »
my food. Jesus said to them, “My food.” Food. It’s what you eat. Its necessary. It keeps you going. Its what you live on. Jesus had food, but it wasn’t the kind of food that you cook and then put in your mouth. No, his food was the doing of something.
is to do. Christ said his food was “to do the will of the one who sent” him. That food was to do the will of God the Father. That’s what fed Jesus. He dined on doing whatever God the Father willed for him. That’s what gave Christ his strength.
and to finish. Jesus lived not only to do the will of the Father, but also “to finish his work.” Jesus didn’t do things just partly. He wasn’t halfhearted. He didn’t obey the Father in feeble ways. No, Christ was wholehearted. He aimed to complete the will of God for his life. He aimed to do 100% of of the Father’s will for his ministry to others. Jesus would follow-through all the way to completion.
My food is to do the will of him who sent me. Jesus fed on doing the will of God the Father and finishing his work. Can you feed on completing the will of the Father for you? There is no time to start like right now!
VERSE 35. Don’t you say, ‘There are yet four months until the harvest?’ Behold, I tell you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, that they are white for harvest already.
This verse is fantastic! Would you consider memorizing it? More great verses to memorize from the Gospel According to John and from the entire Bible.
This verse seems like a command! Would you consider acting on it? More commands of Jesus Christ from the Gospel According to John and from the entire Bible.
There are yet four months. When might that get going? When would the stage be suitably set, so that he could act? Would it be some time off in the future?
Many of us think like that. We have a Five-Year Plan. We calendar events months in advance. We’re like the farmers of Christ’s time, who said this: “In four months the harvest will be here.”
lift up your eyes and look. But that isn’t the way it is, when it comes to doing the will of God the Father. Jesus tells us: “look up and see.”
To assess the crops, a farmer casts his gaze downward. He looks down and assesses the soil and his crops.
But we’re to not look down. The Lord Jesus calls us to look up. We’re to look up toward the real harvest, which isn’t down in the soil.
We’re to look up to God the Father. We are to discover his will for our lives.
When we look up, like Jesus does, we’ll see that “the fields”are “ripe for the harvest.”
VERSE 36. He who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit to eternal life; that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.
VERSE 37. For in this the saying is true, ‘One sows, and another reaps.’
VERSE 38. I sent you to reap that for which you haven’t labored. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
MANY SAMARITANS BELIEVE
VERSE 39. From that city many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman, who testified, “He told me everything that I did.”
many of the Samaritans believed. The woman at the well evangelized the people in her town. She was the first Evangelical Samaritan!
VERSE 40. So when the Samaritans came to him, they begged him to stay with them. He stayed there two days.
He stayed there two days. The Lord Jesus stayed in a non-Jewish town for two days.
That would have made him ritually impure.
VERSE 41. Many more believed because of his word.
VERSE 42. They said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of your speaking; for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”
GALILEE WELCOMES JESUS
VERSE 43. After the two days he went out from there and went into Galilee.
VERSE 44. For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.
VERSE 45. So when he came into Galilee, the Galileans received him, having seen all the things that he did in Jerusalem at the feast, for they also went to the feast.
JESUS HEALS AN OFFICIAL’S SON
VERSE 46. Jesus came therefore again to Cana of Galilee, where he made the water into wine. There was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum.
VERSE 47. When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to him, and begged him that he would come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.
VERSE 48. Jesus therefore said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will in no way believe.”
VERSE 49. The nobleman said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”
VERSE 50. Jesus said to him, “Go your way. Your son lives.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way.
VERSE 51. As he was now going down, his servants met him and reported, saying “Your child lives!”
VERSE 52. So he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. They said therefore to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour, the fever left him.”
at the seventh hour. That is, at 1 pm.
VERSE 53. So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives.” He believed, as did his whole house.
VERSE 54. This is again the second sign that Jesus did, having come out of Judea into Galilee.
JOHN
CHAPTERS: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21
RESOURCES: Summary, Outline, Memorize, Commands, Spirituality
Unless otherwise noted, all Bible quotations on this page are from the World English Bible and the World Messianic Edition. These translations have no copyright restrictions. They are in the Public Domain.