Chapter # 4 Paragraph # 2 Study # 5
March 17, 2024
Broadlands, Louisiana
(Download Audio)
Thesis: Jesus invaded a terribly corrupted "life" to offer the foundation for "uncorrupting" it.
Introduction: In our study last week, we saw that Author-John presented us with a picture of Jesus that had "fallen into" a seriously corrupt "setting": Jesus was determinedly pursuing the Father's will; The Father has a permanent plan to bring many sons to glory that was developing in some confusing (to men) ways; there was a leadership in control in Jerusalem whom I called Jonah-Jews because of their hatred for the people that God had chosen them to relate the truth about "The God" to; there was an ingrained attitude toward "women", and especially those with a bad reputation, and even more especially if they were of "Samaritan" origins; there was, and remains to be, somewhat of a corruption of the words that had been given by God in written form; and there was Jesus' deliberate introduction of "thirst" and "hunger" issues on a distinctly different "level" than most people ever understand -- moving the physical into the relational.
In our study this morning, we are going to see another "picture" of Jesus in which He fully enters into the "corruption" of the "setting" in order to bring about a "solution" to the corruption. He does not "correct" the larger "setting" issues; but He does offer a correction to a woman whose participation in the "corruption that is in the world" had pretty thoroughly created, for her, a "hopeless thirst" for a life that had both purpose in the present and a living hope for the future.
- I. In This "Picture" We Have A Thumbnail Sketch Of What The Larger "Setting Of Corruption" Has Created In The Life of One Whose Station In Life Is "At The Bottom".
- A. This "sketch" begins with a woman who is thirsty, but has no clue as to the real nature of her thirst, or as to where to find "water" that would resolve it.
- 1. By "real" I do not mean that her physical thirst is not "genuine", but that it is not "significant".
- a. Its insignificance exists in the fact that physical thirst is for "water" that has no basis in it for solving her physical circumstances; "it is appointed unto men to die" and pouring water down their throats will not "fix" that [Note Jesus' insistence upon this reality in 6:27].
- b. "Thirst" exists on more than one level of our existence: body, soul, and spirit, and what "works" on one level will not "work" on the other levels.
- 2. This "beginning of the sketch" sets forth the "problem": laboring at the physical level is a matter of digging the hole deeper.
- B. This "sketch" is revealed by Author-John's choices about what he wrote of the woman's words to Jesus.
- 1. Her first words to Jesus put the animosity between Jews and Samaritans on the front burner.
- a. This was not a "slight" matter because it smacked of the woman's attitude toward Jews who thought themselves superior to the Samaritans and was a continual burden to her soul and spirit.
- b. This comes out again in her third set of words to Jesus: "...are you [also] greater than Jacob?"
- c. But it is highly likely that the fact that her track record with "men" was so pitiful was bleeding over into her forced interaction with Jesus.
- d. And, though there is no real foundation for the next factor I am going to insert into our "picture", it is obvious that there is no one around in a situation of a strange "superior" Jew alone with a "low class" Samaritan woman so that any apprehensions she may have had would be front and center.
- 2. Her second set of words to Jesus belie her disbelief that He could, in any way, give her "living water" given the facts that the cistern (no living water here) was deep and, to make matters worse, He was offering her a drink when He had nothing to use to get to the only "water" of which she knew.
- C. This "sketch" also presents Jesus as making the first overture that He might have something valuable to offer.
- 1. He said, "If you knew (Pluperfect of "oida" i.e., "had ever known") the Gift of God...". [only three uses of this word in the Pluperfect in the New Testament and in every case the meaning is that what was/might have been "known" at one time is now "lost to you"].
- a. The "object" of this "lost/never possessed" knowledge is "the gift of The God".
- b. This "gift" is identified in 7:38-39 as "the Spirit which they that believe on Him should receive" and, as well by several references to "the gift of the Holy Spirit".
- c. But in this conversation, this "gift" was "water that would permanently quench the thirst" by becoming a "well of water leaping up into Life Eternal" (4:14).
- 2. And He said, "...if you had known 'Who it is speaking to you'...you would have asked of him and He would have given you 'living water'".
- a. This made the offer "conditional" upon two issues: knowing the gift of God; and knowing Who is speaking Truth to you.
- b. This sets the stage for the direction of the conversation so that this woman might get to know Who is speaking Truth to her, so that she might ask and receive.
