John 4:10-14 – “Jesus answered and said to 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.”  11 She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? 12 “You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” 13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again;  14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”   NASU

I want to address something that some get hung up on which appears at the beginning of this Chapter where it says, “Jesus had to go through Samaria.”  From a strictly geographical sense that is not true it was not a geographic have to be a divine have to.  It would have been far safer and more convenient for Jesus to have used the road used by most Jews to avoid dealing with the hated Samaritans.  It was necessary for God’s divine plan for Jesus had a divine appointment in Samaria.

 When you consider that they walked virtually everywhere they went in the times of our Lord you can imagine how tired they would have been walking from Judea to Samaria and arriving by noon.  That is a feat for the fittest of individuals and as Jesus sits at the well to rest the others go into the village searching for food.  I want you to paint this picture in your mind:  It is NOON and Jesus is at the WELL.  That is important.

This woman who comes to the well has had a difficult life.  She has been through five husbands and likely given upon marriage and is now just living with a man.  It would appear that her mindset is that if there is something bad going to happen it is going to happen to her.  Someone said, “She was a social leper.” 

No woman went to the well at noon!  It would be too hot but the fact that she is there at noon suggests that the others of the town would have nothing to do with her and she was avoiding contact with the community.  At the well she finds Jesus, a Jew sitting there.  It seems that she planned to avoid all contact with Him but she cannot help notice he is a Jew and a very strange man.  The custom of that day would dictate that a woman NEVER speak to a strange man and likely would not even look at him, at least not directly.  But Jesus speaks and asks her for a drink of water.  I can only imagine the shock that brought to her mind and her world.  It was unheard of and violated all tradition and custom of the day.  She questioned Him and he responded saying, “If you only knew who I am, you would ask of me LIVING WATER.”

I suggest that meant no more to her than it would to you or me.  She was at the physical well, drawing natural water and he says, “I have another water or living water.”  What could He be talking about and where do you get this water?  I can imagine she thought Him a bit lacking in mental capacity.  Jesus then said as He pointed to her water, “Whoever drinks of that water will keep on thirsting.”  It will not permanently quench your thirst and you will have to keep drinking again and again. He says, “But, whoever drinks the water that I will give will never thirst again.”  His declaration was ONE DRINK will be enough forever.  In the Greek He said, “Shall never, no never, no never thirst again” IT WAS EMPHATIC!

One drink becomes an artesian well that will touch every part of your being.  This is NOT NEW.  Jesus was not saying something completely new rather He was connecting the dots.  It is amazing that most believers begin reading the Bible in Matthew and miss much of what the God declared and the New Testament interprets.  Imagine beginning a book in Chapter Five but we begin reading God’s book at Chapter Forty how interesting.  You see, in the Old Testament God presents ideas and when Jesus steps on the scene he takes those ideas and connects the dots declaring, “I am what they are talking about.”  This is one of those ideas.

The idea of mankind being thirsty and God being the fountain of living water is found in many passages in the Old Testament and we will not fully comprehend what Jesus is saying until we go back and find that which He was connecting the dots for. This is one of the reasons that so often people come to a wrong conclusion regarding biblical truth today.

My limited time and space prohibits my continuing but I will in the next post but until then may the Lord bless you and keep you and satisfy the longing of your soul.  BLESSINGS!