The Samaritan woman

Good morning All,

This is a wonderful, yet simple message of Grace. 

Unto Edification, in His name,

~Al

Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour. 

There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith to her, Give me to drink. 

Joh 4:6-7 

 

 

Christ at Jacob's well

This history teaches us that

I. No soul is so LOST BUT THE LORD CAN FIND IT. Frivolity was natural to this woman. She had lived without restraint and morality. Woman has one safeguard against sin—innate delicacy. This lost, all is lost; and this was so with the Samaritan. How many would have turned away from her as hopeless, But Christ turns to her because she is a soul whom the Father has given Him to save.

II. NO OCCASION IS SO TRIFLING BUT THE LORD CAN USE IT. The woman comes to draw water, a common act, by a common way. Who would have thought that the way would have led to everlasting life? The least trifle may become in God's hand a means of salvation: a word spoken at random, a familiar scene, an unforeseen hindrance, the monotony of life, the influence of a friend. God's seeking grace encompasses us like the air we breathe.

III. NO STRENGTH IS SO FEEBLE BUT THE LORD CAN INCREASE IT. Few could have been morally weaker than this woman. She lacked the power to understand Christ and to know herself. Christ had to awaken everything in her. So are we impotent; but the Spirit of Christ helps our infirmities. Christ asks in order that He may give. He requires humility, but only to exalt, the surrender of the old life in order to confer life eternal.

IV. NO BEGINNING IS SO SMALL BUT THE LORD CAN LEAD IT TO A BLESSED END. What a small beginning here, and yet before long a disciple and evangelist is found. Don't despise little beginnings and struggling souls. (Carl Keogh, D. D.)

 

 

The woman of Samaria

1. The person here introduced was a member of a race specially hateful to the Jews; but Jesus was above the prejudice of His nation.

2. The Samaritan was a woman. "Never speak to a woman in the street, even if she be thy wife"; "Burn the words of the law rather than teach them to a woman," were current maxims in Jewish society. But Christ, in the unsullied purity of His manhood, brushed aside as cobwebs all social regulations which tended to perpetuate feminine servitude.

3. This woman lived in habitual sin. But Christ came to save sinners. Notice Jesus Christ

I. ENLIGHTENING THE WOMAN. He leads her from natural to spiritual subjects.

1. Observe His sweet courtesy. He opens the conversation, not with a sneer or opprobrious epithet, after the manner of a Jew, but with a request; and notwithstanding her ungracious rebuff, not one word of rebuke escapes Him. A most gentlemanly stranger. True religion teaches us to be courteous. This urbanity impressed her, and He became successively in her eyes Jew, Sir, Prophet, Christ. The truth must be spoken in love, and love will impress quite as much as truth.

2. Notice that the woman's lack of culture did not hinder Christ making the grandest disclosures. A radical mistake is made when the attempt is made to simplify the gospel beyond what Christ has done. The sublime will always awaken the corresponding consciousness. This is one reason why the words of Christ have more power and permanence than the systems of men.

3. The Lord made a discovery to this woman which He never made to any one else—His Messiahship. Why? Because that would not have been safe in Judaea or Galilee? Rather because of the different dispositions of those He addressed.

II. RECLAIMING THE WOMAN. The object of His enlightening her was to save her.

1. Christ always aimed at doing good.

(1) In ancient times men did good spasmodically; relief was the result of natural impulse. But in Christianity impulse has been dignified into a principle.

(2) Plato and Aristotle teach you to love men for your own sakes; Christ for their sakes and His. The essence of the gospel is not self-interest, but self-sacrifice.

2. He sought to do the highest good by reclaiming the worst characters. There are three stages in history relative to this subject.

(1) A state of well-nigh complete insensibility. The Iliad delineated heroes and cowards, strong men and weak, but not good and bad.

(2) The next stage is marked by the awakening of conscience and of the idea of right and wrong. Virtue is applauded, vice censured. But the idea of justice taught men to sympathize with the man sinned against, not the sinner.

(3) The last stage is that of full-orbed mercy in Christ, teaching us to compassionate both the injurer and the injured. Christ changed the attitude of the world in respect to its notorious sinners.

3. To accomplish these ends He threw into His philanthropic movements unprecedented zeal

(Joh 4:34).

(1) He had infinite faith in human nature. He saw its hidden potentialities. A lady, examining one of Turner's pictures, remarked: "But, Mr. T., I do not see these things in nature." "Madam," replied the artist, with pardonable naiveté, "don't you wish you did?" Christ saw what none of His contemporaries saw. The age was pessimistic; Christ was the only optimist of His time.

(2) According to the strength of His hope was the fervor of His zeal.

III. INSPIRING THE WOMAN, imparting to her His own enthusiasm.

1. She at once set about converting her neighbors. She did not lecture them; she only related her experience. We can also "say" if we cannot preach. Despise not the day of small things. Her "saying" led to the evangelization of a whole city.

2. The success attending the woman's simple efforts filled the Savior with holy joy. (J. Cynddylan Jones, D. D.)

 

 

Christ and the woman of Samaria

I. THE MINGLED TACT AND CONDESCENSION OF CHRIST IN DEALING WITH A CARELESS SINNER. He does not begin with reproof, but with a request for water, a subject uppermost in her thoughts. This at once threw a bridge across the gulf between them. So Christian workers must go to the sinful, and bear down upon them in the spirit of friendly aggression, studying the best avenues to their hearts, and avoiding any show of superiority.

II. CHRIST'S READINESS TO GIVE MERCIES TO CARELESS SINNERS. If she had asked, He would have given. "Ask and receive."

III. THE PRICELESS EXCELLENCE OF CHRIST'S GIFTS WHEN COMPARED WITH THE THINGS OF THIS WORLD (Joh 4:13-14). Thousands of men have every temporal good, and are yet weary and dissatisfied. Jesus alone can give solid happiness. His waters may have their ebbing seasons, but they are never completely dried.

IV. THE ABSOLUTE NECESSITY OF CONVICTION TO CONVERSION. The woman was comparatively unmoved until our Lord exposed her breach of the seventh commandment. From that moment she is an Inquirer after truth. Till a sinner sees himself as God sees him he will continue careless and trifling. Conscience must be pricked by the preaching of the law.

V. THE USELESSNESS OF ANY RELIGION WHICH ONLY CONSISTS OF FORMALITY. True and acceptable worship depends on the state of the worshipper's heart (1Sa 16:7).

VI. CHRIST'S GRACIOUS WILLINGNESS TO REVEAL HIMSELF TO THE CHIEF OF SINNERS. Nowhere in the gospels do we find such an explicit avowal as in Joh 4:26. Whatever a man's past life may have been there is hope and a remedy for him in Christ. He will undertake to cure the apparently incurable. (Bp. Ryle.)