Scripture Daily

Context No. 206 of 4322 · John

Context · Reflection

John 4:18-24: in context

18for you have had five husbands; and he whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly.” 19The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22You worship that which you don’t know. We worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews. 23But 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. 24God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Jesus is sitting by a well in Samaria, tired from the road, talking with a woman who came at noon, the hottest hour, likely to avoid the other women. He has just told her about her five husbands and the man she is with now. This passage is what she does with that.

She says he must be a prophet, and then immediately raises the oldest dispute between their peoples. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say the place to worship is Jerusalem. Samaritans had their own temple on Mount Gerizim, destroyed by Jewish forces over a century before. Readers often take her question as a dodge, changing the subject away from her life. It may equally be the most serious question she has, put to the first person who might answer it.

He answers it. The hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. He does not split the difference. He says salvation is from the Jews, and then that the hour is here when true worshipers will worship in spirit and truth, and that the Father is seeking such people. God is spirit, so the argument about locations is closing. The longest theological conversation in John is with a Samaritan woman at a well. Whose serious question have I written off as a change of subject?

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