One of the core values of Christ Church is to offer a grace-filled witness. What does a grace-filled witness look like in an oftentimes hostile world? I believe Jesus demonstrates what a grace-filled witness looks like in his conversation with the woman at the well in John 4. Let’s walk through this passage together.

Now he had to go through Samaria (v. 4). Jesus was traveling from Judea to Galilee. The most direct route was to go through Samaria. The location of Samaria at the time of Jesus was in land that once belonged to the northern tribes of Israel. After King Solomon’s death, there was a schism within Israel. The ten northern tribes separated from Judah to follow Jeroboam (a high-ranking official in Solomon’s court), while the tribe of Judah remained loyal to Solomon’s son, Rehoboam. To keep people from returning to worship in Jerusalem, Jeroboam set up his own religious sites. 

When the northern tribes of Israel were conquered by the Assyrians in 722-21 B.C., all Israelites of wealth, position, and power were deported. Only the poorest in the land were left. Assyria resettled the land with foreigners who then intermarried with the remaining Israelites. Judah, the southern kingdom, was conquered by Babylon when Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 B.C., and not long after that, the Jewish people were deported to Babylon. When King Cyrus the Great began allowing the Jews to return to their homeland in 538 B.C., they viewed the people living in Samaria as “half-breeds whose religion was tainted by various unacceptable elements.”[1] Compounding Jewish dislike for Samaritans was the building of a rival temple in 400 B.C. on Mount Gerizim. The Samaritans developed their own religious practices and history. As far as their scriptures, the Samaritans only accepted the Pentateuch (Genesis-Deuteronomy). Their temple was later destroyed by the Judean ruler, John Hyrcanus, near the end of the second century B.C. This, of course, added fuel to the fire of hatred that existed between Jews and Samaritans.[2] In sum, there was a long history of tension and hostility between the Samaritans and the Jews. This history helps us understand how astonishing it would be that Jesus, a Jewish man, would be in Samaria having this conversation with a Samaritan woman—a woman of some reputation at that.

To be sure, certain pious Jewish men would have avoided traveling through Samaria and most definitely would have avoided speaking alone with a woman. Jesus, in true grace-filled and God-like fashion, moves toward the “outsider.” If we are to offer a grace-filled witness, we must be willing to make the first move, just as Jesus does.

Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (v. 7). In exposing his own need, Jesus encounters the woman with humility. Humility is a needed posture for offering a grace-filled witness. It is tempting to assume that the person to whom we are witnessing has nothing to offer us. However, we should not overlook the very real possibility that the person to whom we are witnessing has something to offer us. I’ve found that people become less guarded when we demonstrate humility and appropriately reveal our own needs to them. In humbly demonstrating his own need, Jesus is able to move the conversation from water to “living water” and then on to “a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (vv. 10-14).

“Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water” (v. 15). The woman, like all of us, has a deeper thirst than physical thirst. When we realize our deeper thirst, we recognize all the other ways we’ve tried to address our thirst. For this woman, it had been numerous relationships. Here, it is important to note that Jesus did not begin by addressing the woman’s sin. Instead, Jesus began the conversation by offering her something she truly needed, “living water.” E. Stanley Jones puts it this way, “The people who influence you for good are not the people who tell you how bad you are, but who tell you how good you may become. Nag people, and they sag; believe in people, and they bloom.”[3]

“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in Spirit and truth” (v. 24). Two times the woman attempted to draw Jesus into debate. First, when she asked Jesus if he was greater than Jacob. Second, when she wanted to debate the proper place of worship—“this mountain” or “Jerusalem.” Both times, Jesus avoids the argument. “You and I must not strive to win arguments,” says Jones. “To win the argument, you need only to be clever; to win the person, you need to be Christian.”[4] Jesus points her beyond a debate about where to worship to how and who to worship. True worship is not geographically centered but heart-centered and Heavenly Father-focused.

The woman said, “I know the Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us” (v. 25). We must move at the pace of the understanding of the one to whom we are witnessing. This is not a business venture where we are attempting to “seal the deal” as quickly as possible and get the other party to sign on the dotted line. At this point, the woman doesn’t realize that Jesus is the Messiah, and he is explaining everything to her. Notice, however, that throughout the conversation, Jesus doesn’t get frustrated with the woman’s lack of understanding. He keeps patiently explaining what he means by living water and patiently explains true worship of God, which then leads to the revelation of himself as the Messiah. “I, the one speaking to you—I am he” (v. 26).

The woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” (vv. 28-29) There is only one goal in our grace-filled witness—to help people see Jesus. Our goal is “not to be clever, but to be Christian, we can only be Christian as we show people Christ.”[5] The woman points people to Jesus.

“Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony” (v. 39).  We should not be discouraged when people don’t respond to our grace-filled witness. I’ve read in different places that it can take anywhere from seven up to thirty times for someone to respond to the grace-filled witness of the Gospel. The importance is to be obedient in the moment and trust that God is at work. We may or may not see the seeds we’ve sown come to harvest. But on some occasions, we may. It says that “many Samaritans from that town believed.” It does not say, however, that “everyone” believed. There were many more who heard the woman’s testimony who did not believe. However, that does not mean that they would not come to believe at some point as she, and the other believers, continued to offer a grace-filled witness that pointed people to Jesus.

[1] D.A. Carson. The Gospel of John. (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1991), 216.
[2] Ibid.
[3] E. Stanley Jones. Victorious Living. Dean Merrill, ed. (Minneapolis: Summerside Press, 2010), 272.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid. 276.