Week Three | Jesus and the Woman at the Well

We’re here to help you learn and grow, so naturally, we share affiliate links for products that we use and love. When you click on one of these links, we will earn a small amount of money, at no additional cost to you, which we’ll use towards keeping the lights on here! You can read our full disclaimer here.

Week Three | Jesus & Women Online Book Study
Reading Assignment – Session Three
Scripture Passage: John 4:4
Listen to the Audio version | Read time 7-minutes

---

In May 2012, my brother and I boarded a plane in Pittsburgh, PA and flew west to Detroit, MI even though we were headed east to London, England.

It was during that 7.5-hour long layover in Detroit, in an airport lounge, on my brother’s phone (because he had better service), that I wrote my very first blog post, which led to my friend’s encouragement to keep sharing my writing, so I did, and here we are today.

Layovers and detours often seem like an inconvenience. They require more patience and more time than if we went straight from point A to point B.

But it is often by way of these detours that we find that we’ve already arrived.

He had to go through Samaria on the way. Eventually, he came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime.
John 4:4-6, NLT

History tells us that there had already been a 700-year-long feud between the Jews and Samaritans by the time Jesus reached Jacob’s well that day.

In fact, it is often thought that Galilean Jews would follow the Jordan River valley on their trips to Jerusalem to celebrate the annual festivals instead of taking the more direct route through Samaria.

But Jesus was determined to take this detour as He and the disciples returned to Galilee from Judea.

This detour was only the first of many more to come in this visit to the village of Sychar.

In Session 3 of Jesus & Women, Kristi McLelland shares a few rabbinic teachings of the Mishnah that Jesus would have been familiar with as a Jewish Rabbi:

• “’Talk not much with womankind.’  They said this of a man’s own wife, how much more of his fellow’s wife!  Hence the sages have said, ‘He that talks much with womankind brings evil upon himself and neglects the study of the Law and at the last will inherit Gehenna’” (hell).  
• The spit of a Samaritan woman is unclean.

Jesus and the Woman at the Well

As Kristi says, things are about to get Gospel Gorgeous!

Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.” He was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food.
John 4:7-8, NLT

Enter detours two, three, and four:

• There He sat alone, a Holy Rabbi, with a Samaritan woman.
• He bridged the age-old gap by speaking to her, a woman.
• Then He humbly asked to drink from her cup.

And He’s only getting started!  

Jesus goes on to offer this Samaritan woman the Living water that He possesses.
He then turns the detour into the destination.

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
John 4:16-18, ESV

“In this moment, Jesus is not naming her sin, He is naming her shame.”

Kristi McLelland, Jesus and Women study

I could weep for what this means.

Jesus acknowledges the real reason that she is alone at Jacob’s well in the middle of the day.  Her community had turned their back on her after she was married five times and left vulnerable in a patriarchal society five times.  

The shame she carried likely weighed more than the water jugs she carried to and from the well each day.

I imagine that she fought back tears as she tried to change the subject, which led to a theological discussion.

And then Jesus does the unspeakable.

He reveals, for the very first time, that He is the Messiah… not to his disciples, or the religious leaders in Jerusalem, but to a Samaritan woman who has been married and divorced five times, alone, at the community well in the middle of the day.

Who loves Jesus right now?

Can you feel the mishpat (justice) and tzedakah (righteousness)?  The generous lifting up that He’s offered?

She then leaves her water jars and runs back to the village to invite others to “come and see a man who told me everything I ever did!  Could he possibly be the Messiah?” (John 4:29, NLT)

From shame to first missionary. 
It’s a beautiful reminder of the generosity of our Messiah. 

Jacob’s well, where Jesus met this unnamed woman is still there.  It is approximately 130’ deep and you can still draw crystal clear, cool water to drink.

And I bet that whatever journey brings you to that place, it would feel like a destination of a lifetime, to stand in the place where Jesus, the Messiah, once stood, offering a Samaritan woman the greatest gift; to be the first to know!

Let’s recap…

Today we learned:
– It’s often by taking detours that we find our true destination.
– Jesus took a detour through Samaria to meet a woman in her pain.
– He broke down barriers and acknowledged her deep shame.
– He talked theology with her.
– He gave her the explicit gift of revealing His identity as Messiah.
– He generously lifted her up and restored her honor as she became the first missionary.

ANSWER THIS IN THE COMMENTS:
In what ways is Jesus bringing mishpat (justice) and tzedakah (righteousness) to your life? How does the story of the Samaritan woman at the well speak into your own shame and help generously lift you out of it?