AUGUST 2 - Jesus One on One: The Woman at the Well

On Sunday, August 2 we looked at Jesus' encounter with the woman at the well in John 4:1-42.

To go a little deeper, here are some thoughts by various writers across the years on this character - the woman at the well.

JOHN WESLEY. The rabbis reckoned it scandalous for a man of distinction to [talk with a woman]. They marvelled likewise at his talking with a woman of that nation [Samaria], which was so peculiarly hateful to them.

MAXIMUS OF TURIN (4th/5th century). As soon as the Lord points her sins out she acknowledges them, confesses Christ and announces the Savior. Abandoning her pitcher she brings back not water but grace back to the city. She seems, indeed, to return without a burden, but she returns full of holiness. She returns full, I say, because she who had come as a sinner goes back as a proclaimer, and she who had left her pitcher behind brought back the fullness of Christ, without the slightest loss to her city. For even if she did not bring water to the townspeople, still she brought in the source of salvation.

AUGUSTINE (born 354 AD). This living water is the Holy Spirit. Without doubt the Spirit is the gift of God, of which the Lord [speaks] here.

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA (4th/5th century). Jesus calls the quickening gift of the Spirit "living water" because mere human nature is parched to its very roots, now rendered dry and barren of all virtue....Now human nature runs back to its pristine beauty, and drinking in that which is life-giving, it is made beautiful with a variety of good things and, budding into a virtuous life it sends out healthy shoots of love toward God.

WILLIAM BARCLAY. Jesus was weary with the journey, and he sat by the side of the well exhausted. It is very significant that John (who stresses the sheer deity of Jesus Christ more than any other of the gospel writers) also stresses his humanity to the full. John does not show us a figure freed from the tiredness and the struggle of our humanity. He shows us one for whom life was an effort as it is for us; he shows us one who also was tired and had to go on.

WILLIAM BARCLAY. At the heart of all this there is the fundamental truth that in the human heart there is a thirst for something that only Jesus Christ can satisfy.

WILLIAM BARCLAY. The Samaritan woman was staggered by Christ's ability to see into her inmost being. She was amazed at his intimate knowledge of the human heart, and of her heart in particular....Her first instinct was to share her discovery. Having found this amazing person, she was compelled to share her find with others....First to find, then to tell, are the two great steps of the Christian life.

RAY STEDMAN. The story of Jesus and the woman at the well of Samaria helps us deal with many modern issues. Here Jesus crosses the barrier of race prejudice and interacts with a race hated and rejected by the Jews. That helps us greatly in our own bigoted, prejudicial society. Our Lord encounters a moral outcast and displays for our instruction the proper approach to take with such a person.