In the first Sunday Thoughts column I ever wrote four months ago, I related the Biblical account of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well. It’s such a rich story with so many ideas to explore, and in March I looked at it from a missional perspective: we should “go to the well” where God calls us to interact with people and share the Gospel.
We don’t know how long the exchange between Jesus and the woman at the well lasted, but you can read the account in John 4 in just a couple of minutes. In the course of a couple dozen verses, the conversation takes several compelling twists and turns. At the Word by Word blog from Logos Bible Software, JoAnna Hoyt rightly points out that “the conversation between Jesus and this ‘woman at the well’ is a great case study in Jesus’ penchant for talking over people’s heads—for talking about something spiritual while the other party was still thinking on the physical level.”
One of those twists in the conversation came when Jesus asked the woman about her husband — she’d had five husbands and was currently living with a man she wasn’t married to.
He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
It’s easy to assume that Jesus was calling her out for her sin or demonstrating that He knew a lot about her, and both of those interpretations are valid. But Hoyt suggests another equally valid idea.
“I propose that Jesus’ question was presented to help her see the spiritual side of his words,” she writes. “Because this strange man sitting by the well knew things about her grief-filled life that no one could have possibly guessed, [the woman at the well] finally recognized that he was no mere man — he was a prophet. (Later she realizes that he is much more than a prophet; he is the Messiah.)”
Related: Sunday Thoughts: Go to the Well!
When Jesus mentioned her marital situation, the woman at the well changed the subject, which is understandable. After all, who among us hasn’t changed the subject when a conversation got awkward? But possibly because it dawned on her that the conversation had turned sharply spiritual, the woman at the well asked Jesus a question she always wanted the answer to — a question about worship.
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.
Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
John 4:19-24 (NIV)
Hoyt has some interesting observations about that exchange:
She wanted to know the right way to worship the God she served.
Instead of automatically assuming her people were correct, she questioned the truth of what she was taught. Before her sat a Jewish prophet who had come to Samaria. Perhaps he had come to tell them to worship in Jerusalem. Or maybe he had come to worship at Mt. Gerizim. Or perhaps he was there for some other reason. Whatever the reason, this prophet could help her worship rightly. He would be able to direct her to the location where God wanted her and her community to worship.
Jesus, though, never truly answered her question. He began by pointing to a future time where the location of human worship will not matter (John 4:21). Then his response in 4:22 suggests that since the Jews worship what they know, Jerusalem is the correct location. Still, Jesus never condemns Samaritan worship on Mt. Gerizim.
But then Jesus mentioned worshiping “in spirit and in truth.” What does that mean? Naturally, commentators differ on what it means, but Hoyt notes that Jesus talked about this type of worship as something that was in the present and future, but not in the past. “How God’s people worship him was in the process of changing,” she writes.
Recommended: Sunday Thoughts: Washing the Disciples’ Feet Was More Than a Selfless Act of Service
Jesus didn’t pour out the Holy Spirit on His followers until He ascended into heaven (see chapters 1 and 2 of the book of Acts), but the arrival of God’s promised Holy Spirit signaled a change in the way believers approached Him. Those who call on the name of the Lord have His Spirit dwelling in them, while the presence of God’s revelation through scripture gives believers the truth that makes worship even more precious.
As Hoyt puts it, including references from the Gospel of John:
God’s people are now able to worship him differently after Christ’s incarnation because he asked the Father to send the Spirit of Truth to now dwell with and in us (14:17), teaching and reminding us of truths (14:26), testifying about Jesus (15:26), and convicting people of sin, righteousness, and judgment (16:8). This is the truth about worship that Jesus revealed to a seemingly random Samaritan woman. This was the amazing revelation that [the woman’s] question elicited from Jesus. The promised better way of worship “in spirit and truth” is worship enabled by and through the Holy Spirit—the as-then-yet unrevealed Third Person of the Trinity.
In his commentary on the Gospel of John, D.A. Carson writes that “The worship that must be offered … must be ‘in spirit and truth’, i.e. essentially God-centred, made possible by the gift of the Holy Spirit, and in personal knowledge of and conformity to God’s Word-made-flesh, the one who is God’s ‘truth.’”
Faithful Christians have the gift of the Holy Spirit — the “spirit” of the equation — and the gift of God’s Word — the “truth” — and that should lead us to worship him overflowing with gratitude and joy. May we be full of joy and gratitude as we engage in worship with Him.
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