John 4:1-26

On community…

In our first session 2 weeks ago, it seemed like most people here felt strongly about developing Biblical Community. There are a couple of points to make here:

We need to give a head nod to the fact that we're all perfect strangers in here
Because of that, we all need to give some effort toward sharing more openly than we normally would with perfect strangers

I'm not saying we need to air all of our deepest, darkest secrets here this morning. I'm saying that if Biblical Community is something we are all trying to develop, it is going to require some effort, especially in communicating. Or, put more succinctly, don't be shy. Speak up!

How Biblically literate are we as a class?

One thing that I know the pastoral staff here wants out of our classes, as much as Biblical Community, is Biblical Literacy. It's very hard to develop as a disciple of Jesus (and disciple means someone who is learning from Him, and becoming more like Him by practicing His Way) if you don't have a clear concept of His Word.

With that in mind, I'll take my own advice, and open up a little.

A little about Ty & Growing Up in the Church

I was baptized at age 5
I grew up in the Church, and was licensed as a minister at age 17
I stayed active in the Church leading worship until I was about 21
By age 23, I was a self-identifying atheist
By age 26, I was suicidally depressed

Wait.... What?

What do you think happened to me? This study talks a lot about sin & shame. As I read through it, the concepts felt a little culturally dated. What is your take on that? Is society still concerned with sin? Are you? Any stories out there similar to mine? What are the major cultural forces we feel like we're fighting against today?

On Biblical Literacy

My church (and church school) made it a priority to inundate us with Scripture constantly. We were always in the Word. However, while they did a good job of teaching me

why the Bible is important and
who the important figures and stories are in it,
- they failed to help me understand
what the Bible is
where& how it came to be
when all these things happened, especially in relation to each other, and
how to study it appropriately

Lastly, but probably most importantly my local church failed to give me good reasons for believing the Bible is true.

I firmly believe that discipleship starts in the home, and if we are going to disciple our children and grandchildren, we have to have a better, more comprehensive understanding of the Bible, and more importantly, know HOW to study it.

When it comes to studying the Bible, Context is key

Without full, proper context of the events of the time, Scripture can be…

Really hard to understand
Easily misinterpreted
Way more boring to read. Laugh, but this has serious spiritual implications…

When I study the Bible (for a lesson, or often otherwise), I typically:

Have my Bible open to the passage(s) I'm studying
Have either a Chronological or Apologetics Bible open as well (often both)
Often have another study of the same Scripture open
Have my computer open to research maps, quickly pull other scripture with BibleGateway.com, or even to “see what the world” says about this, so that I have context for atheistic or other secularist objections to validity

If we're serious about our faith, the study of Scripture should be work… but some of the most fun and meaningful work we can pursue, because it's life-changing.

With that in mind…

Teeing up John 4

Who was John?
- Son of Zebedee
- Brother of James (what eventually happened to James)
- Or was it John who lived in Jerusalem (John the Elder)
- Still some debate, but apparently a better case can be made for John the Apostle
What is this book about?
- John's eyewitness testimony of the life of Jesus
What is this book's purpose? Why was it written?
- John 20:31 - “But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God,[a] and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

What has happened so far in John?

John's famous prologue (“In the beginning was the Word”). Historically, this has been instrumental in establishing the doctrine of the Trinity, establishing Jesus's deity.
John the Baptist's Testimony to the Pharisees
Andrew, Peter, Philip & Nathaniel follow
Water into wine
Cleansing the temple
Jesus & Nicodemus. John 3:15-16 were spoken by Jesus to Nicodemus in a night-time (secret) meeting
Leaves Jerusalem to Judean countryside, meets up with John
Instead of going the long way around Samaria (which would have been Jewish preference), he goes straight through the middle

Jews & Samaritans

A lot of the enmity between Jews & Samaritans goes back to Ezra chapter 4. Imagine the hatred between Serbs and Muslims in modern Bosnia, the enmity between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland or the feuding between street gangs in Los Angeles or New York, and you have some idea of the feeling and its causes between Jews and Samaritans in the time of Jesus. Both politics and religion were involved.

What happened after Solomon?

Samaria was essentially the territory of Joseph's sons Ephraim & Mannaseh (long before David or Solomon). After the split, Israel (the North) was conquered by the Assyrian's in 722BC, and most people were captured and taken. They intermarried with the Assyrians, then were sent back to “reinhabit” the area.

Meanwhile, the southern kingdom of Judah fell to Babylon in 600 B.C. Its people, too, were carried off into captivity (many scholars think they also intermarried with the Babylonians). But 70 years later, a remnant of 43,000 was permitted to return and rebuild Jerusalem. The people who now inhabited the former northern kingdom—the Samaritans— initially offered to help rebuild the temple, because they wanted to worship Yahweh also, but when they were rejected by the incoming Jews from Babylon. After that, they vigorously opposed the repatriation and tried to undermine the attempt to reestablish the nation.

No verse yet... Can you think of any type of enmity in America today that might touch on the kind of disdain the Jews and Samaritans felt for each other? Most Jews purposefully walked around Samaria (presumably because it wasn't particularly safe). Why do you think Jesus chose to walk directly through? No verse yet... Traditionally, all of the women in a town or village would go to draw water together early in the morning. John tells us that the woman was by herself, and that it was mid-day (or about noon). Why do you think this was? It sounds like Jesus is barking an order a bit. If we examine more closely, what has John established that helps us paint a clearer picture? What picture is that? No verse yet... What is the woman's posture right here? What do you think she might be thinking, especially given her life circumstances, and how her community probably views her? No verse yet... What is Jesus saying here? What is the gift of God? Why doesn't the Samaritan woman know it? What are Jesus' implications with the phrase “he would give you”? No verse yet... How does the woman respond? What's her tone? No verse yet... Jesus is masterful at reaching people where they are. How is He doing that with the woman in this phrase? No verse yet... Did his setup work? What immediate need does the woman have that needs to be met? Why is this need uniquely difficult for her? No verse yet... What is Jesus doing here? No verse yet... How does the woman respond? In truth? No verse yet... How does Jesus respond to her response? What gift is he giving her here? Why is the outward acknowledgement and confession of our sin important? What do you think your biggest obstacle to acknowledging your own sin is? How does our culture, both inside the local church and in secularism view this concept? What is America's notion of sin? When you reflect on that in your life, parenting, or grandparenting how does that make you feel? What do you think you should do about it in your own life or in your parenting? No verse yet... What's the woman doing here? No verse yet... In your own life, when your sin is pointed about by you, or someone else (in the form of anger, frustration, sadness, etc), how do you respond? What do you think Jesus was saying when he said “You Samaritans worship what you do not know”? How does Jesus' comment here fit in with the common cultural idea of “many paths to God”? What do the Jews know? How is salvation from the Jews? What true need does the woman have that he is providing for in his response? How does this compare to her original need? What do you think it means to worship in Spirit & in truth? How does the idea of acknowledging and confessing our sins relate to worshiping in truth? No verse yet... What's going on in this verse? What do you think the woman was processing / thinking about when she was listening to Jesus? No verse yet... “He” is actually not in the original literal translation. The literal translation is “I who speak to you am.” This is significant because Jesus is referring to himself by the same name God described himself with to Moses in Genesis. No verse yet... Why do you think John takes the time to point out that no one said anything to the woman? No verse yet... What was the woman's response to her encounter with Jesus? How does this compare to our current cultural responses to Jesus? What types of actions should this spur us toward, as Christians? Are there things we can do to help change this generational narrative?