THE DEBATE ON TRUE WORSHIP

When the Samaritan woman at the well suspected that Jesus was a prophet, she quit talking about well-water and immediately brought up the debate about where “men ought to worship” God, saying, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship” (John 4:20). Jesus responded to her not only about “where” is the proper place to worship, but also about other important points on true worship such as who to worship and how to worship. It is in this story of the woman at the well that we can learn from Jesus the real meaning, the heart and soul, the essence of true and proper Christian worship. So let’s zero in on their discussion about true worship.

Below, read the story of the woman at the well.

“Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were), He left Judea and went away again into Galilee. And He had to pass through Samaria. So He came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; and Jacob’s well was there. So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water.”

JESUS: Give Me a drink. WOMAN: How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman? (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) JESUS: If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water. WOMAN: Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us this well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle? JESUS: Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life. WOMAN: Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw. JESUS: Go call your husband and come here. WOMAN: I have no husband. JESUS: You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.

WOMAN: Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. JESUS: ‘Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. WOMAN: I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us. JESUS: I who speak to you am He.

At this point His disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, ‘What do You seek?’ or, ‘Why do You speak with her?’ So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city and said to the men, WOMAN: Come, see a man who told me all things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it? They went out of the city, and were coming to Him. DISCIPLES: Rabbi, eat. JESUS: I have food to eat that you do not know about. DISCIPLES: No one brought Him anything to eat, did he? JESUS: My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor. From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, ‘He told me all the things that I have done.’ So when the Samaritans came to Jesus they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. Many more believed because of His word; and they were saying to the woman, SAMARITANS: It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world. (John 4:1-42)

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