Hello and
welcome to this program,
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"Books of the Book."
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I'm so glad that that
you're able to join us
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in this Bible study
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and we're studying
the Gospel of John.
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And today we're studying
about the Samaritan woman.
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And with us is Dr. Jon Paulien.
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He's a scholar of the Bible
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and I have been
blessed with the Bible studies
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that I've been sharing with him
or we both been studying here.
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And I hope that
you too can be blessed
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and if you have a
time, if you can join us,
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you can pick up your Bible
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and join us in
chapter 4 starting in verse 1,
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that is the Gospel of
John. Dr. Jon, welcome again.
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Good to be with you.
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You know, in our last program
we were talking about Nicodemus
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and we said that
men will be judged
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not for the
darkness that they loved,
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but for the light they
received in their darkness
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which they rejected.
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And so last chapter we see that
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Jesus is having this one on
one conversation with a man.
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And now we come to verse 4
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and He has another
one on one conversation,
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but this time with a woman.
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And we know her as
the woman at the well.
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That's right. Right.
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So where do we pick up?
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Okay, well this
particular story occurs
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in a place called Samaria.
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And in the Old
Testament there was a time
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when Israel was
divided into two nations.
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So one was around
Jerusalem called Judah
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and other was
around this area Samaria
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and it was just called Israel
and they had different kings
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and eventually even
different places of worship.
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I had a chance recently
in Israel to go to Tel Dan,
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which has a temple,
the remains of a temple.
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It's the only Hebrew temple
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that is still in good
shape in the land of Israel
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from the time of
the Old Testament.
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It's about 800 BC and
you could see the altar there
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and so that's-- that
was pretty exciting stuff.
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So in Samaria--there's
really a long history here,
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because these Samaritans
are kind of cousins to the Jews.
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They are related and yet their
religion is different and so on.
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And they actually believed
that they had the true religion
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and that the Jews did not.
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And if you go to
the Old Testament
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you could see some of that.
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Because when Abraham
comes from Ur of the Chaldees
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and comes to Palestine,
where does he end up? Shechem.
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And in fact the
Samaritan Pentateuch,
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the Samaritan version
of the Books of Moses,
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actually say that Abraham came
to Shechem in the land of Moriah
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where Abraham sacrificed Isaac.
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So the Samaritan see that
activity actually happening
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on Mount Gerizimc in Samaria
rather then at Jerusalem?
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So in their minds
everything goes there.
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Jacob when he comes
back from Mesopotamia,
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he lands in Shechem.
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When the
Israelites come out of Egypt
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and they enter
into the Promised Land,
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where do they hold
their first worship service?
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In Shechem, Mount Gerizim,
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Mount Ebal on
either side of Shechem.
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Apparently they
fought battles in the north
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and they fought
battles in the south,
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but the people in
the centre of the country
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were not hostile, you see.
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So apparently
Abraham when he came there
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made some converts
and stuff like that
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kind of stayed
true all the way along.
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In fact archeologists
have found in Shechem,
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an altar to the
Lord of the covenant.
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And that's interesting language
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because, you
know, the Old Testament
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speaks off about the covenant
that God makes with His people.
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So you have abundant evidence
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that Shechem was
a place of worship
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going all the
way back to Abraham.
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When does Jerusalem
become the centre of worship?
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Only under David.
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Only about 1000
years after Abraham.
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So for the Samaritans they
say, you know, who are you guys?
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We've been here long before you.
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We've been worshiping
the true God long before you.
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This is the real place,
this is the real religion.
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So when Jesus and this
woman enter into debate
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over the right place to worship,
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there's a long history
going on here that opens it up.
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Now when the
Israelites went to Babylon,
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those people came from Judah,
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the southern
kingdom not the north.
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They went to Babylon
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and with the help of
Daniel, Ezekiel and so on,
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their religion was reformed,
their idolatry was burned away
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and they came back from
Babylon to change people.
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When they came back,
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there were
people still in the land
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who remembered the old
ways and they were conservative.
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I guess you would say.
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And they--these people
come back from Babylon,
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they got a totally new religion.
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What's going on here, you see?
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So the Samaritans, they're
kind of like old school Hebrews.
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They're hanging on
to the old religion
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where Yahweh
had female consorts,
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you know, you can even
see a little female figurines
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that you'll find
archeologically in that place.
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So the Samaritans thought
of their religion as superior
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because it was earlier,
because they hadn't changed.
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But you see God
often changes things.
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And if we don't move with
God when He changes stuff,
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we can get left behind,
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even though we're faithful
to what we thought we knew.
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We haven't changed,
everything is looking good.
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And yet when God is
moving, when the Spirit comes,
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it can take you
places you didn't expect.
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So the Samaritans
were kind of people
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who were hanging
on to the old ways.
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And now Jesus comes to the Jews
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who were now also
hanging on to their old ways
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and He's offerings something
totally new in the sense.
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They were all
stuck with the temple.
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Temple on Mount
Gerizim or temple in Jerusalem
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and that's the right place
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and if you got
that, you're good,
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if you don't
have it, you're not.
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And Jesus come and says,
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it doesn't matter,
Gerizim, Jerusalem.
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He says true followers
can worship God anywhere.
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So that's the deep thing
that's coming through here.
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Unfortunately the Jews
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and the
Samaritans hated each other.
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The Jews felt that
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everything the
Samaritans touched was defiled
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by the fact
that they touched it.
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And so the Jews
held a very low opinion,
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but here's an interesting thing.
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When people called Jesus
Messiah what does He usually do?
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No, don't call me Messiah,
you don't use those terms?
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In Samaria, He says,
yeah I'm the Messiah.
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What's the difference
here? It's the view of Messiah.
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For the Jews at that time
the Messiah was gonna be a king,
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a military general who would
deliver them from the Romans.
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Jesus couldn't say yes to that.
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Their agenda for
the Messiah was not his.
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When He said He's Messiah,
they would expect Him to be
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something
different than what He was.
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But the Samaritans
didn't have a military
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and economic political
picture of the Messiah.
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They thought of the
Messiah as a reformer,
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someone who would teach
them the true way to worship.
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And so you see in Samaria,
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Jesus could admit
that He was the Messiah,
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because they would understand
Him correctly from that term.
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So the Samaritans, you know,
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had some great
ideas about the Messiah
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and Jesus accepts their ideas
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and He says,
yeah I'm the Messiah
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in the terms that you have.
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Now before we get to the text,
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there's one more thing
I want to share with you.
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So we talked about
weddings a few programs back,
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and I see the
smile come on your face.
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I think about that
because that's a good thing
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in your future here somewhere.
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But you know, in
the Old Testament
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there were lots of
encounters at wells.
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Moses found his wife at a well.
Jacob found his wife at a well.
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Isaac found his wife at a well.
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And interestingly enough
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every time the couple encounters
each other at the well,
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then the girl goes
back leaves the well,
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leaves him at the well
and goes to get her family.
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The family comes back and
then the marriage happens.
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So I've a question for you.
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Do you know where the
nearest well around here is?
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Oh, we can work on
that. May be off the air.
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All right, if you
go ahead. That's right.
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So here you
have this background,
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so when John is
writing the story
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and people are
reading the story at the time
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and if they have that background
and mind they're gonna say
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interesting
he's meeting a woman.
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He meets her at
the well, she runs off,
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she gets her
family they come back,
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you know,
something is happening here.
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And you made a
suggestion little while ago,
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it says in the story
that she has five husbands,
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she's living with a sixth
one and what was your idea?
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Well, the sixth
one was that she--
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where she meets
Jesus and-- Yeah.
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So maybe He's the seventh guy?
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Well, I'm just--
I'm just thinking.
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It's kind of
the way John thinks.
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I've never gone there
before, but I like that idea
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and maybe there's
an implication here,
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that she's had six men
and Jesus is the seventh.
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And as the seventh
He's the true husband,
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the one that can
really meet her needs.
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But anyway I don't
know if John is going there,
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but that's an exciting idea
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and John certainly tends
to think that way quite often.
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All right then--should
we just get into the text?
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Let's get into the text?
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Yeah. All right.
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So we're in chapter 4,
Jon, and we're reading verses--
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shall we start
reading from verse 1?
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Well, let's go to verse 5,
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if we had more time it would be
nice to go through every verse.
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But I think
there's some key things
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we want to touch base on.
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"So he came to a city of
Samaria which is called Sychar,
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near the plot of ground
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that Jacob gave to his
son Joseph." Now Jacob--
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Now this well,
actually Jacob's well is there,
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this well is still there.
00:11:01.46\00:11:02.99
It's actually in the
basement of a church.
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They built a church around it.
00:11:05.64\00:11:07.69
And this is a Palestinian area
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and has been at
times a place of tension,
00:11:10.17\00:11:12.28
but I was able
to visit there once.
00:11:12.31\00:11:14.49
And it's some of
the sweetest water
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you would ever taste it,
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it's really a
pure, it's a lovely well.
00:11:19.26\00:11:22.56
Interesting the
city is called Sychar
00:11:22.59\00:11:26.64
and that's exactly
what it sounds like Sychar,
00:11:26.67\00:11:30.79
you know, it kind
of close to sugar,
00:11:30.82\00:11:33.41
but it actually
means drunkenness.
00:11:33.44\00:11:36.66
Now think about that.
00:11:36.69\00:11:38.06
Jesus spends time in
the village of drunkenness.
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You know, Jesus is not worried
about guilt by association,
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He goes and meets
people where they are,
00:11:47.79\00:11:50.07
and He brings them
out from where they are
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to where they need to be.
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I think sometimes
these Christians were afraid
00:11:55.57\00:11:57.59
to associate with people
that might bring us a bad name
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or something like that,
00:12:01.43\00:12:02.80
but Jesus doesn't
seem to have that fear.
00:12:02.83\00:12:04.20
Not that Jesus was a drunker
to me than where they were.
00:12:04.23\00:12:07.69
Didn't need to do
that. Right. Okay.
00:12:07.72\00:12:10.07
No, He didn't need to do that.
00:12:10.10\00:12:11.47
But He meets them in their place
00:12:11.50\00:12:13.65
and He's not ashamed
to be seen with them.
00:12:13.68\00:12:16.69
And here you have a town.
00:12:16.72\00:12:18.09
Imagine living in the
town called drunkenness.
00:12:18.12\00:12:21.87
I think some
people make me feel,
00:12:21.90\00:12:23.27
they do living in such a town.
00:12:23.30\00:12:25.08
Everybody knows
your secrets. Yeah.
00:12:25.11\00:12:27.25
Why don't you go to verse
10 and go through verse 14.
00:12:27.28\00:12:31.75
"Jesus answered and said to her,
'If you knew the gift of God
00:12:31.78\00:12:35.15
and who it is who says
to you give me a drink,
00:12:35.18\00:12:38.45
you would have asked him
00:12:38.48\00:12:40.20
and he would have
given you living water.'
00:12:40.23\00:12:43.07
The woman said to him 'Sir,
00:12:43.10\00:12:44.88
You've nothing to draw
with and the well is deep.
00:12:44.91\00:12:48.72
Where then do you
get that living water?
00:12:48.75\00:12:51.88
Are you greater
than our father Jacob,
00:12:51.91\00:12:53.67
who gave us the well
and drank from it himself,
00:12:53.70\00:12:56.91
as well as his
sons and his livestock?'
00:12:56.94\00:12:59.48
Jesus answered and said to her,
00:12:59.51\00:13:01.17
'Whoever drinks of this
water will thirst again,
00:13:01.20\00:13:04.41
but whoever drinks of the water
00:13:04.44\00:13:05.82
that I shall give
him will never thirst,
00:13:05.85\00:13:08.46
but the water
that I shall give him
00:13:08.49\00:13:10.07
will become in him
a fountain of water
00:13:10.10\00:13:12.49
springing up into
everlasting life.'"
00:13:12.52\00:13:16.29
Well, in this story, a
woman comes to the well
00:13:16.32\00:13:19.43
and Jesus asks her for drink
00:13:19.46\00:13:22.25
and she is shocked by that
because He's clearly a Jew.
00:13:22.28\00:13:26.88
And Jews don't
associate with Samaritans.
00:13:26.91\00:13:30.63
And for her to give Him a drink,
00:13:30.66\00:13:32.52
his lips are going
to have to touch her pot
00:13:32.55\00:13:34.55
which in Jews'
mind is the defile pot.
00:13:34.58\00:13:37.62
So Jesus is breaking
all the cultural barriers
00:13:37.65\00:13:41.18
to reach out to this woman
00:13:41.21\00:13:43.52
and she is
interested in physical water.
00:13:43.55\00:13:48.88
Well, we need water to live.
We need food in order to live.
00:13:48.91\00:13:52.98
But if our whole
attention is there,
00:13:53.01\00:13:55.30
we're not going to
get with this gospel,
00:13:55.33\00:13:56.96
He's offering us.
00:13:56.99\00:13:58.36
And Jesus has a
different kind of water
00:13:58.39\00:14:01.52
that will be satisfying in a way
00:14:01.55\00:14:03.81
that the regular
water never could.
00:14:03.84\00:14:06.22
And let's talk about that
00:14:06.25\00:14:07.62
satisfying water
after this break.
00:14:07.65\00:14:09.69
And stay with us,
friends as we continue
00:14:09.72\00:14:11.44
to study this story
in the Gospel of John.
00:14:11.47\00:14:13.91