Participants: Deyvy Rodriguez & Jon Paulien
Series Code: JBOTB
Program Code: JBOTB00009B
|
00:01 And we're back and we're talking about the Samaritan woman
00:04 and with me is Dr. Jon Paulien 00:06 and we're talking about this satisfying water 00:10 and Jesus was saying 00:11 that whoever drinks of this water will thirst again. 00:14 And by the way we've some water here. 00:16 Water is good. I mean this is real water. 00:21 Now this water is satisfying. It is. 00:23 Especially when you're very thirsty. 00:24 It's very good, But you know what, 00:26 three hours from now we're gonna need some more. 00:28 So tell us about this satisfying water 00:31 then that we'll never thirst again. 00:32 What's Jesus doing here? 00:34 Yeah, I mean, water is really good, we need it. 00:37 You see but there's something 00:39 even more satisfying that He's offering. 00:42 And perhaps the way to illustrate this. 00:44 You know, you go to a young person and you say, 00:46 you know, how come you not going to church? 00:48 And they might say well, I want to have fun. 00:51 Your church isn't fun and to be honest 00:54 church often isn't fun, you know. 00:56 So you said to them, well, where do you have fun? 00:58 Oh, I go to the club. 01:00 Oh, so when you're in the club, are you having fun? 01:02 Yeah, I'm having fun. 01:04 What happens when you leave the club? 01:06 Well, the fun stops. 01:08 You see so fun is what happens when you're having it 01:12 and when you're not having it, 01:14 it doesn't impact the rest of your life. 01:16 It's just something you do that's a piece of your life. 01:18 But joy is something that last 01:23 through everything, even suffering. 01:25 You can have joy even in suffering. 01:27 In other words there is a satisfaction 01:30 that doesn't end when you leave the club 01:33 or when you leave wherever you're having fun, 01:36 when you're no longer at the beach and so on. 01:38 You can still have joy. You can have peace. 01:41 You can have a deep satisfaction. 01:43 And that comes in Jesus Christ. 01:46 The value that we have with Him, 01:48 the relationship that we have with Him, 01:50 undergirds everything we do. 01:52 And even in hardship and suffering, 01:54 you can still have joy. 01:56 Fun? No. Suffering is not fun. 01:59 But you can have joy in suffering. 02:02 So Jesus is seeking to offer that woman, 02:04 I mean why has she had all these husbands? 02:07 Must have been her life just isn't working out. 02:10 It just constantly challenging. 02:13 So without Jesus then we can have satisfaction, 02:16 but it's only temporary? 02:19 And we have fun would be a better word, 02:21 because it doesn't last. Right. 02:22 Yeah. Right. 02:23 Whereas the living water that Jesus gives us 02:27 is everlasting, it's not temporary. 02:29 And it stays with you 02:31 through the good times and the bad times. 02:34 Let's go on to verse 16. 02:36 "Jesus said to her, 'Go, call your husband and come here.' 02:41 The woman answered and said 'I have no husband.' 02:44 Jesus said to her, 'You had said, 02:46 You had well said, I have no husband. 02:49 For you have had five husbands, 02:52 and the one whom you now have is not your husband, 02:55 in that you spoke truly.'" 02:58 Now do you remember in the previous program 03:00 we talked about the light that shines on somebody 03:03 and reveals their inner secrets? 03:06 That's happening right here. 03:08 This woman didn't come to the well 03:09 to make any great confessions, 03:12 especially when she sees a Jew. 03:14 She's not about to tell him any of her secret life. 03:17 So she's busy dancing and hiding and so on 03:20 and then Jesus comes right and He says, 03:23 you're telling Me the truth. 03:25 You've had five husbands 03:27 and the one you're living with now, isn't your husband. 03:30 Interesting piece of that is that the Jewish narrative 03:33 about the Samaritans is that they were settled 03:36 by from five cities over in Persia. 03:41 People were brought from there and came here 03:44 and they learned the language-- 03:46 the religion of Yahweh and so on 03:48 when they got here to these mountains of Samaria. 03:52 So from the Jewish prospective these were not real Hebrews, 03:57 these were not a real followers of God. 04:00 They were just sort of painted on, 04:01 they are actually from five other places. 04:03 They were married to five pagan cities, you see. 04:07 And right now there was Yahweh 04:11 but He's not really their husband. 04:13 You see, they're worshipping the God of Israel, 04:15 but it's not really their husband. 04:16 Did they really--their hearts are with these other five. 04:19 So it's interesting how the story dovetails 04:24 with the history of the Samaritans here. 04:27 Jesus is shining the light of judgment on her. 04:30 He's showing the truth about her and does she accept it? 04:37 No, she deflects. 04:40 She tries to turn into a theological argument. 04:42 You notice that. 04:44 You go on and here, He says, you know, you're right. 04:48 You know, you don't-- you don't have a husband, 04:51 you aren't married. 04:52 She says, oh. She says, I see you're prophet. 04:55 Well, maybe you can clear up a theological question for me? 04:58 You know, where is the right place to worship, 05:00 this mountain or that mountain, you see, 05:03 So when Jesus touches her heart she backs off 05:08 and that's an illustration of what 05:11 He tells about in John 3, 05:13 that when the light shines people often shy away from it 05:16 because they don't want their deeds to be exposed. 05:18 And one way that we avoid 05:20 serious spiritual encounters is we ask theological questions. 05:27 Theology and questions and so on can be a diversion 05:32 from facing the real truth about oneself. 05:36 Now to me it seems that Nicodemus 05:39 and the Samaritan woman have some kind of similarities. 05:43 So both come to Jesus in darkness, is that right? 05:48 Well, she comes at noon. 05:49 Well, I mean in darkness, in spiritual darkness. 05:51 Spiritual darkness, yeah. Right. 05:54 And while Nicodemus has been baptized with the waters, 05:59 we said he lacked the spirit and this woman has the water, 06:04 yet she lacks the everlasting water 06:07 and that's where, you know, Jesus comes in and says 06:10 this is what you need in your life. 06:12 Are you trying to marry this off? 06:14 I don't know. 06:17 But there seems to be that connection 06:19 and you said earlier, you will talk about marriage. 06:22 I don't know if you can do that now or maybe-- 06:24 Yeah, shall we do that? 06:25 All right, well, let's do that. 06:27 The--you have the situation of Nicodemus 06:29 and Samaritan woman seem paired off almost 06:32 in fact they are opposites on nearly everything. 06:34 I wrote it down because it was so interesting. 06:37 He's man, she's a woman. 06:41 He's a Jew, she's a Samaritan. 06:45 He's rich. How do we know that? 06:47 He was member of the Samaritan. 06:48 She's poor. How do we know that? 06:51 She was carrying her own water. 06:54 If you were rich you would have other people 06:56 carry the water for you and fill your cistern 06:59 for you shower and everything. 07:02 He comes in the middle of the night. 07:04 She comes at noon. Why is she coming at noon? 07:07 Probably to avoid all the social encounters 07:09 that usually happened at sunrise and sunset at the well. 07:13 The woman looked down on her 07:15 and she just didn't want to be part of that. 07:18 He was educated. How do we know? 07:20 Because he was a teacher of Israel. 07:23 She was illiterate. How do we know? 07:26 She was a woman, woman didn't get educated in those days. 07:31 He was respected. She was despised. 07:34 He had a great name, Nicodemus you know. 07:38 She was Anonymous. 07:40 We don't even know what her name was. 07:42 But here's interesting. He was slow to understand 07:46 and she understood. 07:48 And so Jesus says he really was. 07:51 He lived in the Holy City. 07:54 And she lived in a town of drunkenness. 07:57 So what's going on here? 07:59 Why are these two opposites 08:00 being put side by side in this story? 08:03 Because both of them are acted parables of John 3:16. 08:09 God so loved the world, that He gave His only son 08:13 that whoever believes in Him, might not perish, 08:17 but have everlasting life. 08:19 These are the opposite ends of whosoever. 08:22 You go to one extreme, you go to the other extreme 08:24 and Jesus says it's for everybody. 08:27 I don't care where you've been, 08:29 I don't care what you've done, 08:31 the gospel is for you. 08:32 Now where is the connection when it comes to marriage here? 08:37 Well, you tend to marry your opposites, 08:39 so this too seems set up. All right. 08:43 Are you implying that they married 08:44 or is that a tradition? No, no, no, don't-- 08:46 Okay, we're just trying to clear that up here. 08:48 It's in the text though, within the story of the text. 08:51 It's interesting how these are matching pair. 08:54 Opposites attract. 08:55 And I think that's intentional, it's a matching pair 08:58 to show the opposites sides of God's grace, 09:02 that He can reach out 09:03 to the farthest edges of the opportunity here. 09:07 Why don't we come back to verses 23 and 24. 09:10 "But the hour is coming, and now is, 09:13 when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit, 09:16 and in truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship him. 09:20 God is spirit, and those who worship Him 09:22 must worship in spirit and truth." 09:26 In the Gospel of John, 09:28 the spirit is often the opposite of the material. 09:33 It's the opposite of rituals, 09:35 you know, just going on the surface, 09:36 the spirit goes deep. 09:38 It goes beyond the surface, the true genuine transformation. 09:43 To worship Him in truth, in the synoptic gospels 09:47 the word truth rarely appears in Matthew, Mark and Luke. 09:50 This is one of John's favorite words. 09:53 It's all about the truth. 09:55 If the truth will set you free, 09:58 if you find me, you'll find the truth, 10:01 and the truth is in the words of Jesus, 10:04 the truth is found in the actions of Jesus, 10:08 and it's found in the ministry, 10:10 you know the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit. 10:13 After Jesus goes, the Holy Spirit brings the truth. 10:16 He's the spirit of truth. 10:19 So it's focusing in that Jesus is what truth is all about. 10:26 And if you found Jesus as you really is, 10:30 you will have the truth. 10:31 You will know what God is like 10:33 and you'll know the place that you can have with Him. 10:37 But there are many other past to truth 10:40 but they don't lead to truth in the way that Jesus does. 10:44 That's the core of what's happening here. 10:47 And she met the truth, she met the Messiah 10:50 as you said there that comparison 10:52 or that contrast is that she-- 10:56 she understood that this was the Messiah. That's right. 11:00 You see though how the Samaritan woman, 11:03 Nicodemus and so on these are like representative characters? 11:07 For John they have meaning beyond the simple fact 11:11 that they were people in the story. 11:13 The Baptist, and the story comes to represent his whole movement. 11:18 Nicodemus represents the Pharisees 11:20 and the Jewish leaders in the way they responded. 11:23 This woman represents the Samaritan's 11:26 and everybody who's an outcast. 11:28 Pilate represents Rome, you know, so-- 11:31 so the characters in the story are specifically chosen, 11:35 because they have a focus and a place. 11:39 So with Nicodemus and a Samaritan woman 11:42 they are part of this whole story of John 11:45 to build the bigger story and they mark off 11:49 the ends of Jesus' grace and mercy. 11:54 Gods beautiful character, because it tells us for today, 11:58 it doesn't really matter who you're, 12:02 where you've been, what you've done? 12:05 Like Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, 12:08 what Jesus does is for you. 12:10 "God so loved the world that he gave his only son for you." 12:15 If Nicodemus could be reached 12:17 in all of his hiding and self deception, 12:20 if the Samaritan woman could be reached 12:22 with her five husbands and the mess of her life 12:25 there's certainly hope for you. 12:27 And there's no room for prejudice. 12:30 No room for saying one person is way better than other. 12:34 We're all equal at the foot of the cross, Deyvy. 12:38 Dr. Paulien, we want to thank you again 12:40 for being with us in this Bible study. 12:42 And friends, I also want to thank you for being with us 12:45 and as Dr. Paulien, he was saying 12:47 that God is reaching out to you and He's making that invitation 12:51 just as He did to Nicodemus and to this woman 12:54 to come and not thirst again, 12:59 but to drink of that everlasting water, 13:02 that only Christ can give. 13:04 Thank you, till next time. |
Revised 2014-12-17