John 4.31-38.
Gonna rewind a little to
John 4.27 KWL - At this time, Jesus’s students come,
- and are wondering why he’s speaking with a woman.
- Yet no one says, “Whom do you seek?”
- nor “Why do you speak with her?”
The Samaritan leaves, and tells the nearby town
John 4.31-34 KWL - 31 Meanwhile the students question Jesus,
- saying, “Rabbi, eat.”
- 32 Jesus tells them, “I have food to eat,
- which you didn’t know about.”
- 33 So the students are saying to one another,
- “No one brought him food, did they?”
- 34 Jesus tells them, “My food
- is that I might do the will of the One who sends me,
- and might complete the work for him.”
Most interpreters figure when
And there are a few reasons why this might be so:
- POLITENESS. Jesus was busy talking with her; don’t interrupt your master. Listen to what he’s doing or saying. Ask your questions afterward.
- SHYNESS. Jesus was cool with them asking him absolutely anything, but they didn’t know nor trust her to not judge ’em for what they were gonna ask.
- SHAME. This one’s popular with certain commentators, who presume the students were embarrassed by Jesus once again ignoring
Pharisee custom. I would think they’d’ve known their master by now. - HUMILITY. Y’notice Pharisees would object to Jesus’s behavior whenever he interacted with “sinners.”
Mk 2.16 Not to ask legit questions; frequently to accuse him of stuff, and rant about the things which personally offended them. But Jesus’s students knew him well enough to know he always had good reasons. And good character; he didn’t sin,He 4.15 so you never had to police him to make sure he wasn’t backsliding. They knew better than to presume he’d sin. - PATIENCE. And because they knew their master, they knew whenever he violated Pharisee custom, he was trying to teach them something, and expected the kids to ask him about it afterward. So they took time to come up with questions.
- TIRED. This one’s also popular with certain commentators: They’d been walking, they were hungry, they didn’t wanna get another lesson right then. They wanted to sit, drink some water, eat some falafel, take a big fat nap till the heat died down, then get back on the road to Galilee. If they realized a lesson was coming, they possibly thought—as kids will—“If we just keep quiet, maybe he’ll drop it, and we’ll get out of it.” Yeah right.
Anyway, the questions began, and Jesus’s lesson followed.
Planting and harvesting a crop in an hour.
As you notice, the students initially
Jesus’s food is to do the will of the Father who sent him.
So while Jesus’s students were off collective food—apparently none of them hanging back to see what their master might do—he just did one of the things his Father wanted. He shared the good news of God’s kingdom with a Samaritan. And now she was eagerly pointing her entire town in his direction.
There are various Christians who claim Jesus never tells
John 4.35-38 KWL - 35 “Don’t you say this?—
- ‘It’s four months yet
- and the harvest comes.’
- Look, I tell you.
- Examine the fields.
- They’re white with harvest.
- 36 Reapers receive their pay,
- and gather fruit for life in the age to come,
- so planters might rejoice together with reapers.
- 37 For in this is a true message:
- ‘Another is a sower and another is a reaper.’
- 38 I send you to reap where you’ve not worked.
- Another worked, and you entered into their work.”
A lot of interpreters (who’re just as foolish as the kids in the story) take Jesus’s “It’s four months yet” literally and assume he was describing the time of year—four months before harvest time. Then they try to nail down what time of year this took place. But Jesus wasn’t talking about the specific time of year; he was quoting a common saying among barley-growers. See, for many grains, planting and harvesting are six months apart. For barley it was only four. In four months—two months sooner than expected—the stalks were no longer green, but “white.” (Well, whiter than green.) So barley farmers would remind one another: Four more months. Not six.
With the Samaritans, there wouldn’t even be a four-month wait. They were coming. Jesus’s seeds were bearing fruit immediately.
Now, contrast what’s going on in John 4 with the way popular Christian culture describes evangelism. Sometimes, today’s evangelists and preachers claim, it takes years before
But generally this “you’re gonna wait years” idea is not something the gospels nor Acts nor the apostles teach us. In bible, when Jesus or his evangelists proclaimed the gospel, they either got converts immediately, or within the time-period they were gonna minister or preach there, which was days, not months nor years. And if they didn’t get results in that brief time, they shook the dust off their feet and moved along. They weren’t gonna wait years for people to finally wake up and change their minds. ’Cause (as the apostles believed and taught)
So why do we insist it’ll take years? ’Cause we absolutely hate the idea our preaching might’ve fallen on deaf ears. We hate the thought we’ve just
No, I’m not trying to make you give up hope. By all means, keep sharing Jesus with holdouts. But the scriptures demonstrate we should usually see instant harvests. Not longtime fertilizing, pruning, tending, and waiting for fruit. After a point, we gotta move on.
In this story, we have yet another instant harvest. One conversation with the right person evangelized a whole town. What we gotta do is not be so narrow-minded, we dismiss the right person—in this case, some weird hapless heretic who was using an odd well at an odd time of day. The students missed her. Jesus didn’t, and never does.
In farming cultures, if you planted it, you usually expected to harvest it. You didn’t expect someone else to—unless some disaster overtook you,
