John 4.39-42.
After Jesus’s talk with the Samaritan at the well, she left her water jar, went to the nearby city of Sykhár, and told everyone there about him:
- John 4.29 KWL
- “Come! See a person who tells me everything I do.
- Might this be the Christ?”
Well, it might be! So the Samaritans come to the well to see Jesus for themselves. And yeah, he’s not Samaritan, but he’s a prophet; he’s willing to talk God with them, and not shun them like Judeans typically do, and for all we know he cured a few sick people. (Yeah, John later describes “the second miracle that Jesus did,” Jn 4.54 but that’s the second miracle in the Galilee; John doesn’t bring up any miracles he did in Judea and Samaria.)
Anyway, everything Jesus says and does among the Samaritans convinces ’em.
- John 4.39-42 KWL
- 39 Many of the Samaritans from this city believe in Jesus
- because of the word of the woman,
- testifying this: “He tells me everything I do.”
- 40 So when the Samaritans come to Jesus,
- they ask him to stay with them.
- He stays there two days,
- 41 and many more believe because of his word.
- 42 They’re saying this to the Samaritan woman:
- “No longer do we believe because of your saying,
- for we heard him
- and knew this is truly {the Christ,} the one who saves the world.”
“The Christ” in braces isn’t in the original test of John; it was added in the fifth century, which is why it’s in the Majority Text and the Textus Receptus, and therefore the King James Version. Occasionally, paranoid Christians will insist present-day bibles are trying to make it sound like the Samaritans didn’t really believe Jesus is Messiah. But of course they did: They said he saves the world. Exactly as Messiah, or the Samaritans’ prophesied prophet-like-Moses whom they called the Tahéb (which, it turns out, is also Jesus), would do.
Most Christians commend the Samaritans for coming to check out Jesus for themselves. We like the idea it wasn’t enough for the Samaritans to only take the woman’s word for it—they needed to personally interact with Jesus, and base their belief in him on that. Not that the woman’s testimony is irrelevant!—it got ’em to the well. It’s just her testimony was now superseded by personal experience.
Funny thing, though: Even though we Christians go on and on about how good it was for the Samaritans to do this… many of us turn round and object when our fellow Christians try to get our own personal God-experiences. When we say, “Okay, I’ve heard other Christians’ testimonies; I’ve read the scriptures. But now I wanna hear the Holy Spirit’s voice myself. Now I wanna pray for sick people and watch ’em get cured. Now I want supernatural stuff to happen. If Jesus says these things will follow his followers, Mk 16.17-18 we should see ’em, right?”
I grew up hearing many a cessationist object strongly to this line of thinking: “Personal experience? No no no! Satan will trick you and lead you astray! Besides, personal experience is way too subjective, too insubstantial, too open to interpretation. We can’t base our faith on that. It’s gotta be the bible. Only the scriptures are concrete and safe. We can’t trust personal experience.”
You know… the opposite of what we commend the Samaritans for doing.
The bible is a secondhand experience.
Lemme make it clear I’m neither bashing nor dismissing the bible. It’s important! The Spirit regularly uses it as a corrective 2Ti 3.16 to people who have their own ideas about what Jesus teaches or the Spirit wants. If what any Christian teaches runs contrary to bible, they’re wrong.
But the bible is a secondhand experience.
A totally reliable, infallible secondhand experience, inspired by God, tested over centuries by generations of Christians. Still, it serves the same purpose as the Samaritan who left the well and ran into town. It informs us, “There’s a man who cures the sick, defeats dark forces, and preaches good news to the poor. It’s not Christ, is it?” And then we come to him, and see for ourselves, and tell the bible, “We no longer believe because of your say-so; we’ve heard him.”
Whenever I say this, I frequently get pushback from people who insist I am bashing or dismissing the bible; that I’m putting it second. Well duh I’m putting it second. Behind Jesus! Either Jesus is our Lord and God, or bible is. If you don’t understand the difference, you’re an idolater. We don’t worship bible. We worship Jesus.
Putting it second is not a rejection! Look at the Samaritans: They didn’t reject the woman who told them about Jesus. They appreciated her for pointing them to him. And we appreciate the scriptures for the very same reason. When we lack experiences, we look to the scriptures. We see what’s possible, because Jesus and the ancient Christians did it. (And correct where we’ve gone off the rails.) Then we try these possibilities—and in so doing, learn from Jesus himself. We gain firsthand experiences. We live out what we read about in bible.
Christians who reject the firsthand experience, who shoo fellow Christians away from them, are just like any Samaritans in Sykhár who refused to come see Jesus for themselves. John doesn’t say the entire town came to see him, and doesn’t say the entire town believed. Many believed. Jn 4.34 Others didn’t care. Or refused to believe, because they presumed the Tahéb was Samaritan like them, and not some Judean or Galilean. Their weird heretic Samaritan beliefs got in the way of a bonafide Jesus encounter.
And in the case of Christians who reject bonafide Jesus encounters because they believe God turned off the miracles, or because they worship bible instead of Jesus: Just as wrong.
The one who saves the world.
It took the first Christians a while to realize Messiah wasn’t only gonna save Israel, but the entire world.
Even though both John the baptist and Jesus said so several times. God’s Lamb takes away the world’s sin. Jn 1.29 God loves the world enough to send his son to save it. Jn 3.16-17 But this fact didn’t entirely sink in till the Holy Spirit sent Simon Peter to evangelize the Romans. Ac 10 Till then, this “world” talk was a giant blindspot for them. It’s not that they didn’t believe Jesus; it’s just they were too stuck in their own worldview to realize by “the world” Jesus actually means everybody in the world—not just God’s chosen people. (Calvinists still make this error, and insist God’s grace is limited, not unlimited.)
But the Samaritans understood the Tahéb/Messiah is here for the world. And remember, Jesus told the Samaritan at the well how it’s not relevant were God is worshiped, but how—in spirit and truth. He can worshiped by Samaritans, or Judeans… or even gentiles. And even though Jesus stated the Samaritans were wrong about God, Jn 4.22 God nevertheless sought them to worship him. He’s not hung up by heresy or race. God really is serious about loving and saving the world.
When you’re from an outcast tribe or caste or lifestyle, and God comes near, you tend to see how truly worldwide the gospel, and God’s kingdom, is. When you’re not, it’s way too easy to grow this blindspot. Happened to Jews in the first century; happens to Americans in the 21st. We assume, like pagans do, God only cares about good people—however we define “good.” Good behavior, good ancestry, good theology—in other words stuff we care about, and God not so much. We expect God to only save those whom we consider worthy. We never imagine God’s working with entirely different criteria—that he justifies us by our trusting him, not our goodness.
God’s kingdom is way more diverse than our own little clique. Let’s stop being so provincial about it.
