Christian stewardship.

STEWARDSHIP 'st(j)u.ərd.ʃɪp noun. The job or duty of supervising or caretaking a person, property, or organization.

2. [adjective] Having to do with the role or condition of supervision or caretaking.

[Steward 'st(j)u.ərd noun; stewarding 'st(j)u.ərd.ɪŋ verb.]

Why on earth have I decided to tag the topic of stewardship with “Mammon”? Because way too often—in fact I would argue most of the time—whenever Christians talk about stewardship, we’re talking about managing our wealth… but we’re pretending we’re managing God’s wealth.

First time I heard about stewardship, I was a kid, learning about Adam and Eve and creation. Adam and Eve had been put in charge of the planet Earth. Says so in the bible.

Genesis 1.27-28 KJV

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

“Subdue it” (Hebrew כִבְשֻׁ֑הָ/khivsá literally means to tamp it down, but usually has the sense of conquering and subjugating. Humans are meant to take over our world, and make it do as we want.

But, my Sunday school teacher pointed out, not so we could just do as we please with it, and ruin it as if it’s a disposable commodity. Littering is bad! Polluting is bad! I know; your Sunday school teacher may not have ever taught such things. Mine did, and justified it by pointing to something the LORD told the Hebrews in the wilderness about the land he intended to give them.

Leviticus 25.23 KJV

The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.

It’s God’s land, and God’s world, she pointed out. We humans are just stewards of this world. We take care of it for him. At at some point we have to answer to God for how we did.

Other Evangelicals have profoundly different attitudes about creation care—and many don’t believe we do answer to God for it. Ever. He gave Earth to Adam and Eve; we’re descendants of Adam and Eve; so it’s our planet to do with as we see fit. And after Jesus returns he’s just gonna destroy the world and make New Earth anyway. Rv 21.1 So it’s okay if we trash the world, and make it uninhabitable and poisonous. We’re getting a brand-new one!

Anyway, that’s how I was introduced to the concept of stewardship. I no longer agree with that interpretation of it; I’ll get to that. But between that and Jesus’s parable about the Faithful and Stupid Stewards Lk 12.41-48 —one of whom watched out for his master, and the other who acted as if the master would never return—to my mind, stewardship had to do with responsibly doing as God wants during our time in this world.

Then, as a teenager, I was introduced to stewardship as it has to do with how Christians handle our money. And that’s where I encountered a buttload of Mammonism. Disguised as Christianity of course; disguised as biblical principles which’d make Christians wealthy, and justifications for all our covetous and stingy behavior: “We’re practicing good stewardship of God’s money. We’re doing it for him.”

Yeah right. If doing it for God were truly the case, we’d see way more good fruit in all this “stewardship.” But when it’s not—when it’s all just hypocrisy and Mammonism—we look like greedy, graceless people who have built a lot of Christian corporations and fancy buildings, but haven’t built any of God’s kingdom. Nothing that’ll last after Jesus personally takes over. Because we’ve prioritized money.

The man at the pool.

John 5.1-9.

There are two back-to-back stories of Jesus curing people in John, but because they’re in two different chapters, Christians tend not to nice they’re right by each other. On purpose. ’Cause they happen some time apart. The first, where Jesus cures a royal’s son, happens in western Galilee right after they got back from Jerusalem. The second, where Jesus cures a weak man at a pool, takes place back in Jerusalem—either at the next festival where they were expected to go to temple, or several festivals later; maybe even years later. We don’t know.

The situation is this: Jesus is back in Jerusalem, and in Jerusalem there’s a pool. The UBS and NA Greek New Testaments identify it as Βηθζαθά/Vithzathá, although most bibles go with the name given by the Textus Receptus, Βηθεσδά/Vithesdá (KJV “Bethesda”) and other ancient copies of John call it Βηθσαιδά/Vithsedá, Βηδσαιδά/Vidsedá, Βηδσαιδάν/Vidsedán, and Βελζεθά/Velzethá. All of these are attempts to transliterate the Aramaic name בית זיתא/Beit Cheytá, the name of a district in first-century Jerusalem which Josephus calls “the New City.” The district was next to the Roman fortress, Antonia, located on the NNW corner of the temple mount, and the pool was within this district. It was created around the 700s BC as a reservoir for rainwater, and around 200 BC the head priest, Simon bar Onias (also known as Simon 2), had a second pool created just south of it. Scholars figure it was so one pool could hold warm water, and the other cold, so you could bathe in whatever temperature you pleased.

Because it’s by the Sheep Gate, popular legend says the pool was created to wash sheep before their ritual sacrifice. Problem is, the pool is 13 meters deep, which is more appropriate for drowning sheep. So no, it’s likely not for washing animals. (That’s what they used Siloam for.) More likely this pool was mainly used for ritual washing. People had to get ritually clean before they could go to temple, so here’s where they did it.

The Israel Museum’s model of the “Pool of Bethesda” during the first century. Without the water of course. John describes it with five colonnades—the four around the whole complex, and one in the middle over the wall between the pools. [Wikimedia]

After the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, the pool was made part of a pagan temple to Asclepius and Serapis, the Roman and Egyptian gods of healing. When the Roman Empire became Christian, it was turned into the Church of the Sheep, which was destroyed in 614 by the Persians. The Crusaders rebuilt it as a smaller church, the Church of the Paralytic, which fell into disuse after the crusaders built the larger Church of St. Anne nearby. That church was renovated by the French in the 1800s, but the rest remained ruins, later to be excavated by German archaeologist Conrad Schick.

Today, the Sheep Gate is known as the Lion’s Gate (Hebrew שער האריות/shahar ha-Arayót), named for the leopard carvings in the stone above it, which get confused with lions. It’s the entrance to the Muslim quarter. The pool’s still there, as part of the St. Anne’s church complex.

But let’s get back to Jesus’s day. At that time, the pool was a healing pool: Sick people gathered round it, hoping for a miracle.

John 5.1-4 KWL

1 After these events there’s a Judean feast,

and Jesus goes up to Jerusalem.

2 A pool is in Jerusalem, by the Sheep Gate

—in Aramaic it’s called Beit Cheytá—

having five colonnades.

3 Under these colonnades lay a large number

of weak, blind, lame, shriveled people,

{waiting for the water to move.

4 For an angel comes down to the pool at times,

and agitates the water,

so the first who enters after the water is agitated

becomes whole from whatever ailment he has.}

Verses 3B–4 first appeared in fourth-century copies of John, and were of course added to the Textus Receptus. They provide kind of a backstory to why all these people were gathered round the pool: Whenever the water moved, they figured an angel was causing it, and hoped it’d heal them. My only problem with this theory is it sounds a lot like pagan superstition; like something the Greeks would claim. “Look, a lesser god is moving the water! Jump in!” But is that what people believed in the first century? Or what people believed in the fourth century, after a few centuries of Greco-Roman pagans had overseen the pool, and added their own superstitions to the pool’s history?

Now we do know the water was agitated, for that’s what the weak man says. Jn 5.7 But it didn’t have to be roiled up by an angel. It coulda happened whenever the water was replenished. Or when an attendant dumped a bunch of bath salts into it. Or when crowds of people came to town and needed ritual washing. Anything coulda moved the water—and people might figure, “Fresh water” or “Ritual washing” or “Fresh salts” or any of those things might somehow make the water holier, and therefore more likely to cure ’em.

But the angel story has been in bibles, including the Vulgate, for a mighty long time. And you know how people are with favorite traditions: They’re loath to give ’em up, no matter how wrong and misguided they might be.

Still, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if this was a myth these sick people believed. They wanted to get well, and healthcare didn’t exist back then. Their “physicians” were actually witch doctors, and had no real medical nor scientific training. Their faith healers might be legit—might actually have the Holy Spirit empowering them—but then again might not, or might be frauds. So what other options did you have? Well, there was a rumor if you got in the pool at just the right time, you’d get cured. So here they were.

If it all sounds hopeless to you—and it kinda does to me too—y’notice the people gathered round the pool had to have some small degree of hope, or they wouldn’t be there! (Or, which is just as likely, their family members wouldn’t carry them there, day after day, in the hopes something might happen.) Hey, what else are you gonna do? Who else are you gonna turn to?

So this is the depressing situation Jesus walked into one day… to bring somebody out of it.

The first time Jesus cured anyone.

John 4.46-54.

While Jesus and his students were staying in Cana (where they didn’t respect him as a prophet, so he didn’t have to deal with people seeking “Jesus the Prophet” all day), a certain royal showed up. Probably specifically to seek him out: Someone did respect Jesus the Prophet.

John 4.46 KWL

46 Jesus goes again to Cana of Galilee,

where he made the water wine.

A certain royal is there,

whose son in Capharnaum is sick.

John calls him a βασιλικὸς/vasilikós, “a royal.” Not a king, but someone in the royal family; debatably a servant in the royal household, but that’s far less likely. Could be someone who might actually become king himself someday, but if that’s so you’d think John woulda named names.

Both John Wycliffe and the Geneva Bible translated vasilikós as “little king.” But for some reason the King James translated it “nobleman,” and that concept has kinda stuck in translators’ heads ever since. You get “royal official” (Amplified, CSB, NASB, NET, NIV, NRSV), “government official” (ISV, GNB, and NLT), plain ’ol “official” (ESV), and of course “nobleman” (NKJV, MEV).

Regardless, he was a big deal—and word leaked to him Jesus might be the sort of person who could do miracles. And when you’re desperate, you’ll jump all over that sort of rumor. So this royal saddled up, rode 30 kilometers across the province, and called upon some obscure Nazarene rabbi.

John 4.47 KWL

Once this royal heard

Jesus comes from Judea to the Galilee,

he goes to Jesus

and asks whether Jesus might come down

and cure his son,

for he’s about to die.

Prophets get no respect back home.

John 4.43-45.

Right after Jesus spent two days with the Samaritans of Sykhár, sharing the gospel of God’s kingdom with ’em, he needed a break. So he returned to his homeland—the western side of the Roman province of the Galilee. More precisely Cana (today’s Kfar Kanna), 4 kilometers north of Nazareth, where he’d done the water-to-wine thingy.

Time to quote the gospel.

John 4.43-45 KWL

43 After the two days, Jesus comes out of Samaria,

and he goes into the Galilee.

44 For Jesus himself testifies that prophets,

in their own homeland, have no respect.

45 So when Jesus comes to the Galilee,

the Galileans receive him:

They saw everything he did in Jerusalem at the festival,

for they likewise went to the festival.

The part which tends to throw us Christians is Jesus’s comment “that a prophet hath no honour in his own country.” Jn 4.44 KJV Because in the synoptic gospels, Jesus says it like it’s a bad thing—

Mark 6.4 KWL

Jesus tells them this:

“A prophet isn’t really disrespected

till he’s in his homeland,

and with his relatives,

and in his own home.”

 

Matthew 13.57 KWL

They’re offended by him, and Jesus tells them,

“A prophet isn’t really disrespected

till he’s in his homeland,

and in his own home.”

 

Luke 4.24 KWL

Jesus says, “Amen! I promise you this:

A prophet never gets approval in his homeland.”

—because in those contexts, it was a bad thing. In each of these gospels, Jesus was teaching in the Nazareth synagogue, Lk 4.16 and his neighbors couldn’t handle the fact these teachings and revelations were coming out of him. Who’s he? What’s the handyman Mk 6.1 (or handyman’s son Mt 13.55) doing announcing God’s kingdom has arrived? In Luke they even tried to push him off a cliff. Lk 4.29

I don’t know whether the incident at the Nazareth synagogue took place before this John passage. It might have, but I don’t think so: One of the Nazarenes’ objections was they wanted Jesus to duplicate the miracles he’d done in Capharnaum, Lk 4.23 and in John he’s not even been to Capharnaum yet, and done no such miracles. Jn 4.54 But by that point it appears he already had made the quip that prophets get no respect back home.

Historically, Christians have interpreted this to mean familiarity breeds contempt. Jesus’s neighbors presumed they knew him—and “knew” he wasn’t anyone important. And took offense at the very idea he might be. Who’d he think he was? What, did he think he was better than them? How dare he.

“Why are there so many bible translations?”

Probably the most common question I get about bible translations—right after people ask me which one’s the best—is why there are so many.

If you visit Bible Gateway, which is one of the more popular bible websites on the internet—one I myself use frequently—you’ll find they have 63 different English translations. Yep, you read that number correctly. Sixty and three. To be fair, a number of those translations overlap:

• The King James Version (KJV) and the Authorized King James Version (AKJV) are the same translation, but with slightly different formatting.
• The New International Version (NIV) and the New International Version - UK (NIVUK) are the same translation, but with some words spelled differently. The same deal exists for the English Standard Version (ESV, ESVUK) and the New Revised Standard (although the previous NRSV was replaced with the updated edition, i.e. the NRSVUE).
• The Revised Standard Version (RSV) and the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE) are the same translation, but the Catholic edition uses the Catholic book order and includes the books Protestants tend to skip. Again, same deal with the NRSV (whose Catholic Edition is the NRSVCE).

Still, that’s more than 50 different English translations, and Bible Gateway certainly doesn’t include every English translation. I used to collect bible translations, so I have a few obscure ones which Bible Gateway certainly doesn’t include, and good luck finding bible software which sells them either.

But back to the question: Why are there so many English translations? Especially since there are plenty of people-groups who still lack a bible translation in their language! True, translators are working on that problem; Wycliffe Bible Translators and SIL International are doing what they can. In some cases they gotta create a written version of the language from scratch, just like Sequoyah did, then get the people literate so they can actually read the newly-translated bibles. Still, why aren’t translators working on that instead of creating yet another English translation?

Okay. Simply and bluntly, the reason there are so many English bible translations is because the bible sells big-time. And if you’re a book publisher, and you own the rights to a bible translation, you’re gonna make money. That’s it. Pure and simple.

No, it’s not for altruistic reasons. It’s not because the English-speaking world needs a new and better translation of the bible. We have plenty of perfectly good English translations. If you compare those translations on Bible Gateway—if, fr’instance, you look at all the different ways people have translated John 3.16—you’re not gonna see significant differences! You’re not gonna think, “Wow, there’s some division and controversy about how to translate that verse.” No, there’s really not. And the same is true of pretty much all the English-language bibles.

Yep, the primary reason for all the new bible translations is money. The bible still sells better than every other book. By far. The “best-selling book of 2023” was Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us, which sold about 1.29 million copies. But when you look up stats for bible sales, the KJV Giant Print Reference Bible has sold more than 10 million since it dropped in October. And the NKJV Giant Print Reference Bible, released at the same time, has sold more than 5 million. It’s because bestseller lists deliberately skip bibles—because if they included them, their lists would be nothing but bibles.

Does Jesus ever call himself Messiah?

Short answer: Yes.

Way longer answer: He does, but he never states the specific words ἐγώ μεσσίας/égo messías, “I’m Messiah”; nor the words ἐγώ Χριστός/égo hristós, “I’m Christ,” in the bible. And doesn’t have to. This passage, fr’instance, shows he clearly identifies himself as Messiah.

John 4.25-26, 28-29 GNT

25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah will come, and when he comes, he will tell us everything.”

26 Jesus answered, “I am he, I who am talking with you.”

 

28 Then the woman left her water jar, went back to the town, and said to the people there, 29 “Come and see the man who told me everything I have ever done. Could he be the Messiah?”

Jesus’s statement can either be translated “I’m the one talking to you” or “I am; the one talking to you.” But either way he clearly means he’s the Messiah of whom the Samaritan at the well was speaking. She expects Messiah to make things clear; well here he is, trying to do just that, if she’d listen.

Likewise when Jesus’s best student Simon Peter also identified him as Messiah:

Matthew 16.13-17, 20 GNT

13 Jesus went to the territory near the town of Caesarea Philippi, where he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

14 “Some say John the Baptist,” they answered. “Others say Elijah, while others say Jeremiah or some other prophet.”

15 “What about you?” he asked them. “Who do you say I am?”

16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

17 “Good for you, Simon son of John!” answered Jesus. “For this truth did not come to you from any human being, but it was given to you directly by my Father in heaven.”

 

20 Then Jesus ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Again, Jesus doesn’t straight-up call himself Messiah, and doesn’t need to: Peter did. And Jesus praised him, and told him he got this knowledge from the Father; it’s true. He never tells his students Peter was wrong; in fact why would he say laudatory things about Peter if he were wrong?

But: Shut up about it. We’re keeping this info private for now.

But it certainly was no secret. Plenty of other people recognized Jesus is Messiah, and used all the usual biblical euphemisms for Messiah there was.

Messiah (Heb. מָשׁיִחַ/mašiyakh) literally means “anointed,” usually someone who’d had a liter of oil dumped over his head to signify the Holy Spirit had put them in a position of leadership. They did this to ancient Israeli kings; therefore all the kings were messiahs. Yep, even Saul ben Kish, which is why David regularly refused to harm him. Didn’t matter how messed-up Saul behaved; he’s the LORD’s messiah. 1Sa 24.6, 26.11, 2Sa 1.16 And it doesn’t matter what “messiah” literally means; it means king.

So Israelis would call Jesus “king.” Lk 19.38, Jn 1.49 And “son of David” Mt 22.42, Mk 12.35 —not because they actually knew Jesus’s ancestry, but because people widely understood the Messiah-like-David would be David’s successor, and therefore David’s descendant.

People also called Jesus “son of God.” Mt 26.63, Jn 20.31 Since we Christians know Jesus is the literal son of God, we regularly—and wrongly—miss what ancient Judeans meant by this: “Son of God” is also one of Messiah’s titles. Comes from Psalm 2, which declares:

Psalm 2.7-9 GNT

7 “I will announce,” says the king, “what the Lord has declared.

He said to me: ‘You are my son;

today I have become your father.

8 Ask, and I will give you all the nations;

the whole earth will be yours.

9 You will break them with an iron rod;

you will shatter them in pieces like a clay pot.’ ”

Once you learn Messiah means king, and learn to recognize all this Messianic language, when you read the gospels you’ll see it everywhere. Doesn’t matter how much Jesus tried to keep it quiet.

Passover: When God saved the Hebrews.

“Why don’t we celebrate Passover?” asked one of my students, when I once taught on the topic.

“We do,” I said. “Christians call it Pascha or Pascua or Páques. But in languages with a lot of German words mixed in, we call it Easter. And obviously we do it way different than you see in the bible.”

So different, English-speaking people routinely assume Easter and Passover are two entirely different holidays. I can’t argue with this assumption. Christians don’t bother to purge our homes of yeast or leavening. Don’t cook lamb—nor do we practice the modern Jewish custom of not having lamb, ’cause there’s no temple in Jerusalem to ritually sacrifice a lamb in. Don’t put out the seder plate. Don’t tell the Exodus story. Don’t have the kids ask the Four Questions. Don’t hide the afikomen and have the kids search for it—although both holidays have eggs, and we do have the kids look for eggs.

Well, some Christians observe Passover as a separate holiday. Some of us even celebrate it Hebrew-style, as spelled out in the scriptures, as in Exodus and Deuteronomy. But more often, Christians do as Messianic Jews recommend—and Messianic Jews borrow their traditions less from the bible and more from the Conservative Judaism movement. (Which, contrary to their name, ain’t all that conservative.) Their haggadah—their order of service—is nearly always adapted from Orthodox or Conservative prayer books, which means it dates from the 10th century or later.

Yes, some Messianic Jewish customs come from the Mishna, so they do date back to the first century. Still, Mishnaic practices weren’t standard practices; not even in the 10th century. Just as Christians celebrate Christmas every which way, Jews then and now got to choose their own customs. Hence families have unique customs, and various synagogues emphasize various things. Medieval Jewish communities in eastern Europe, north Africa, Spain, and the middle east, all came up with their individual haggadahs. (As did Samaritans.)

The point of the haggadah is to teach the Exodus story to children. And remember, Jesus’s students weren’t children. Teenagers certainly, but still legal adults who already knew the Exodus story: If they hadn’t heard it at home, Jesus would’ve taught it to them personally, and they’d have celebrated several Passovers together by the time of his last supper. So, just as some families don’t tell the nativity story every Christmas once the kids get older, don’t be surprised if Jesus skipped the haggadah’s customary Four Questions (what’s with the matzot, why are bitter herbs part of the meal, why roasted meat in particular, and why does the food gets dipped twice) as redundant.

Christians don’t always realize this. Nor do Messianic Jews. So whenever they attend a Passover seder, or ritual dinner, and hear whatever haggadah the leader came up with, they routinely think it’s so profound how Jesus “practiced” and “brought such meaning and fulfillment” to these customs. Even though it’s highly unlikely he practiced any of the present-day customs. It’s pure coincidence his ministry “fulfilled” them. But y’know, not every Christian believes in coincidence.

Seeing Jesus for ourselves.

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.

Jesus harvests the Samaritans.

John 4.31-38.

Gonna rewind a little to a verse I dealt with previously, in which Jesus’s students come back, see him talking to a Samaritan, and say nothing.

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 she’s encountered a prophet who might be Messiah—as Samaritans understood Messiah. They decide to have a look at Jesus for themselves. Meanwhile Jesus’s students now decide to question him.

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 ἠρώτων/iróton, “they question,” the students are asking Jesus to eat, but nah; they’re urging him to eat at the same time they’re asking him stuff. Rabbinic students back then were trained in the Socratic-style method of questioning your teacher what you wanted to learn. When the Samaritan was there, the students kept their mouths shut and asked nothing. Once she was gone, now the questions came.

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.

The first time Jesus called himself Messiah.

John 4.25-30.

After meeting Jesus and realizing he’s a prophet, this Samaritan woman he met at Jacob’s well tried to get him to settle which temple was the correct one— the one at Shechem or the one at Jerusalem. Jn 4.20 Jesus pointed out it’s neither. Jn 4.21 God wants worshipers “in spirit and truth,” Jn 4.22-23 who can worship him anywhere. In temple, out of temple; in church, out of church.

But since Jesus didn’t give her the answer she was expecting, and kinda appeared to side with the Judeans, Jn 4.22 the Samaritan did the intellectual equivalent of shrugging her shoulders:

John 4.25 KWL

The woman tells Jesus, “I know Messiah” (i.e. Christ) “comes;

when this man comes, he’ll explain everything.”

“Yeah, you don’t know. But Messiah will know. And when he arrives, he’ll tell us which temple is the right one.”

As I’ve said previously, Samaritans didn’t believe in a Judean-style Messiah. Their bible only went up to Deuteronomy, so there were no actual Messianic prophecies. They believed in the Tahéb, a prophet-like-Moses Dt 18.15 who’d come at the End Times and sort everything out. And since the Tahéb was sorta anointed by God, the word “anointed” (ܡܫܺܝܚܳܐ/mešíkha in Aramaic/Syriac, χριστός/hristós in Greek) would be a valid synonym for Tahéb. Maybe the Samaritan did say Mešíkha, which is why John rendered it μεσσίας/messías, “Messiah.” Maybe she said Tahéb and John translated it. Doesn’t matter. After all, Jesus is the prophet-like-Moses; Ac 3.22-26 he is the Tahéb. So we’re fine either way.

Hence Jesus’s response to her apathetic statement. When Messiah arrives, he’ll tell you which temple is the right one? Well Messiah has arrived.

John 4.26 KWL

Jesus tells her, “I’m him.

I’m speaking to you.”

Mic drop.

Yeah, various skeptics insist Jesus never actually called himself Messiah. They insist Jesus never made any such claim about himself, never even hinted he might be Messiah; that it’s an idea added to Christianity decades later by overzealous apostles. Probably Paul. They really like to blame Paul for all the parts of Christianity they don’t like.

Thing is, Paul wrote his letters before his fellow apostles wrote the gospels. He wrote ’em in the 40s and 50s CE; the gospels were written in the 60s. The circulation of Paul’s teachings were simultaneous with the circulation of Jesus’s teachings; they still are, ’cause they usually get bound together in the New Testament. But when the ancient Christians first heard about Jesus, it was usually in the context of something Paul taught or wrote. Because they go together. It’s not “Jesus said this, but Paul said that”; it’s “Jesus said this, and here’s Paul’s commentary”—they uphold each other. Can’t have Christ without his Christians.

Okay yes, Jesus never literally says the words, “I’m Messiah” (or ἐγώ Μεσσίας, or ܐ݈ܢܳܐ ܡܫܝܚܐ) in the gospels. Largely because if he did say that, he could get arrested and killed for treason against Rome. But he functionally says the very same thing: “I’m him. I’m speaking to you.” It’s as close to “I’m Messiah” as we’re gonna get from Jesus, and the Samaritan clearly understood him—and ran with it.

Literally ran with it: She abandoned her water jar, went into the Samaritan city which she had been deliberately avoiding all this time, and told everyone.