Digging Deeper Days
Finding the original intent of Scripture and making good application to our everyday lives as we become equipped to correctly handle the Word of Truth!
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The Questions
John 4:7-26
7A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
“Give me a drink,” Jesus said to her, 8 because his disciples had gone into town to buy food.
9 “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.
10 Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.”
11 “Sir,” said the woman, “you don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this ‘living water’? 12 You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”
13 Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.”
15 “Sir,” the woman said to him, “give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”
16 “Go call your husband,” he told her, “and come back here.”
17 “I don’t have a husband,” she answered.
“You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’” Jesus said. 18 “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 Jesus told her, “Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Jesus told her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”
Original Intent
1) What is significant about the person with whom Jesus is talking?
Jesus spoke in this passage with a woman from Samaria. In verse 9, we see that “Jews do not associate with Samaritans.” Also, during this time in history, men would not typically converse with women. By asking her for a drink, Jesus shows that He is willing to associate with both a woman and a Samaritan, effectively breaking down all religious and social barriers.
2) What do verses 11 and 15 show us about the woman’s understanding?
Jesus begins this conversation by making a physical request for a drink of water, but He quickly turns the conversation to spiritual things. The woman is slow to see that Jesus is talking about the spiritual. When Jesus refers to living water, she still thinks He is talking about physical water, wondering aloud how He would draw it from the well without a bucket.
3) Why does Jesus tell the woman to go get her husband?
Although He has never met her, Jesus knows this woman. By bringing up this woman’s husband, He is setting her up to show her that He has knowledge about her that had to come to Him supernaturally. This is a segue into revealing who He really is. We can see from her response in verse 19 (“I see that you are a prophet”) that she is beginning to understand this is no mere man she is speaking to.
4) What is Jesus’s purpose in having this conversation?
In verse 26, Jesus plainly reveals that He is the Messiah. He chose to reveal this glorious truth to a woman from a race of outcasts. This hints that the salvation He is bringing is not just for the Jews, but for those whom the Jews have despised for centuries.
Everyday Application
1) What is significant about the person with whom Jesus is talking?
Jesus did not shy away from speaking with someone despised by society. He had created her, so He knew her value as the bearer of His image, and He chose to reveal Himself to her. Likewise, we should see the image-bearing value of every person that God created, no matter how they differ from us, annoy us, or affect our reputation. Jesus finds these people worthy of knowledge of Him; so should we.
2) What do verses 11 and 15 show us about the woman’s understanding?
Often in Scripture, we see people who are slow to see the spiritual meaning behind Jesus’ words. Even the disciples, who followed Jesus around for three years, didn’t really understand what He was teaching until after He had risen from the dead. Don’t become discouraged if parts of the Bible are difficult to understand, as we all do. Instead, pray that the Holy Spirit—God living inside of us!—would open our minds to understand the Scriptures. (Luke 24:45)
3) Why does Jesus tell the woman to go get her husband?
Jesus wasn’t being rude by setting this woman up to reveal her sin. He was angling the conversation in a way that would lead to the truth of who He was. Pray for God to give us words to turn the conversations we have with nonbelievers toward spiritual things. Glorifying God through bringing others to Him is one of our purposes here on earth.
4) What is Jesus’s purpose in having this conversation?
This glorious salvation that Jesus bought with His blood on the cross is open to all of us, even the outcasts, even the sinful, even those whom society despises. Christ put on flesh, and came to earth, to show us what God the Father looks like, and to show us how we don’t measure up in comparison. Then He died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin, making a way for us to be with God. Praise Him!
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Digging Deeper is for Everyone!
1) Take this passage (or any other passage).
2) Read it, and the verses around it,
several times
3) Write down your questions
as you think of them.
4) Ask specific culture related questions and be ready to dig around for your answers. Google them, use www.studylight.org, or look them up in a study Bible and read the footnotes (click on the little letters next to a word and it will show you
other related verses!). (www.esvbible.org)
5) Check your applications with other trusted Christians that you are in community with and embrace the fullness of God
in your everyday!
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Why Dig Deeper?
Finding the original meaning is a huge deal when we study Scripture and can make all the difference in our understanding as we apply God’s truths to our everyday lives.
In our modern-day relationships, we want people to understand our original intention as we communicate; how much more so between God and humanity?!
Here’s a little bit more on why we take Digging Deeper so seriously.
Study Tools
We love getting help while we study and www.studylight.org is one of many excellent resources, providing the original Hebrew (Old Testament) or Greek (New Testament) with an English translation.
Want to know more about a specific word in a verse? Click on “Strong’s Interlinear Bible” then click the word you’d like to study. Discover “origin”, “definition” and hear the original pronunciation – That Is Awesome!
Want more background? Click “Study Tools”, then pick a few commentaries to read their scholarly approach, keeping in mind that just because a commentary says it, doesn’t mean it’s true. (just like the internet :-))
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