Jesus And The Samaritan Woman III (J16)

What started as a one-hour lunch break,
Turned into a two-day revival fest;
A town of lost souls believers did make;
Jews were happy as Samaritan guests!
Had the woman and Jesus never met,
Or they stuck to the customs of the day,
The Kingdom of God these souls wouldn’t get,
Or the disciples not learned Jesus’ way!
For the incident at the well, thank God;
Sing Halelujahs to the Son of Man;
Had He not the paths of Israel trod,
Salvation of souls could not have began!
We should stay hungry to do Jesus’ will;
Winning souls is better than stomachs fill!

“Many of the Samaritans of that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I ever did.’ So when the Samaritans saw him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers. They said to the woman, ‘We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world/’ “ (John 4:39-42)

The meeting of the Samaritan woman with Jesus at Jacob’s well had a happy ending. The woman was saved, and there is no doubt that her life changed for the better. I wonder if she married the sixth man (the one she was living with unmarried when she met Jesus); left him and never lived with another; or perhaps she remarried her first or one of her other husbands. Also, many of her fellow townspeople were saved by her chance meeting with Jesus.

There is also no doubt that her reputation in the town must have improved. It was bad enough that she went for the necessary water alone at the hottest part of the day; the custom was that all the other women would go for water together; obviously she was shunned before her meeting with Jesus; but, afterward, she had been privileged to be the town’s great benefactor, for her testimony had saved many souls. She probably made many new friends. After all, Jesus taught all Christians to love one another. Not one of us has a reason to boast, for everyone has sinned, and every Christian continues to sin after he or she believes and is saved. The other women of Sychar could not feel superior to the woman who met Jesus afterward, for they had sinned also; He taught that all had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

The lives of the disciples had also undergone a great change. For the first time in their lives, they lived and ate with Samaritans. The Bible does not tell us whether they enjoyed their two-day stay in Sychar, and, though they could not do a complete turn-around in their lifelong prejudices in just two days, for the rest of their lives they would remember that Jesus had shown them how a Christian should rid himself of racial and ethnic bias. Most importantly, the gospel of Christ is for all people everywhere; that instruction was indelibly engraved in their minds.

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)