Frameworks:
John's Gospel, chapter 4
(The
objective of these ‘Frameworks' is to provide an easy-to-read
layout of the text in order then to use these individual verses
for verse-by-verse study or meditation. To focus each
verse we have also added in italic a description of what is happening)
CHAPTER
4
v.1-26
Jesus Talks with a Samaritan Woman
v.27-38
The Disciples rejoin Jesus
v.39-42
Many Samaritans Believe
v.43-54
Jesus Heals an Official's Son
v.1-26
Jesus Talks with a Samaritan Woman
v.1-6
Arrival in Samaria
v.1,2
(Jesus hears of the Pharisees)
Now Jesus learned that the
Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples
than John— although in fact
it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.
v.
3 (so he leaves Judea and returns
to Galilee) So he left Judea
and went back once more to Galilee.
v.
4 (this required going through
Samaria) Now he had to go through
Samaria.
v.
5 (he came near Sychar) So
he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground
Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
v.
6 (he stopped at a well) Jacob's
well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat
down by the well. It was about noon.
v.7-15
Jesus talks to the woman about living water
v.
7 (when a Samaritan women comes
he asks for water) When a Samaritan
woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will
you give me a drink?”
v.
8 (the disciples had gone to town
for food) (His disciples had
gone into the town to buy food.)
v.
9 (the woman points out he's a
Jew) T he
Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan
woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate
with Samaritans.)
v.
10 (he speaks about living water)
Jesus answered her, “If
you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink,
you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
v.
11 (she questions him) “Sir,”
the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is
deep. Where can you get this living water?
v.
12 (she speaks of their ancestry)
Are you greater than our father Jacob,
who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his
sons and his livestock?”
v.
13,14 (Jesus speaks of living water
he can provide) Jesus answered,
“Everyone who drinks this
water will be thirsty again, but
whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed,
the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling
up to eternal life.”
v.
15 (she asks for this water)
The woman said to him, “Sir, give
me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming
here to draw water.”
(Note:
if she is to receive from him she needs to face herself)
v.16-19
Jesus confronts her lifestyle
v.
16 (he speaks about her husband)
He told her, “Go,
call your husband and come back.”
v.
17 (she confesses she has no husband)
“I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are
right when you say you have no husband.
v.
18 (Jesus speaks [word of knowledge]
about her true situation) The
fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have
is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
v.
19 (she recognises revelation)
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see
that you are a prophet.
v.20-26
They talk about worship & the Messiah
v.
20 (she hedges the argument to
worship) Our ancestors worshiped
on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must
worship is in Jerusalem.”
v.
21 (Jesus speaks about her future
openness to God) “Woman,”
Jesus replied, “believe me,
a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this
mountain nor in Jerusalem.
v.
22 (he prods about their history)
You Samaritans worship what you do
not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the
Jews.
v.
23 (he speaks of the present, a
new worship) Yet a time is coming
and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father
in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers
the Father seeks.
v.
24 (it's all about spirit)
God is spirit, and his worshipers
must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
v.
25 (she tentatively wonders about
the Messiah) The woman said,
“I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes,
he will explain everything to us.”
v.
26 (he acknowledges that is he)
Then Jesus declared, “I,
the one speaking to you—I am he.”
v.27-38
The Disciples rejoin Jesus
v.
27 (the disciples return)
Just then his disciples returned
and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one
asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
v.
28,29 (he witnesses back in the
town) Then, leaving her water
jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come,
see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the
Messiah?”
v.
30 (so townspeople come to see)
They came out of the town and made
their way toward him.
v.
31 (the disciples are concerned
for him) Meanwhile his disciples
urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
v.
32 (he says he has food) But
he said to them, “I have food
to eat that you know nothing about.
v.
33 (they wonder) Then
his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought
him food?”
v.
34 (his food is doing his Father's
will) “My food,”
said Jesus, “is to do the
will of him who sent me and to finish his work.
v.
35 (he says harvest time is there)
Don't you have a saying, ‘It's still
four months until harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look
at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.
v.
36 (it's time for it all to come
together to bring salvation) Even
now the one who reaps draws a wage
and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the
reaper may be glad together.
v.
37 (usually it takes two roles)
Thus the saying ‘One sows and another
reaps' is true.
v.
38 (their role is to be harvesters)
I sent you to reap what you have
not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped
the benefits of their labour.”
v.39-42
Many Samaritans Believe
v.
39 (many Samaritan believed)
Many of the Samaritans from that
town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, “He told
me everything I ever did.”
v.
40 (he stayed two days there)
So when the Samaritans came to him,
they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.
v.
41 (many more believed) And
because of his words many more became believers.
v.
42 (hearing for themselves they
believed) 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 Saviour
of the world.”
v.43-54
Jesus Heals an Official's Son
v.
43 (he then left for Galilee )
After the two days he left for Galilee.
v.
44 (yet implies he is ore believed
in an alien culture) (Now Jesus
himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honour in his own
country.)
v.
45 (in Galilee he is welcome because
of what he had done in Jerusalem) When
he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen
all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, for
they also had been there.
v.
46 (he again visited Cana where
there is a need) Once more he
visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine.
And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum.
v.
47 (the man begs Jesus for help)
When this man heard that Jesus had
arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to
come and heal his son, who was close to death.
v.
48 (Jesus implied the man struggled
because he had not been in Jerusalem) “Unless
you people see signs and wonders,”
Jesus told him, “you will
never believe.”
v.
49 (the man persists) The
royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”
v.
50 (Jesus said it was done. The
man believed) “Go,”
Jesus replied, “your son will
live.” The man took Jesus
at his word and departed.
v.
51 (his servants came and told
him his son was healed) While
he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that
his boy was living.
v.
52 (he enquired when it had happened
) When he inquired as to the time when his son got better,
they said to him, “Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever
left him.”
v.
53 (he realises it was when Jesus
declared it) Then the father
realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said
to him, “Your son will live.”
So he and his whole household
believed.
v.
54 (the second ‘sign') This
was the second sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea to
Galilee.