John 4

Saturday, February 16, 2013

John 4

So, when I realized that today was the Samaritan woman at the well, I just thought - man, what else am I gonna say about this one?  I feel like I've said everything it's possible (for me) to say about this story, and in multiple forms.

So I was a bit relieved when I realized that there was a second story in this chapter (John seems to do two a chapter) about the man who asked Jesus to come heal his son and who Jesus told his son would live.  When he walked home, he was met along the way and told that his son had started to recover at the very hour Jesus had said, and thus he came to believe.

But what really struck me is how much more space was given to his conversation with the woman than to this miracle.  And also the difference in how many it made believers of.  The Samaritan town, on no greater miracle than Jesus knowing the local gossip about one of the town's less welcome members, believed from listening to Jesus - the whole town.

Saving a boy's life, in contrast, won a single family.

I've written so much about how remarkable what Jesus did for this woman was, but I think that this is pivotal to evangelization.  Because one woman changed and made anew brought an entire town to God, while a wonder and miracle of God proved something only to those who had actually witnessed it.  Perhaps only the man who had asked Jesus himself.

John is writing a different kind of gospel than the others, more interested in the teachings than the works, but I think this is so significant.  By changing hearts, we change more people than if God came swooping in to prove Himself all the time.