Sermon Tone Analysis

Scripture

Introduction

Introduction

It is important to remember the purpose of this book.

The gospel of John and the accounts found in them of Jesus performing signs, these are written so that we would believe that He is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing we would have life in his name.

Our text today is no exception.

We saw in the previous chapter a man named Nicodemus who came to Jesus by night.

We saw in the third chapter that Nicodemus was a man of the Pharisees.

About Pharisees

The Pharisees were a group of particularly observant and influential Jews who lived mainly in Judea.

The Pharisees were a group of particularly observant and influential Jews who lived mainly in Judea.The meaning of the title Pharisee has been difficult to define.

It may have meant “separate ones” in Hebrew, which would have referred to their observance of ritual purity laws.

Which would have separated them from others.

Or it could have meant “interpreters,” referring to their persistent study and teaching of biblical law.

The meaning of the title Pharisee may have meant “separate ones” in Hebrew, which would have referred to their observance of ritual purity laws.

Or it could have meant “interpreters,” referring to their persistent study and teaching of biblical law.

Nicodemus was a studied man and an influential man who knew the Scriptures.

But in our text today we see someone unlike Nicodemus.

This woman was a Samaritan who was not seeking Jesus and was socially despised and immoral.

Nicodemus was according to rejecting the testimony about Jesus.

But we will see what happens to someone who accepts the truth about who Jesus Christ is.

One who was socially despised and labeled as an outsider would be found by the One who was sent to save a people from their sin.

Jophn 3:11

And He would put this on display in our passage!

Outline

1.

The Savior (v.1-6)

2. The Sinner Saved (v.7-27)

3. The soul winner (v.28-42)

Sermon

1.

The Savior (v.1-6)

Read Verses 1-6

Verse 1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John

Verse 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples),

Verse 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.

The setting of our text has Jesus knowing that the Pharisees had heard about Him making and baptizing more disciples than John.

The concern here may have been over the Pharisees coming to him with accusations and possible arrest.

We know that in the beginning of His ministry in , when Jesus heard of John’s arrest, He withdrew to Galilee.

Which seems to be the same here in our text.

The distance from Judea to Galilee which Jesus traveled as noted our text today was about 70 miles.

Which would have been a journey of about 2 1/2 days.

Judea was south from Galilee.

And in between the two was the region of Samaria which in verse 4 we see that Jesus had to pass through in his journey to Galilee.

Verse 4 And he had to pass through Samaria.

About Samaritans

Samaritans were shunned by the Jews because they were a mixed race who came from the Assyrians who intermarried with the Jews.

Their origins stem from the captivity of the northern kingdom under Assyria in 721 BC.

Jews of the northern kingdom intermarried with Assyrians after the captivity and produced the half-Jewish, half-Gentile Samaritan people who we now know as the Samaritans.

Answer: A Samaritan in the Bible was a person from Samaria, a region north of Jerusalem.

In Jesus’ day, the Jewish people of Galilee and Judea shunned the Samaritans, viewing them as a mixed race who practiced an impure, half-pagan religion.

Their practices were considered impure and their faith was labeled as a pagan religion.

They are first mentioned in the Bible during the time of Nehemiah when the rebuilding of Jerusalem was taking place after the Babylonian captivity.

We see this in Ezra and in the book of Nehemiah.

(; ).

Both and a fifth-century BC Aramaic set of documents called the Elephantine Papyri point to a schism between the Jews and Samaritans during this Persian period.

The Samaritans held to the belief that they were the keepers of the Torah were themselves the true descendants of Israel.

Specifically from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh.

They had a unique copy of the Pentateuch (the first five books of Moses).

They believed that they alone practiced the purest form of the Mosaic religion.

established their primary worship site on Mount Gerizim.

They thought of the Jerusalem temple and the Levitical priesthood as illegitimate and so they established their primary place of worship at the site of Mount Gerizim.

They were avoided and seen as an impure people.

Jews of the northern kingdom intermarried with Assyrians after the captivity and produced the half-Jewish, half-Gentile Samaritan people who we now know as the Samaritans.

That is why in the Jews there sought to offend Jesus by calling Him a Samaritan.

Which was suggesting that he was a half breed only.

Accusing his mother of unfaithfulness.

This also brings to light Jesus’ use of the parable of the Good Samaritan which would have been extremely offensive.

In New Testament times, the Jews despised Samaritans and would have nothing to do with them.

The Samaritans were still living primarily around Mount Gerizim (), but also kept to their own villages (Matthews 10:5; ).

Scripture mentions encounters with Samaritans in towns bordering Samaria () and on roads between Jerusalem and Jericho ().

Jesus met with difficulty when ministering to people in Samaritan villages () and at one point told His disciples not to enter them ().

Nonetheless, Christ shared the good news with Samaritans, ministering to a Samaritan woman () and healing a Samaritan leper ().

The most recognized Samaritan in the Bible is the one in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan ().

A Jewish legal expert had put Jesus to the test, asking Him to explain the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself”; specifically, he asked Jesus to define the word neighbor.

That’s when Jesus told His parable of a man in need, portraying the Samaritan as the hero in the story.

In the lawyer’s eyes, the Samaritan was the least likely candidate to act lovingly and compassionately to his neighbor.

As intended, the story shocked Christ’s audience of prejudiced Jews.

The Lord showed that authentic love must transcend all human boundaries of race, religion, nationality, economic class, and educational status.

In , Jesus told His disciples that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, they would be His witnesses in Samaria.

In the prophecy was fulfilled, and Samaria became an early mission field for the spreading first-century church: “Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.

Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there.

When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said.

For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed.

So there was great joy in that city” ().

Several hundred Samaritans survive to this day in Israel and continue to practice their sect of Judaism.

The faith concentrates on five affirmations: there is one God, Yahweh; His chief mediator is Moses; the Torah is the vehicle of mediation; the central worship site is Mount Gerizim; and the Messiah will initiate a future Day of Vengeance and Recompense.

So Jesus traveled in a land considered full of unclean people.

Samaritans observe several holy days including Passover; the Feasts of Unleavened Bread, Yom Kippur, and Tabernacles; and the “80 days of solemn assembly.”

They also celebrate regular Sabbath services.

Their most solemn annual festival, Passover, is held on Mount Gerizim with animal sacrifices as prescribed in the book of Deuteronomy.

Read Verses 5-6

John

Verse 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

Verse 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well.

It was about the sixth hour.

4:5, 6 These verses refer back to Gen. 48:22 where Jacob bequeathed a section of land to Joseph which he had purchased from the “children of Hamor” (cf.

Gen. 33:19).

When the Jews returned from Egypt, they buried Joseph’s bones in that land at Shechem.

This area became the inheritance of Joseph’s descendants.

The precise location of “Jacob’s well” has been set by a firm tradition among Jews, Samaritans, Muslims, and Christians and lies today in the shadow of the crypt of an unfinished Orthodox church.

The term used here for “well” denotes a running spring, while in vv.

11, 12 John used another term for “well” that means “cistern” or “dug-out-well” indicating that the well was both dug out and fed by an underground spring.