Anchor My Faith

Introduction to Gev030

Scripture: John 4:27-42

In our journey along the gospel path, we come to another milestone or section in our writing. In our previous segment, which was gev029, we looked at the conversation between the Samaritan Woman and Jesus. The last section ended with the disciples returning and the woman going back to Samaria with a new message for the people there. This section is a continuation of the story started in the previous section and is found only in the gospel of John, covering John 4:27 – 42.

The ESV translation presents the narrative in three paragraphs: John 4:27 – 30, John 4:31 – 38, and John 4:39 – 42. John 4:27 – 30, describes the woman going to the town to tell of her encounter with Jesus at the well. She describes him as a very unusual person that she thinks might be the Messiah, the Christ. Based on this information from her they decided to go see Jesus and hear for themselves.

The next paragraph, defined by John 4:31 – 38, describes the conversation Jesus had with the disciples when they returned before the city people arrived. Jesus talks about food to eat that they don’t know about. He connects this food with doing his will. Jesus also talks about sowing seeds from which a harvest will be obtained. This conversation with the disciples was to help them understand the nature of the conversation with the woman and the teaching that will take place when the woman returns with the people of the town where she lives.

The third paragraph, defined by John 4:39 – 42, describes what happens when the city people arrive and hear what Jesus has to say to them. What they heard prompted them to ask Jesus to stay longer and share more with them. As he does there is a surprising spiritual awakening in the city, which makes a connection back to the seed sowing and the harvest of paragraph 2.

In future lessons we will look closely at these three paragraphs to understand them and see how they are connected to each other.

Prayer

Father, as I thought about what to write at this point, I noticed that on Wednesday, July 1, 2015, we were at the same place when we were studying the gospel of John. At that time, we were at lesson h073. In our harmonization study we are at lesson h146, which is twice as many lessons. The additional lessons primarily came from content found in Matthew, Mark and Luke that resulted from the harmonization process.