Jesus Avoids Competition
John 4:1-4 records the aftermath of the conversation about baptisms. Whether the news of what John the Baptist said at the end of the last chapter reached Jesus or whether knowledge was provided by the Spirit, Jesus was made aware that the Pharisees were trying to rank His work against John's work by the number of baptisms performed.
It reminds me somewhat of the comparisons of congregation sizes in various churches or membership comparisons among Christian denominations. Hey - did you see denomination X dropped 5 million last year and denomination Y gained 5 million! How great Y must be! This overlooks the fact that there is just one heaven and one hell. The objective is to be welcomed into heaven and avoid hell. There isn't a Catholic heaven and a Protestant heaven. There's just one! And you make it there (or don't make it there) based on your relationship with God through the blood of Christ. It doesn't matter what denomination you're in. That one true answer is fact across all of them. Satan and his forces, along with mankind have been responsible for many of the splits that have occurred over the years. If we all put God first, some of the fractures might even heal. But we'd all have to put Him first - not just the leaders. Pride is something that needs crucified as well. And the work of the Holy Spirit is ultimately responsible for any growth Christ's church sees. It isn't words like this. It isn't fantastic sermons from missionaries or dynamic preachers. It's all due to God.
I do believe that some denominations are better at teaching, some are better at helping you to live a Christian life that is pleasing to God, some are more focused on works, some are better at evangelism, some have services with more energy and passion, and some have services that are more traditional. Sadly, some seem more beset with problems and sin as well, partly due to size and partly due to policy, but ultimately boiling down to individual human choices that weren't God's choice. At the end of your life, the only thing that is going to matter is whether Jesus and you had a personal relationship. Nothing else is significant. And we'll have God in control of heaven where we'll all have to respect each other and get along. Won't that be awesome?
At any rate, Jesus chose to stop all comparisons between factions. He was happy as long as both parties (His disciples and John the Baptist in this case) were doing the work of God and advancing His kingdom. Nothing else was significant to Christ. So he left the area, even though He wasn't baptizing anyone Himself. Not a bad approach for today either.
Jacob's Well
So the Spirit directed Jesus to go to Samaria. The account of that trip is recorded in John 4:5-29. This is a fairly long passage, so let's see why so many verses were dedicated to it.
Jesus and His disciples reached the town of Sychar. There is a mound near Jacob's well which might be the remains of the town, but the town itself has passed into history. The disciples went into the town to buy supplies and Jesus, being tired from the journey, sat down at Jacob's well. A woman came out to draw water as it was about noon, and He tells her to give Him a drink.
The woman was surprised at this as the people of Samaria and the Jews had frosty relations. They had economic ties but were hardly social. Jesus replied with a spiritual answer, but she interpreted it as a physical answer. He proclaimed that if the woman knew who was talking to her, she'd be asking for living water from Him rather than being surprised He was asking physical water from her.
The woman immediately notes that the well is deep (some sources say about 105 feet and 15 feet in diameter) so without something to draw with, Jesus would be out of luck in supplying water. So she challenged Him as to how He could possibly supply living water and asks if He is greater than those who dug the well in the first place, long, long ago.
Jesus then explains that His living water was such that the person who drunk from it would never be thirsty again, unlike those who drank the well water. Again, not really grasping the spiritual, she asks Jesus for that water so that she wouldn't thirst and wouldn't have to come a draw water from the well, which was an arduous and repetitive task she had to perform.
Jesus decides to redirect her focus by asking her to go and bring her husband with her again to the well. She was probably ashamed inside about the answer she had to give, but declared that she had no husband. Jesus says she is correct, demonstrating the word of knowledge gift of the Holy Spirit, and tells her that she has had five husbands and the person she is now with wasn't someone to whom she was married. I'm not sure how shocked she was that a Jewish man who couldn't possibly have known anything about her who had just come to the town would know this about her. But I have to give her credit, in that she had an immediate comeback to deflect that course of conversation away from herself. People are amazingly good at that. She says that she senses He is a prophet, and wants to know where they should worship, as that was another issue between her people and the Jews. She wanted to know if it was right to worship where they were or if it was only right to conduct religious services in Jerusalem as the Jews believed.
Jesus clarifies that true worship of God must come from the heart in Spirit and truth. He prophesies that the time would soon come when there would be no formal worship. He rightly says that salvation is from the Jews, and up to the time of His coming, the true worship was done in Jerusalem. But the time would come when everyone would know that old things were passed away, and worship would change. Certainly, after Christ's sacrifice on the cross, the temple veil would be rent and the Holy of Holies would be opened up through the power of Christ's death, blood, and resurrection. Then, not many years later, the temple itself would be destroyed, and true Jewish worship and sacrifice would stop and not pick back up again (at least as of this writing).
The woman recognizes, through Jesus' description of her life and His words of religion that Jesus was at least a rabbi, and also knew of both the scriptures talking about the Messiah who would come, and that the time of His coming was upon them. Christ confirms that He is indeed the Christ. How wonderful and amazing that He could form a connection with this woman in just a few minutes, and could lead her to the correct understanding that He was the Messiah, which He wasn't freely broadcasting among His own people.
Meat of Jesus
In John 4:30-42, the disciples show back up and are surprised to see Jesus talking with a woman, and religious leaders among the Jews didn't normally talk to women, including close relations. The woman left her water pat and went back to Sychar, and testified about all He had told her. She says that Christ told her all about her life. How extensive the communication was, compared to what is recorded in scripture, isn't known. What is known is that her testimony drew the people back out from the city to the well.
Jesus gives another key response when the disciples ask Him if he wants any meat that they had just returned with, believing He should be hungry. When He says He has meat to eat that they don't know about, they wonder who has given Him food, and probably wonder why they had to make the trip into town and back with food if there was a source near at hand.
Christ's reply is that He is sustained by doing the will of the Father, and to finish all of His assigned work. Just as Christ had work to do, He challenged His disciples to God's work, and He gave each of us an assignment to do some portion of God's work. Even at that point, He was telling His disciples to not put off His work. Don't say you have lots of time till the harvest. Recognize that the harvest is now. The harvest fields of souls is always white and ready for harvest. Saving souls gives eternal rewards in heaven. I don't think Christ was speaking of riches or glory. I think He was referring to an eternity of people who would interact with you as the one who opened heaven's doors to them by your witness, both words and life.
He also made it clear that there are times when the work of saving someone's soul is split among many people. Some sow the seed, others tend the ground, and others reap the harvest. Some will have an easy job, leading people to salvation where they haven't had to do much work. But regardless of who does what, the harvest is always at hand. All around you are people who will die shortly. Maybe it won't be today, or this week, or this month even. But it is appointed to everyone to die at some point. And we rarely choose the time of dying. Of course, the rapture will also come at some unforeseen time, at which point everyone who didn't choose Christ will have a rude awakening.
After this discourse, the people from the city had made it back out to the well, and after listening to her testimony and perhaps hearing some of the discourse with the disciples, they invited Jesus to stay with them for a while. He stayed for two days, and many inhabitants of Sychar believed because of Jesus teaching. Some wouldn't believe just the word of the woman, but were convinced by further teaching and events. For some, just the woman's testimony was probably sufficient. Regardless of the method, people were saved who wouldn't have known the truth if Jesus hadn't stopped at the well and if the woman had kept the words with Jesus to herself. Never doubt the effect of your testimony.
The Nobleman's Son
After Jesus returned to Cana where He had performed the water to wine miracle, a nobleman came to Jesus and asked Jesus to heal his child as the child was near death. His story is recorded in John 4:43-54. Jesus says that the man wouldn't believe without signs and miracles. The man pleads again with Jesus for his son's life, and Jesus tells him to go on his way because his son lives. As he is going, servants met him and told him his son was alive and when they matched up the times, the nobleman realized that it was at the time that Christ had told him that his son lived, and he then believed along with his whole house.
We might be tempted to complain about Christ and what He said to the nobleman about the nobleman not believing in Christ just because of some water to wine thing, but needing a personal miracle or sign or wonder that was specific to them that they could be assured of having control of all aspects of to believe. This is the same attitude that is present in so many of our enlightened population today. They don't want to believe on the basis of a 2,000 year old book, and even if they see a miracle or person healed, the refuse to believe on the grounds that it isn't "scientifically reproducible". God is still in the business of doing whatever He feels is appropriate to further the reach of the church and bring more people to know Him and have salvation through the blood of Jesus. But at the same time, He is sovereign. He doesn't have to perform on demand for anyone.
I wish there were many more Paul's and Peter's and other disciples of the early church doing God's work today without any thought of what problems could come their way and giving God the full glory for everything good that happened and taking the blame for every failure. If there are, they certainly aren't getting the press that they should.
But even if every church had its own Paul, that still wouldn't make God perform on demand. Christ was successful and the early church was successful, because they listened to what God wanted them to do, and then they did those things. They followed God rather than trying to get God to follow them. The church today would be far more successful and have a lot more respect among the people if we were all more like Christ, following God instead of trying to get God to bless the things that we want to do for our own satisfaction and glory.