THE KING’S BUSINESS
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city. It was natural that they should go in town to purchase provisions be fore making their arrangements for their night’s rest. If the incident oc curred in summer, there would be time for the conversation and the re turn to the city. Taking all these facts together, the probability seems to be that the incident here recorded occurred at 6 o’clock in the evening. Vs. 7, 8. “There cometh a woman of Samaria to drazu water; Jesus saith unto her , Give me to drink. For His disciples were gone azvay unto (rather, into) the city to buy meat (rather, foods).” Jesus’ ministry touched all classes: in the third chapter it was a Jew, in this a Samaritan; in that a man, in this a woman; in that a person of wealth, in this a poor person ( for now to draw water was no longer as in pat riarchal times the work of women of station); in that a teacher of Israel, in this a woman of notoriously bad character. But they both needed Jesus, and both needed the Holy Spirit (cf. ch. 3:3-5; 4:14). There is no essential difference among men even when external differences are very wide (Rom. 3:22, 23). In some re spects the bad woman had the advan tage of the good man. She came by day, he came by night; she confessed Christ at once, be was a secret dis ciple for years.. She brought a whole city to Christ, he brought—well, who knows whom he did bring ? The com ing of this abandoned woman explains why Jesus “must needs go through Samaria.” The question has been raised why this woman should come to this well in preference to the springs and streams which abounded in the neighborhood. Some have suggested it was her reverence for its sacred as sociations, but it is more probable it was because she had to pass it on her way home from work. If this is the true explanation, this again would in
dicate it was evening and not noon. Jesus said to her, “Give me to drink,” first of all because He was thirsty, and His disciples having gone away into the city they could not draw for Him, and they, furthermore, had presumably taken with them the means of drawing water, which would be naturally a part of the equipment of a traveling party. But there was a deeper reason why Jesus said, “Give me to drink.” He knew of a better water than that in Jacob’s well and wished to tell the woman of it ana began the conversation in this natural way in order to lead up to the matter which was uppermost in His heart. While He did have physical, He had a deeper thirst, a thirst for the salva tion of that woman. Weary and hun gry and thirsty as He was, as He saw this poor outcast coming down the road, all other hunger was forgotten in the hunger to do the will of Him that sent Him (v. 34), and all other thirst was forgotten in the thirst for perishing souls. His first thought was, “How can I reach and save this wo man ?” Is that always our first thought when we see a perishing soul approaching ? The woman came for a pitcher of water: she got a whole well full. That trip to the well was the turning point of her life and eternal destiny; because upon it she met Jesus. Our Lord’s manner of dealing with her is full of suggestion to the personal worker. He began with the matter that was up permost in the woman’s mind, but led by a very short route to the great ques tion. He asked a small favor of the woman that He might confer a great one upon her. He took the woman when she was alone and so she opened her heart to Him as she would not if there had been others present. The whole story is most natural and even Renan says, “The most of the circum stances of the narrative bear a strik ing stamp of truth.”
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