THE SAMARITAN WOMAN

The scriptures in John 4:4-42 speaks of an encounter that our Lord had with a certain unnamed woman from Samaria, this was a woman who clearly had issues with keeping a husband since by the time she met Jesus at the well, she had had five of them clearly something was amiss in this woman's life that Jesus needed to go through Samaria for the specific purpose of meeting an "immoral woman". Keep in mind that Jesus was a Jew and Jews had no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus met the Samaritan woman at Mount Gerizim which the Samaritans believed was the original holy place of Israel while the Jews believed Jerusalem was the only place to worship God. Cuthah was the original place of the Samaritans and they were initially called Cutheans referring to the ancient city of Kutha, geographically located in what is today Iraq. The King of Assyria brought people back from Babylon, Cuthah and other regions to settle in Samaria. Samaria was in the region of the northern kingdom of Israel which had been conquered by the Assyrians and its people; the ten northern tribes of Israel driven out of their lands. the people who came to inhabit the Samaritan region were largely Gentiles who came with pagan customs and got punished for it see 2 Kings 17:24-41 for the Samaritans worshiped God and other gods. Both the Jewish and Samaritans religious leaders taught that it was wrong to have any contact with the opposite group and neither was to enter each others territory but Jesus went against the Jewish teaching and went to Samaria which is in line with the parable in Luke 15 where the good shepherd goes to the wilderness to find the lost sheep and bring it home which is what Jesus did in the case of the Samaritan woman and her fellow Samaritans for they did not know God and didn't know how to worship Him in spirit and truth. After the Christ had ministered to the lost Samaritans, they concluded that Jesus was indeed the savior of the whole world for the scriptures so declare in John 4:32 that His food is to bring salvation to all both Jew and Samaritan, that is the food of Jesus and just like we humans eat to our fill, even so the Savior of the world will not rest until he has saved everyone He came to die for because that is the food He came to eat. Some have believed that Christ will not save everyone but will fry sinners in hell forever and this is indeed what is taught in most churches today, but this is not so, just like the Samaritan woman and her fellow Samaritans were lost in their hell and darkness, the light of God's only begotten Son came and illuminated them and this is what is going to happen to all of creation including those whom we think are nonredeemable. this is the hope of the world for without this hope, then everything we do is in vain for what is the point of spending eternity in the fundamentalist's heaven if billions upon billions of people will be fried forever in hell? this is not the food that the Body of Christ should eat but rather our food is to seek out the lost and save them because this is the will of our Master and let us not be timid to break boundaries and cultural as well as religious prejudices in seeking out the lost for Jesus Himself did not care about Jewish and Samaritan cultural and religious sentiments against one another but went in and talked to a woman who most men both in those days and even today would not want to be seen with in public. God loves everyone and that's why He commanded us to love our neighbors including our enemies for there is no way we can save people we don't love and when we love, then we show the face of Jesus to this lost and dying world for Love never fails. stay blessed.