Day 16 | I That Speak
October 18, 2015 - WEEK THREE
Angelica Kauffmann, Christ and the Samaritan Woman at the Well, [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
DAILY READING
CONSIDER AS YOU READ
- What can we learn from the fact that Christ asked the Woman at the Well to do something for him before he began to unfold his message to her?
- Does Christ know you the way he does this woman?
- Has Christ revealed himself to you (“I that speak unto thee am he”)? In what way?
SUPPLEMENTAL READING
Although it was often longer and inconvenient to do so, Jews traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem would often skirt the areas around Shechem (Sychar in the New Testament) in order to avoid the Samaritan population centers…. The reason for this lack of contact between the two people results from the Jewish view that Samaritans were ritually impure…. The Jewish attitude toward the Samaritans may also be reflected in a regulation enacted in A.D. 65 that declared all Samaritan women unclean and, consequently, any food or drink likewise ritually impure….
Jesus, who had himself asserted that he had been sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, was rejected by fellow Israelites but accepted by the despised Samaritans as Lord. Conversely, the disciples, whose great commission would be to go into all the world (see Matt. 28:19–20), can scarcely understand, but dare not question, Jesus’ speaking to the Samaritan woman. The rejection of Jesus by his own townspeople in Luke 4 may serve as a veiled foreboding of his later rejection, and crucifixion, by the Jews. On the other hand, Christ’s success among the Samaritans foreshadows the situation of the early church, where the message of Jesus’ Messiahship was spread among all the nations. Christ’s famous paradox, “the last shall be first, and the first last” (Matt. 20:16), finds vivid illustration in these chapters (Robert L. Millet, Kent P. Jackson, Studies in Scripture, Vol. 5: The Gospels, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1986, 206–208).
ADDITIONAL MEDIA
Jesus Teaches a Samaritan Woman
FOR YOUNGER DISCIPLES
QUESTIONS FOR YOUNGER DISCIPLES
- Why was the woman surprised that Jesus would speak to her?
- What kind of water did Jesus offer the woman?
QUESTIONS FOR YOUNGER DISCIPLES
- Did the father have faith that Jesus could heal his son?
- Have you had a priesthood blessing to heal you?