Her Ignorance ------------- It is inferred that the woman complied immediately with the thirsty Man’s request for a drink of refreshing water, even though she could see by His features and dress that He belonged to the nation who hated her people. As she drew water from the well she asked Him, “How is it that thou, being a Jew, asketh drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?” Little did she realize that in her willingness to give the Jew a drink she was fulfilling the Christian law toward Him, “If he thirst—even if he is thine enemy—give him drink,” and that cup of water she gave Him did not lose its reward (Matthew 10:42). Jesus answered the woman’s question by bringing home to her mind her ignorance of the greatness of the One sitting at the well. If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. What the Samaritan woman was so ignorant of was the fact that she had been coming daily to a deep well of water that had been God’s gift of refreshment to man and beast since Jacob’s time, yet there was a deeper well of spiritual truth so necessary for man’s hidden needs, of which she was unconscious. She was a traveler in the journey of life, travel-stained by her sins, but had not discovered as yet the fountain opened for uncleanness. Instead of Christ begging her for a refreshing draught of water, she should have been beseeching Him for the unfailing supply of spiritual water from the eternal well. From her ungracious manner and slur at Christ’s people, she answered His comment in a tone of respect. There was something about His voice and manner that gripped her heart, and while she did not understand His message, she was conscious of its latent force, and felt that this traveler was no ordinary man. He seemed to speak with authority, and so passes in her address to Him from, “Thou, being a Jew”—the last word uttered in the tone of contempt—to the reverential, “Sir,” Having had five husbands she was not easily worsted in conversation and wanted to know where was the better well than Jacob’s from which the “living water” could be secured, and her ignorance begins to vanish as she asks Him, “Art thou greater than Jacob, our ancestor?”
Posted on: Tue, 27 Aug 2013 20:59:43 +0000
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