Hello and welcome to the Women’s Weekly Bible Challenge! I’m Lisa Ann Spencer.
Thank you for joining me once again. Today is Part 7 of When Jesus Speaks to
Women, and we will begin with the gospel of John.
Grab your Bible, and a 📔notebook or Journal for writing down
scripture references.
JOHN
CONTEXT: This is the third day since John the Baptist
declared that Jesus is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world (See
1:29).
There is much symbolism happening in this passage, as it pertains
to Jesus being made manifest to the nation of Israel as the sacrificial Lamb of God. As I was studying this passage, I did word
searches for “wine” combined with “wedding” or “marriage”. I did not discover any direct connection; however, I did find three related scriptures.
Matthew 26:29 and Luke 22:18 both record Jesus saying that
he will not drink of the fruit of the vine, until His Father’s kingdom.
Revelation 19:9 speaks of the marriage supper of the Lamb.
Putting these together helps us connect this first wedding to the final wedding in Revelation.
What was missing from this first wedding was the 'blood of grapes', which is a scriptural term found in Genesis 49:11
and Deuteronomy 32:14 Both are prophetic pictures of the LORD Jesus Christ and
His people Israel.
John 2:3 says they ‘wanted’ wine. Wanted, in the Bible, means “lacked”. They lacked wine. This generates a few
questions:
Q: Why did they lack
wine? Did they have wine and then run out?
Or was there no wine to begin with?
📔NOTE: We will consider ‘wine’ in the scripture below, but please remember that this strange scenario is meant to draw our attention to
Jesus, not to Mary!
Mary said to Jesus, “They have no wine”.
JESUS SPEAKS TO HIS MOTHER
John 2:4 Jesus saith
unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.
Q: What hour is Jesus referring to?
“Mine hour” is only found
referenced here, but in John 12:27
Jesus says, Now is my soul troubled; and
what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause
came I unto this hour.
According to John 12:27, Jesus’s hour is the hour of His
death on the cross where He will bear the sins of the world and shed His blood as the sacrificial Lamb of God to pay the sin debt of the world.
📔NOTE: Wine in the scripture represents blood, and it also
represents gladness. I suggest you do a
word study of the word ‘wine’ combined with the word ‘glad’, ‘merry’ and
‘cheerful’.
Wine in this passage is showing us two things that scripture
presents about Jesus.
First, the Messiah must suffer by shedding His blood, and afterwards there would be gladness. The theme of suffering and glory is found throughout scripture.
I believe the lack of wine revealed Jesus’s thoughts regarding the fulfillment of the suffering for which He had come into the world.
Three days prior, John the Baptist had announced to Israel, “Behold
the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world”! (1:29)
In reference to the blood of Jesus, in John chapter 6, Jesus
purposefully offends the Jews who do not believe on Him.
Click here to Read John 6:53-66
It is important to note verse 63, It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the
words that I speak unto you they are spirit, and they are life.
Jesus clarified that He did not mean for people to literally
eat His flesh and drink His blood, but to believe on Him!
We should understand that Jesus had His heart and mind set
on what God had sent Him to do.
John 2:5 His mother
saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.
📔NOTE: This is the only teaching you should ever accept from Mary
as biblical truth.
In John 2:11, we see the intent of this miracle, which takes place three days after Jesus is declared to be “the Lamb of God that will take away the sins of the world”. It is to draw attention to Him and His ministry on Earth of suffering and the glory that should follow.
John 2:11 This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.
The gospel of John is the only gospel that records Jesus
speaking to His mother. This is the
first of two such occurrences. We will
get to the other occurrence in next week’s lesson, but for now let’s move on
the John chapter 4.
JESUS SPEAKS TO THE WOMAN AT THE WELL
This is a complex passage which we cannot possibly cover in
one lesson. I want us to read through the introductory verses first and then come back and lay down some historical data; then we’ll
get as far as we can with the time we have and pick it back up in next week’s
lesson.
Click here to Read John 4:1-4.
V. 1-4 Up to this point since John the Baptist had declared Jesus to be the Lamb of God, Jesus and his disciples were in Judea, which is the southern part of Israel that includes Jerusalem. He left Judea to go to Galilee, which is the northern part of Israel that includes the Sea of Galilee; the town of Nazareth, where Jesus’s family was from (Mark 1:9); and Capernaum, where Jesus dwelt (Matthew 4:13). He must pass through central Israel, which is the region of Samaria. Samaria includes the capitol city, Samaria.
📔NOTE: Another tool that is very helpful in Bible
study is a Bible Atlas. Again, there are
several free online. I use www.bibleatlas.org, but I prefer to have an actual atlas that I can
hold in my hand. I purchased a simple,
Student Bible Atlas, and it has served me well.
V. 5 The
location is pinpointed: The city of
Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. This is the only occurrence of the name
“Sychar” in the Bible. Though there is no
specific mention of Jacob giving Joseph a well, we do know that Joseph was
carried captive to Egypt when he was seventeen years old (Genesis 37:2), and Joseph did not appear to own a well.
John 4:5 is referring to the inheritance that was given to
Joseph’s children, several hundred years later when Joshua led them into the
Promised Land. You can read about Joseph’s lot and the inheritance of Manasseh
and Ephraim in Joshua chapter 16. This inheritance is the region called Samaria.
In fact Joseph’s bones were brought out
of Egypt and buried in Shechem, in the parcel of ground that Jacob had
purchased hundreds of years earlier for an hundred pieces of silver. (Joshua 24:32 and Genesis 33:18-20)
NOTE: I am taking the time to lay down the historical background, because so often there is the
idea that Samaria is predominantly Gentile during Jesus’s earthly ministry, and
this is why the Jews would have nothing to do with them, but there is more to
the story if we study it carefully.
V. 6 Everyone
knows that the well belonged to Jacob.
Jacob is the son of Isaac, who is the son of Abraham. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel. Jacob’s twelve sons are the heads of the
twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob bought
this parcel of ground well-over a thousand years prior to this encounter. The words of your KJB are not wasted. This is an important detail.
What is amazing about this verse is that we read that Jesus, as a man, was wearied. He was fully God, and fully man; as God, he would never be weary (Isaiah40:28), yet as a man His flesh was weary.
The sixth hour is noon. I am sure you have already heard the teaching about this Samaritan woman coming alone to the well at the time when no other women would have been at the well, and the reason becomes apparent as we continue reading.
JESUS SPEAKS TO A WOMAN OF SAMARIA
John
4:7 There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give
me to drink.
V. 8 The
implication is that if His disciples had been with him, perhaps they would have
drawn water for Him, but since he is alone with this woman, He must speak to
her.
This is probably a good place to stop before we get into the
dialogue of this conversation. This is
the longest recorded conversation of Jesus speaking to a woman, and I would
like to take our time as we consider the meaning of this passage.
As a challenge read John chapter 4 again, and use your concordance to search the words or phrases:
- Living Water
- Everlasting Life
- Messias and Messiah
Also:
- Can you identify “this mountain” in northern Israel?
- Can you identify the origin of the name “Jews” as distinguished from the descendants of Jacob that live in northern Israel?
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