John 4:15-20 - Homiletics

A serious turn to the conversation.

I. THE ARRESTED ATTITUDE OF THE SAMARITAN WOMAN . "Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither pass this way to draw." She is still ignorant of the meaning of his words, but she begins to have a dim apprehension of something behind them profoundly touching her life. We cannot otherwise understand the next phase of the conversation.

II. OUR LORD LIFTS THE VEIL FROM HER PAST LIFE , AND THUS REVEALS HIMSELF AS A PROPHET , AND MORE THAN A PROPHET . "Go, call thy husband."

1 . He desires to link with her in the coming blessing the man whose life was then unworthily linked with her own.

2 . Mark the sincerity of her answer. "I have no husband." It signifies that she was not wholly depraved, or that her heart had already begun to respond to the searching ordeal of Christ. There is sadness in the confession.

3 . The answer of Jesus lays bare the secrets of her past life. "Thou hast well said, I have no husband: for thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband."

(a) private sins are to be rebuked privately;

(b) without passion or severity;

(c) and with a particular application of the Word to the conscience of the transgressor.

III. THE SINGULAR TURN WHICH THE WOMAN GIVES TO THE CONVERSATION . "Sir, I perceive that thou art a Prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship."

1 . The words may have been spoken to parry the stroke at her conscience, though she implicitly confesses her sin, and does not attempt to deny or excuse it.

2 . Yet her discovery of a prophet, who knows the depths of her soul, suggests the religious question that seems to have already occupied her mind (verse 25), and especially the question respecting the true worship of the Lord.

3 . She submits to our Lord the antagonism between Samaritan tradition and Jewish practice.