SUMMARY
While traveling through Samaria, Jesus encounters a woman at a well and tells her that he can provide a “living water” that will extinguish all thirst.
ANALYSIS
Jesus meets a SamaritanSamaritans were a people who mostly lived between Galilee and Judea and were avoided or shunned by mainstream Judaism. Jesus' message, however, was so inclusive that he often spoke favorably of Samaritans as he did with the woman at the well (John 4) and in... More woman beside a well and tells her about living water. The expression living water can have different meanings. In most contexts, living water simply meant flowing water, like the water in a spring or stream. Ordinary living water would quench bodily thirst and thereby enable people to live in the ordinary physical sense. Jesus, however, uses living water as a metaphor for the Spirit that meets people’s thirst for life in relationship with God (John 7:37-39). Jesus says that the spiritual water that he provides brings people eternal life (John 4:14). The living water or Spirit does this by bringing people to faith, since faith is the way people relate rightly to God. In faith, people already experience life in relationship with the eternal God. This life of faith also has a future through the promise of resurrection to everlasting life.
