SUMMARY
While traveling through Samaria, JesusJesus is the Messiah whose life, death, and resurrection are God's saving act for humanity. 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... woman beside Jacob’s well and tells her about living water. This is the longest conversation that Jesus has with anyone in the Gospels. The woman has come to the well to fetch water for her householdA household is a living unit comprised of all the persons who live in one house. A household would embrace all the members of a family, including servants and slaves. In the book of Acts, stories are told of various persons and their households, like... but Jesus will offer her living water toward eternal life. 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 gives eternal life (John 4:14). The living water brings people into relationship with God and with Jesus. The woman at the well will then share this living water with her townspeople by inviting them to “come and see.”