The story of Jesus’ encounter with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well is told in John 4:4-42 to show that everyone has great value in God’s eyes.
That’s according to the Revs. James J. Bolton and Albert Flores, who say the story is astonishing in the context of the times because Jews were not supposed to associate with Samaritans or even travel through Samaria.
“The main significance is that no one is better than anyone else,” said the Rev. Bolton, pastor of St. James Missionary Baptist Church. “In Jesus’ eyesight, in his perspective, everyone can be loved.
“He saw value in the woman even though she was considered a prostitute.”
Noting that Jesus had told the woman that she had had five husbands and she wasn’t married to the man she was living with, Bolton said the encounter “is one of his greatest acts of grace.”
He said there are only about 400 Samaritans left and they are still where they lived in Biblical times with the Mediterranean Sea on the west, the Jordan River on the east, Galilee on the north and Judea on the south.
“They did a lot of inbreeding because they were not supposed to go outside their race and when you have inbreeding you get diseases and die young,” Bolton said.
“The woman said the Samaritans were supposed to worship on Mount Ephraim, but Jesus said worship starts in the heart. We believe in what is known as the Apostolic Commission with Jesus sending someone to tell others about him.
“A lot of people say women aren’t supposed to spread the Gospel, but here we have an instance where Jesus sends the woman into town and she brings a lot of people back with her after saying, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?’”
The Rev. Flores, pastor of Victory Life Church, said the woman “felt like she was blessed for Jesus to ask her for water.
“She wondered how he could be asking her for something when he was a Jew and she was a Gentile,” he said. “It’s a blessing when Jesus asks us to respond to him because he wants to give us salvation and he wants us to give him a sign of worship from the heart.
“I feel blessed for people to ask me to help them out because I feel like a person who is important at that time.”
Flores said the woman “was not valued, but Jesus saw something in her the same way he sees us.
“We should give Jesus our best because he gives us his best. He was just asking for a little bit of water and now he has given us his life,” he said.
