Reading up on the women at the well and the Samaritans, you have to wonder about the Israelites… the Jews.
In John 4:43, Jesus just spent a few days with the Samaritans and then headed back to Galilee. A man (the bible says he was a government official) travelled about 30km to get Jesus to come and heal his son. Which Jesus did, but long distance.
Which got me thinking about how the two nations responded to Jesus and our modern day Christianity. The one group was seeing miracle after miracle and the other just saw Jesus and what he taught. Neither is better or worse, but it feels there is a distinction between what we can get from God (prosperity, miracles, provision, spiritual gifts, etc) and the relationship with God.
Whether it is historically accurate that the lady from the well was Photina from history doesn’t matter much. Someone from that time was an on-fire evangelist that was converting Samaria to the point that Nero himself took note AND took action to stop them. But apart from Jesus prophesying about the woman, my bible doesn’t recall any miracles there? Whereas, in the very next section, Jesus comments about the Jewish nation (verse 48) “…you never believe unless you see signs and wonders…”
But I suppose the believing is the thing… whether your faith is built up because of a true word spoken to your heart, or because of a sign or miracle… your faith is still built up.
The Samaritans does have a beautiful testimony though.
“… Then the Samaritans said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you told us, but now we’ve heard him ourselves and are convinced that he really is the true Savior of the world!”
(John 4:42)
No matter how you start in your journey, whether by miracle or testimony, meeting Christ and spending time with God is how we build the relationship.
