8. John 4 - A Well in a Foreign Land Rethinking Scripture

In John chapter 4, Jesus has a meeting with a woman at a well. What kind of person was this woman? We’ve been lead to believe she was a social outcast, possibly a prostitute, someone with an immoral past, who was shunned by her own community. You might have come to see her as a misfit. But from where do these conclusions come? There are two details from this story that have been taken out of their first-century context, we’ve come to some modern-day conclusions about what they mean. In turn, we’ve painted a Picasso of a portrait that would have been unrecognizable to John’s first-century audience. You may feel you have a deep-seated understanding of this Samaritan… but it’s time to rethink what we thought we already knew about the woman at the well.