A Lesson in Personal Evangelism — Part One

Jesus and the Woman of Samaria

¹Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and bbaptizing more disciples than John ²(although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), ³he left Judea and departed cagain for Galilee. ⁴dAnd he had to pass through Samaria. ⁵So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field ethat Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, fwearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.1

⁷A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, f“Give me a drink.” ⁸(For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) ⁹The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (gFor Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) ¹⁰Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you hliving water.” ¹¹The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? ¹²iAre you greater than our father Jacob? jHe gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” ¹³Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but kwhoever drinks of the water that I will give him lwill never be thirsty again.2 The water that I will give him will become min him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ¹⁵The woman said to him, “Sir, ngive me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

¹⁶Jesus said to her, “Go, ocall your husband, and come here.” ¹⁷The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; ¹⁸for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” ¹⁹The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that pyou are qa prophet. ²⁰rOur fathers worshiped on sthis mountain, but you say that tin Jerusalem is uthe place where people ought to worship.” ²¹Jesus said to her, v“Woman, believe me, wthe hour is coming when xneither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ²²yYou worship what you do not know; zwe worship what we know, for zsalvation is afrom the Jews. ²³But bthe hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father cin spirit and dtruth, for the Father eis seeking such people to worship him. ²⁴God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” ²⁵The woman said to him, “I know that fMessiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, ghe will tell us all things.” ²⁶Jesus said to her, h“I who speak to you am he.”

²⁷Just then ihis disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” ²⁸So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, ²⁹“Come, see a man jwho told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” ³⁰They went out of the town and were coming to him.

³¹Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, k“Rabbi, eat.” ³²But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” ³³So the disciples said to one another, l“Has anyone brought him something to eat?” ³⁴Jesus said to them, m“My food is nto do the will of him who sent me and oto accomplish his work. ³⁵Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that pthe fields are white for harvest. ³⁶Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that qsower and rreaper smay rejoice together. ³⁷For here the saying holds true, t‘One sows and another reaps.’ ³⁸I sent you to reap uthat for which you did not labor. Others have labored, vand you have entered into their labor.”

³⁹Many Samaritans wfrom that town believed in him xbecause of ythe woman's testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” ⁴⁰So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. ⁴¹And many more believed zbecause of his word. ⁴²They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, aand we know that this is indeed bthe Savior cof the world.”

⁴³After dthe two days he departed for Galilee. ⁴⁴(For Jesus himself had testified ethat a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) ⁴⁵So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, fhaving seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For gthey too had gone to the feast.

Jesus Heals an Official's Son

⁴⁶So he came again to hCana in Galilee, iwhere he had made the water wine. And at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill. ⁴⁷When this man heard that Jesus jhad come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. ⁴⁸So Jesus said to him, k“Unless you3 see signs and wonders you will not believe.” ⁴⁹The official said to him, “Sir, come down lbefore my child dies.” ⁵⁰Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. ⁵¹As he was going down, his servants4 met him and told him that his son was recovering. ⁵²So he asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour5 the fever left him.” ⁵³The father knew that was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” And he himself believed, mand all his household. ⁵⁴nThis was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.