John 4:27-42. Look at the Fields
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New followers of Jesus often make the best evangelists. It wasn’t that long ago that they were without Jesus. Now they’ve met him. Every day, they can clearly taste the difference Jesus makes, and they are busting to let people know.
Once someone has been a follower of Jesus for a while, the enthusiasm can wear off a bit. The practical realities of life can distract us, slow us down, and even wear us down. Sharing Jesus with others becomes a lower priority.
But this means we’re now less concerned with a third kind of person: those who have yet to meet Jesus.
In today’s passage, we meet all three categories of people above. We have the Samaritan woman who has just met Jesus (4:27–30), the disciples who’ve known him for a while (4:31–38), and the other Samaritans who are just being introduced to Jesus (4:39–42). In each case, there is much for all of us to learn.
1. Let Your Excitement Flow
In verses 27–30, the Samaritan woman can’t help but let her excitement flow. She has just met the great dispenser of Living Water (see John 4:1-26), and she wants the news to flow to others.
The Disciples Return (27). In verse 27, the disciples are surprised to find Jesus talking to the woman, probably because she was a) a Samaritan and b) a woman. It was unheard of for a respected Jewish leader to do this. Nevertheless, they trust him enough not to question his methods.
The Water Jar (28-29). Then, in verses 28–29, we read: “Leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”
Leaving a water jar is a weird thing to do. Her whole purpose for going to the well was to get water to take back to her house. You can’t cook, clean or drink at home without water in your house, and, back in these days, in the absence of taps, if you don’t bring your water jar home from the well, you’re kind of stuffed. This is the modern-day equivalent of leaving your car keys at the shops. You just don’t do it.
Why does she leave it? Because she is blown away by Jesus. She can’t help but share with people who he is. We suspect that some of the people in the town wouldn’t have liked the woman and wouldn’t have been interested in what she had to say. She probably doesn’t have a great reputation, given the number of husbands she’s had, as well as the live-in boyfriend. She doesn’t care.
She realises who she has met. She has met someone who knows everything about her. She has met the Messiah, the one who will reunify God’s people and be their everlasting king. And he seems to care about ordinary people like her.
She lets her excitement flow.
They Made Their Way To Him (30). And the people of the town do the same. In verse 30, they come out of the town to go and find him. They are genuinely amazed by the woman’s report.
Sometimes, I wonder whether Christians (myself included) truly realise who Jesus is. When we meet Jesus in the Bible, do we really get who he is? Do we really get that he is the Word who was with God in the beginning, the creator of the universe, the Son of God, the King, the Messiah, the one who gives Living Water and eternal life? If we truly get this, how can we not be excited?
If excitement doesn’t flow, have we truly understood who Jesus is?
2. Look at the Fields
Food (31-34). The next scene begins with Jesus’ disciples encouraging him to eat (verse 31). His response in verse 32 is a little unusual: “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” After their initial confusion, Jesus explains what he means in verse 34: “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” In other words, Jesus is hungry to complete the mission God has given him, a mission that will take him to the cross, as Jesus explains just before the cross (see John 17:4) and while on the cross (John 19:30).
Four Months Until Harvest (35a). In verse 35, Jesus explains that it’s now harvest time. When it comes to harvesting, it looks like it probably usually took around four months for a crop to grow in this area. But not in the case of the harvest Jesus is talking about.
Open Your Eyes and Look at the Fields (35b). In verse 35, Jesus wants his disciples to open their eyes and see that the fields are ripe for harvesting. This means that it’s time to act now. In an agricultural setting, if you don’t harvest while the fields are ripe, you miss out on the harvest. Jesus tells his disciples that people’s hearts are ready to hear the gospel. They mustn’t sit on their hands and wait around. It’s time to act now! They need to share the gospel now before time runs out.
The One Who Reaps (36a). In verse 36, Jesus speaks of “the one who reaps,” which refers to those who invite people to come to know Jesus. Jesus doesn’t explain precisely what he means when he says that the one who reaps “draws a wage,” but, in any case, what could possibly be a better reward than to see someone come to know Jesus?
Harvests a Crop For Eternal Life (36b). At the end of the day, the goal is for “the one who reaps” to “harvest a crop for eternal life.” In other words, we want to invite people to know Jesus so that they might receive eternal life.
The Sower and Reaper May Be Glad Together (36c). Normally, sowing (planting seeds) and reaping (grabbing the fruit) happen at different times and are done by different people. But when it comes to eternal life, those who prepare the way (sowing seeds) and those who bring people to faith (reapers) rejoice together in the harvest of souls who come to know Jesus.
One Sows and Another Reaps (37–38). In verses 37 and 38, Jesus explains that one person does the hard work of sowing the seed while another reaps the reward. The “others” who have sown the seed probably refer to the Old Testament prophets, John the Baptist, who spoke of Jesus’ coming, and perhaps even Jesus himself, who has just sown a seed in one Samaritan woman. The disciples are those who reap. They will now see people responding to the gospel without having necessarily done the groundwork themselves.
Jesus wants his disciples to see that now is the time for harvesting. He wants them to feel a sense of urgency. Time is running out. If they don’t open their eyes and look to the harvest, who will?
Similarly, it’s essential that we look and see the harvest before us. It doesn’t matter where we are—God may well have chosen someone before us to be saved. How can they know of this eternal life unless someone shares it with them? The gospel needs to be shared, and it needs to be shared urgently before it’s too late. We need to look out to the harvest before us. This means we need to work very hard to share Jesus with people!
3. Hear For Yourself
The Woman’s Testimony (39–42). In verses 39–42, we’re brought back to the people in the Samaritan village. The woman has testified to those in her town. She didn’t know much, but she shared what she knew. And many of them begin to believe because of what she said (verse 42). Similarly, we may not know much about Jesus, but what we do know, if we share it with someone else, may well be enough to see someone saved. We don’t need to know everything there is to know about Jesus. We just need to share what we do know. Who knows what God will do?
We Have Heard for Ourselves (40-41). In verses 40–41, the people insist on spending more time with Jesus. They want to hear for themselves. Having heard for themselves, they decide: “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves.” Without hearing the woman’s testimony, the people wouldn’t have heard about Jesus in the first place. But they need to investigate and hear for themselves.
Similarly, many people today hear about Jesus because someone shared him with them. However, it’s important that we hear for ourselves as well. That is, we need to invest time and effort in investigating Jesus. We don’t just believe because someone tells us to, whether a parent, a pastor or a leader; we can and should investigate Jesus for ourselves to ensure that what we believe is actually true. How do we do that? We don’t have Jesus in the flesh directly before us as these Samaritans did. However, we can meet Jesus and hear for ourselves as we read his Word in the Bible.
The Saviour of the World (42). Lastly, we’re told again in verse 42 that Jesus is the Saviour of the whole world, just as we heard in John 3:16. Jesus isn’t just for the Jews, like those he encountered in John 3. Jesus is for Samaritans, as we’ve just discovered. It’s possible (but not certain) that the official in 4:43-54 was also a Gentile. Jesus is not just for one people group—he is for all people. Therefore, we want to ensure that we share Jesus with as many people as possible—regardless of where they are from—so they can hear for themselves.
Discussion Questions
Pray and Get Going
1. What celebrity would you be most excited to meet? How would you react when you met then?
Read John 4:27–42.
2. How does the woman react to meeting Jesus in verses 28–29? Why?
3. Why is the woman’s reaction to meeting Jesus a commonsense reaction? Why don’t we respond the same way all the time?
4. What does Jesus tell his disciples to do in verse 35, and why does he say this?
5. What is our “harvest field”? What does it look like for us to “reapers”?
6. What are the two reasons that the Samaritans believe in verse 42? What does this tell us about the importance of 1) sharing Jesus and 2) checking out Jesus for ourselves?
Pray and Give Thanks
