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In one sense, the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is a book about evangelism – seeking and saving a lost, dying world of human beings who are alienate from God, who is the source of life. Yeshua’s arrival on Earth can be understood as part of a great evangelistic mission. Evangelism is very important. As Christians and Messianic Jews, proclaiming the good news, introducing people to Yeshua, must be at the core of who we are and what we do. Yeshua was a master evangelist. In this part of the divinely inspired book of John, John gives us a lesson in evangelism from the master evangelist.

Yeshua had been in the Judean countryside. News reached Him that the Pharisees, who were very influential religiously and politically, knew that Yeshua was becoming more popular than John the Baptist – and John was immensely popular. The leadership of the Pharisees didn’t like Yeshua, and learning about Yeshua’s growing popularity intensified their dislike of the young Rabbi. So, perhaps to avoid a confrontation, Yeshua left Judea, which was closer to the center of the power of the Pharisees, and headed north to Galilee.

Now Yeshua learned that the Pharisees had heard that He was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John – although in fact it was not Yeshua who baptized, but His disciples. So He left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now He had to go through Samaria. Yeshua was calling the Jewish people to turn to God and to believe the Good News that the Kingdom of God was near. Those who responded to Yeshua and His message were immersed in water – as they must be today. And Yeshua entrusted the administration of baptism to the men He called to be spiritual leaders – as He still does today.

The Samaritans were descendants of Jewish people from the northern Kingdom of Israel and the peoples from the nations that the Assyrians imported after they conquered Israel around 722 BC. The Samaritan religion reflected this mixture. It was a mixture of Torah and false religious ideas that came from the pagan nations. The religious center of the Samaritans was not Jerusalem, but Mount Gerazim, close to Sycar, where this event took place. The Jewish people knew that the religion of the Samaritans was a perversion of the true religion, and the Jewish people distanced themselves from the Samaritans. By the way, a small community of Samaritans still exists today.

So He came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Yeshua, tired (and probably hungry and thirsty) as He was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

John has set the stage for an great evangelistic interaction between Yeshua and a Samaritan woman. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Yeshua said to her, “Will you give Me a drink?” John added this detail: His disciples had gone into the town to buy food – letting us know that Yeshua was alone with this woman.

Notice that Yeshua initiated this evangelistic interaction. Evangelism is something that Yeshua engaged in all the time. If our Rabbi engaged in evangelism all the time, maybe we should too?

The fact that Yeshua initiated this evangelistic interaction also tells us something about the nature of salvation. Salvation is something that God initiates.

God seeks us before we are able to seek Him. God speaks to us before we are able to speak to Him. Salvation belongs to the Lord.

The Samaritan woman said to Him, “You are a Jewish man and I am a Samaritan woman. How can You ask me for a drink?” And John let us know the reason she said this. For the Jewish people do not associate with Samaritans. Not only was it unusual for Jewish people to interact with Samaritans, it was unusual for a rabbi to interact with a woman, since it was customary for religious men to strictly limit their associations with women. But Yeshua didn’t follow the social norms of His day, if those social norms were wrong. He loved all people, including the shunned Samaritans, and wanted to interact with all kinds of people – as should we.

Yeshua didn’t answer her question. Instead, He took control of the conversation, and redirected it to Himself. Yeshua answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.” Yeshua informed this woman that God had a gift for her, and He was able to give her that gift. If the woman could find out who Yeshua is, and ask Him for that gift, He would give her the gift of living water. Yeshua often used physical things like wind, bread, leaven, food, water, birth, seeds and sowing and reaping, darkness and light, to help people understand spiritual realities – which very often they didn’t initially understand. Water is essential to life, and living water referred to spiritual life; a life-giving relationship with the living God. Human beings have no spiritual life. Yeshua is able to give us spiritual life.

Instead of focusing on who Yeshua is, the woman focused on the gift, the living water. But she didn’t understand what Yeshua meant by living water. “Sir,” the woman said, “You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can You get this living water? She questioned Yeshua’s ability to provide living water, since He seemed to lack any resources to provide it.

And, His claim to provide living water sounded arrogant to her. Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jacob was one of the greatest human beings who ever lived. Almost 2000 years earlier Jacob provided this well for his family, a well which had served the people of the area for hundreds of years. Did Yeshua think He was greater than Jacob and could outdo this great patriarch?

Again, Yeshua took control of the conversation and directed it to Himself and to the spiritual life He is able to give human beings. Yeshua answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” Who is Yeshua? He is Someone who is able to give human beings, who are born without spiritual life, abundant spiritual life, never-ending spiritual life. After receiving the spiritual life that Yeshua is able to give, they will never be spiritually thirsty again. They will enjoy unending spiritual life and contentment.

That living water that Yeshua offered sounded great, and the Samaritan woman thought it would make her life so much easier, and she wanted that water even though she still didn’t understand that Yeshua was talking about a spiritual reality. She welcomed Yeshua’s help to provide for her needs. The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

But before Yeshua gave her God’s gift of spiritual life, He tested her. He asked her to do something to show her sincerity. He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied – which was true, but only part of the truth.

Yeshua was so close to God that God was able to speak to Yeshua, giving Him supernatural knowledge of people and situations. Yeshua said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” The Son of God is teaching us something about the nature of marriage: living with someone, without making a covenant of commitment before God and man, is not the same as marriage.

This woman now understood that Yeshua who had supernatural knowledge about her, was Someone very special. “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.” And she was right. So, here she was with a genuine prophet of the Jewish people who was able to hear clearly from God. Why not take advantage and ask the prophet a question about who was right about Jewish/Samaritan religious differences?

“Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” This was a very good question aimed at finding out which of the two religions was right. Yeshua responded to it by making some profound statements about new spiritual realities connected to His arrival.

“Woman,” Yeshua replied, “believe Me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. Again, Yeshua did not directly answer her question. Again, He redirected it to His agenda, something even more important He wanted her to know. God the Father was about to do something radial that would change the very nature of worship. Under Messiah’s New Covenant, worship is no longer connected to a physical location – even the God-ordained temple in Jerusalem. People will be able to worship God apart from the temple, priests and sacrifices that were so central to the worship of the Sinai Covenant. That’s a very radical change.

Even though worship will transcend location, so that neither Jerusalem nor Gerazim will be necessary, that doesn’t mean that the Jewish religion and the Samaritan religion were equally valid. Yeshua made it clear that there was no religious equivalency between the two. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jewish people.

Note well that Yeshua wasn’t afraid of offending this woman. He told her the truth. He was bold and blunt – something we could use more of. He told her that the Samaritan religion was a mixture of truth and error; that the Samaritans didn’t have a correct understanding of God; that they were far from God and were not worshiping Him properly. And He told her that Israel had the true knowledge and the true worship of God. And He told her that salvation comes from God through the Jewish people. I love that phrase – salvation is from the Jewish people. The revelation that comes though Israel is the true revelation and is to be believed. God chose the Jewish people to know Him and the way to be reconciled to Him; and God chose the Jewish people to impart that knowledge to the rest of humanity. God’s choice of Israel to fulfill His plan of world redemption is to be understood and respected and acted on.

Yeshua returned to His agenda – letting her know that God wanted a kind of worship then, and in the future, that was truly spiritual. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” Yeshua told her that there are true worshipers – which means there are false worshipers, who worship in error; whose worship is unacceptable to God. What distinguishes the true worshipers from the false worshipers? True worshipers worship in spirit and in truth. They worship in spirit, because God is spirit, and must be worshiped according to who He is. God is unlike everything else in the physical universe. He is non-material. He is non-physical. Therefor true worshipers will worship God in a non-physical way. Their worship is not based on rituals and ceremonies and prayers read out of prayer books and holidays and an emphasis on law-keeping.

God is spirit – and spirit is alive and aware. Therefor true worshipers must be spiritually alive and spiritually aware. They must be alive to God. They must be born again. They must receive a new godly nature. They must be spiritually aware of God, sensitive to God, aware of what God wants. God is spirit and God is a person. Because God is a spiritual person, His true worshipers must have a close, personal relationship to Him. And their worship will be personal, intimate, relational. They know God and are able to talk to Him as they talk to a close friend. They tell Him how much they appreciate who He is and what He has done, is doing and will do.

True worshipers worship God in spirit. And they worship in truth, not error; they worship according to the truth that comes from the revelation given to Israel – and no other nation.

God wants, God is seeking, God is actively pursuing human beings who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. May that be you, and me, and many, many more. Amen?

After listening to Yeshua’s answer, the Samaritan woman made a statement about the arrival of the Messiah. The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ, which means the Anointed One) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” It was good to have a prophet available to answer questions. It will be even better to have the Messiah available.

This woman had been growing in her understanding of who Yeshua is. In one conversation, Yeshua had gone from a foreigner who disliked her, to Someone who could give her a gift of living water, to a prophet who spoke about a new way of worshiping God that would transcend location and be available to everybody. God wants people to know the truth, and those who respond to the truth that God reveals to them, are giving more truth. Then Yeshua declared, “I, the one speaking to you – I am He.” Interesting. While Yeshua didn’t tell the Jewish people that He was the Messiah, He gave a declaration to this Samaritan woman that He is the Messiah, the ultimate prophet who hears from God and speaks most authoritatively for God; the ultimate priest who brings people closer to God and God closer to people; the ultimate king who will rule over Israel and the nations of the world. And she believed Him. Who would have thought that one of the despised Samaritans would be so receptive to the Jewish Messiah?

Just then His disciples returned and were surprised to find Him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” Even though He was going against social custom by speaking to a woman, the disciples respected their Rabbi and didn’t challenge Him.

Then, leaving her water jar (which was the purpose of her trip to the well), the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did (a bit of an exaggeration). Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward Him. John is teaching us that a real follower of Messiah, even a very new one, like this Samaritan woman, will immediately start reordering his priorities (leaving the water jar) and begin to tell others about Yeshua. A true disciple will not keep that precious knowledge, that Yeshua is the Messiah, knowledge that alone can save people, to himself. He will immediately tell others the good news about messianic salvation. And he will start to make changes in his life in order to tell others about Messiah. He will leave his water jar behind if necessary. Is that you?

Yeshua had been traveling. He was tired and most likely, hungry. Meanwhile His disciples urged Him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” Yeshua often used physical things like wind, bread, leaven, food, water, birth, seeds and sowing and reaping, darkness and light, to help people understand spiritual realities – which very often they didn’t initially understand. Then His disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought Him food?” But Yeshua wasn’t talking about literal food. He was talking about something spiritual, using food as an illustration.

People are motivated by food. Food sustains their live. It gives them energy. It keeps them alive. Yeshua used food to describe the thing that motivated Him. “My food,” said Yeshua, “is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work. Yeshua had a purpose. Yeshua had a mission. His mission was to do everything that God wanted Him to do. His mission was to make salvation possible for a fallen world. Doing what God wanted, doing God’s will, fulfilling His mission was what kept Yeshua going. That was His priority. That was what was worth sacrificing other things for, like eating a meal on time. What is your food?

Yeshua knew that the world’s greatest need was the salvation He alone is able to provide. Yeshua knew that the salvation He alone is able to provide would eventually reach the Samaritans and beyond. And Yeshua knew that, even at that moment, there were people in unexpected places and from unexpected backgrounds who were ready to respond to the truth about messianic salvation, and He wanted His disciples to be prepared. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.

While it is true that for some crops, it takes four months after planting for the plants to be ready to harvest, that is not true of the spiritual harvest of humanity. There are people who are ready to respond to the truth about Yeshua right now, like this Samaritan woman was. We need to be aware that God is working on people throughout the world – rich people, poor people, successful people, unsuccessful people, Jewish people and non-Jewish people – revealing truth to them, preparing them for the truth about Yeshua and the salvation He is able to provide. We need to share the Good News even with people who might not seem to be ideal candidates for salvation.

Evangelism is challenging. The proclaimer of the Good News will be insulted and rejected. Yeshua wants him to know that if he is faithful to the task, God will reward him. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life.

There may be instances when we proclaim the truth about Yeshua to an individual, teaching him, praying for him, helping him in various ways, and then God allows someone else to help him receive Yeshua. Don’t worry! The one who sows and cultivates spiritual truth will get a reward as well as the one who harvests the spiritual truth. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.” God will reward those who prepare for a spiritual harvest and those who help others receive Yeshua when they are ready. Both will be very, very happy – which should motivate us to proclaim the Good News, teach people the truth and help them make their commitment to Yeshua.

Just as a little leaven can affect a whole batch of dough, or one candle can brighten a room, one individual who knows the Lord and tells others about Him can affect many others. Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”

When people respond positively to truth about Yeshua, even unlikely candidates like these Samaritans, Yeshua is pleased and gives them more truth. So when the Samaritans came to Him, they urged Him to stay with them, and He stayed two days.

And after spending two days listening to the Rabbi from Israel – John tells us that because of His words many more became believers. They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” Our testimony, how God has changed our life by revealing to us that Yeshua is the Messiah, is powerful. It can help convince someone that Yeshua is the Messiah. But, hearing someone else’s story is not enough. Each person must hear for himself from Yeshua – getting in touch with Him by reading the Bible, especially Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and by talking to God, and by listening to God.

Now we know that this man really is the Savior of the world. John is letting us know that the response of these Samaritans to Yeshua is a glimpse of God’s plan to bring messianic salvation to the nations of the world. Yeshua is the Jewish Messiah, but His mission is to be the Savior of the world.

Principles Of Evangelism:

I have food to eat that you know nothing about. She left the jar of water. Rearrange your priorities so that you are engaging in evangelism on a regular basis.

Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Look for opportunities to witness to all kinds of people, even those who seem to be unlikely candidates – different races, people from a different social, economic or educational background.

Yeshua said to her, “Will you give Me a drink? Take the evangelistic initiative. Make evangelistic opportunities happen.

True worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. Emphasize the difference between ritualistic religion and religion based on the truth that comes from the revelation given to Israel and a genuine relationship with God that only Yeshua can provide.

Find out what a person is interested in and use that to point to Yeshua. Yeshua used the woman’s interest in water to point her to His ability to provide spiritual life.

Go, call your husband and come back. Ask the person who has more serious interest to do something inconvenient. Ask them to read Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and some of the Messianic prophecies like Isaiah 53; join you at services; meet for a Bible study; talk to one of the Rabbis.

Don’t feel you need to answer every question you are asked. Take control of the conversation and direct it to what the person needs to hear. “That’s an interesting question, but I want to know who you think Yeshua is?”

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?” When someone becomes a new believer, teach him to tell others about Yeshua right away.

Don’t be afraid to hurt the feelings of the one you are witnessing to. Tell them the truth that there is true religion and false religion; that mankind does not have spiritual life and is in need of spiritual life; that the only way to obtain spiritual life and salvation is by responding to the revelation that comes through the Jewish people and through Yeshua.

We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world. If someone is moved by hearing how God has worked in your life, that’s not enough. Direct him to hear from Yeshua Himself.

Telling others about Yeshua won’t be easy. Expect insults and rejection. But know that God will reward the one who tells others the Good News, and the one who leads others to that commitment to Yeshua. Both will be very, very happy.

Evangelism is very important. Yeshua was a master evangelist. He wants us to learn from Him and follow His example.

May God work so in us as to make us all, better and faithful evangelists. Amen?