Now he had to go through Samaria. 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 Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus 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.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink 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.” 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.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus 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.” “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

—John 4:4-24 (TNIV)

Heh. Have you ever been confronted by someone else about your failings? If you have, you likely got defensive and perhaps tried to change the subject to deflect the light from shining on you. We humans do not like to look at our dark side, especially when we are forced to do so. That is what we see here in today’s excerpt. Jesus has spoken the truth in love to this Samaritan woman and she tries to change the subject by talking about the appropriate venue for worship! She doesn’t want to be bothered by the nasty fact that she has had five different husbands and is currently living with a man or the uncomfortable fact that Jesus has called her on it.

But Jesus is not shining the light on the Samaritan woman with the goal of ultimately shaming her. No, he wants her to see the light, his light, so that she might give up her foolish lifestyle and begin to enjoy real life. Typically, that is what happens to us when Jesus shines his light on us. It will make us uncomfortable and then we have a decision to make. We can listen to Christ or we can ignore him. What will your reaction be? Will you attempt to ignore Jesus and/or change the subject, or will you dare to trust him enough to believe that he loves you and has your best interest at heart? Whatever your response, it will be a life-changer, for good or for ill.

Unto the word of God, being in respect of that end for which God ordained it perfect, exact, and absolute in itself, we do not add reason as a supplement of any maim or defect therein, but as a necessary instrument, without which we could not reap by scripture’s perfection that fruit and benefit which it yields.

—Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity 3.8.10

We must likewise take great heed, lest in attributing unto scripture more than it can have, the incredibility of that [causes] even those things which indeed it has most abundantly to be less reverently esteemed.

—Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity 2.8.7

It suffices therefore that nature and scripture do serve in such full sort that they both jointly [together], and not [separately] either of them, be so complete, that unto everlasting [happiness] we need not the knowledge of any thing more than these two may easily furnish our minds with on all sides; and therefore they which add traditions, as part of supernatural necessity of truth, have not the truth, but are in error.

—Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity 1.14.5

A very strange thing sure it were, that such a discipline as you speak of should be taught by Christ and his apostles in the word of God, ans no church ever found it out, nor received it until this present time.

—Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Preface 4.1

I find it fascinating how things never change. While not speaking about scripture per se, a similar charge could be leveled at the revisionists in all the mainline Christian denominations today who seek to rewrite Scripture in their own image.

In this life not a single day will stand still for us. You embrace it and hold onto it and try to keep it. But it does not stand still and it does not let you stand still. All those things you considered precious fly away. Do you want to find a stable place to stand? Stand with the Lord Jesus who remains forever and listen to him. With him you can stand secure forever.

—Augustine, Sermon 65A.13

Make us worthy, Lord, to serve our fellow men throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger. Give them, through our hands, this day their daily bread, and by our understanding love give Peace and Joy.

—Malcolm Muggeridge, Something Beautiful for God

God be in my head, and in my understanding;
God be in my eyes, and in my looking;
God be in my mouth, and in my speaking;
God be in my heart, and in my thinking;
God be at my end, and at my departing.