John 4:2,3

Praise the Lord. Today's verse is from John 4 verse 3 and 4. He left Judea and departed again for Galilee and he had to pass through Samaria. Jesus departed from Judea, which was the south of Israel and departed to Galilee. And Samaria was in between Judea and Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria to understand this, We had to know the background of Samaria. The Jews did not consider the Samaritans to be true Israelitis. But rather a mixture of Gentiles and Jews, which was unacceptable. Consequently, there is a tremendous rivalry between these people with a greater amount seeming to be in the part of Jews, and the Jews hated the Samaritans.

Israel was divided as Southern Kingdom, which is Judea and Northern Kingdom, which was Israel after the King Solomon. The origin of Samaritans came about after the defeat of the northern kingdom of Israel by the Asrayan Empire. We read about it in second Kings 17th chapter with the Gentiles, taking many Jews captive, at that time, and with many Jews, having fled after the defeat, the Asrians populated the area with people from Asria and other places second Kings, 17 24.

These Gentiles gradually. Intermixed with the Jews who were already there and others and were called Samaritans, this happened about 700 years before Christ. So the quickest way from Judea to Galilee was through Samaria. Using this route, this journey would take only 3 days but the Jews never took this route.

They crossed over the Jordan River and went around Samaria, which took six days. Here we see. Jesus had to go through Samaria, this was because he had to meet that Samaritan woman, and share the gospel, the good news with her and in turn she will bring many more Samaritans to Christ.

The woman in the story, could not come to Jesus, but Jesus came to her. Today Jesus comes to us, we might not go to Jesus, but Jesus comes to us.  God bless you.