Living Stones – Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Getting personal
John 4:16
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
The nameless Samaritan woman who engaged in the conversation with Jesus at a well in Sychar, Samaria has always been put down for her personal life. This put down comes from the details of her marital and relationship history revealed by Jesus after He asked her to call her husband. The entire fascinating conversation is recorded in John 4:1-26
Studies in history and archaeology help us to understand the people and times of the Bible. That understanding helps us to contextualise the text we read and to appreciate how the events and statements were first received. This is important since we are now several millennia removed from the actual events.
A big issue in interpretation is trying to grasp meaning from scripture that was written millennia ago while examining it through the contemporary lens available to us. For some persons, this makes the text irrelevant to our life and times, for others the task it to strip the message from the limitations of history and apply it contemporaneously.
A few years ago, while teaching a Bible Study Series, I was teaching members how to use their personal testimony as a means of sharing their faith in Jesus Christ with others who don’t know him. In the session, I was asking some persons to come out and read what they had written. A lady, who we all knew well and loved, came forward and told her personal story about marriage, abuse, and divorce and how she met Jesus at the lowest point in her life. Most of the church was stunned, she was exposed before us for the first time and we were all moved, many to tears.
After the meeting that night I was accosted by another lady who was particularly upset that I caused the lady in church earlier to expose all of her personal life before everyone in the church. She said that couldn’t be right, people’s personal lives are off limits and the church should just focus on teaching the scripture. She urged that I ensure that it never happens again, or she would have to take up the matter elsewhere.
Her views are reflective of a lot of the thinking that’s popular today. We have a heightened sense of what is personal and guard that personal space violently if necessary. I believe that we each have personal space that is just that, personal. But the Gospel of Jesus Christ has to affect us personally.
Too many people today are using the label “Christian” who have not had a confrontation with the claims of Jesus Christ, and gave in, and given their lives to Him. Too many Christians are inviting people to church but not introducing them to Christ. Too many people are adding church to their existing lifestyle but are not changing their lifestyle because of Christ.
The Apostle Paul, writing to the church at Corinth, reminded them that, “… if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17. Our personal lives must undergo a transformation when we meet Christ and that change should also be a testimony to others.
When Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here,” He was getting personal. He was pointing her to the fact that the spiritual transformation he offered was going to affect her at the most intimate level. She had asked for what He offered, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.” His response was, essentially, if you want this your whole life has to change.
To experience newness of life we often have to expose both the secret things and the private things. Real change is not superficial. Real change is deeply personal.
Of course, the tendency is to try to hide the deeply personal, especially when the deeply personal makes us want to hide. “I have no husband.” This was her declaration because it seemed to cover the present situation and hide the sordid history.
Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.” She was exposed, but she was brought to the place where she could be transformed by the power of Jesus.
Many of us need to stop hiding our personal lives from the glare of the Gospel. Our transformation will begin where the hiding ends. Also, when we are transformed we are able to use this experience to aid the transformation of others. “Confess your [faults] to one another, and pray for one another,” James 5:16
Think on these things:
- Have you examined your life to see that the demands of the Gospel have changed you and are changing you at the deep and personal level?
- Have you shared any of your life experience to show anyone else how Jesus has changed your life and how he could change theirs?
- What would you put in your personal testimony about how Jesus changed your life? Write it down and share it with someone this week.
Prayer focus:
Let us pray today that we would be changed by the Gospel from the inside out and that our changes would be beneficial to someone else.
In His Grace
Pastor Alex
