Where is the true Place of Worship?
9. October 2008 by Bernice Davis.
Hello:
We continue our study with the Samaritans. We ended yesterday with the Israeli priest being sent to
Samaria to instruct the immigrant population on how to worship the God of the land.
The Samaritans who were now a mixed population had learned how to worship God. Later in history, the Samaritans began to demand that the Jews allow them to share in the rebuilding of the temple and in the worship. The Jews refuse and make claims that they are “half-breeds” meaning that they have intermarried and are not pure Jews and also claimed they were not children of “Abraham” but were imported into
Samaria and taught how to worship the Israeli God.
The Samaritans eventually would take the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew bible) and change it to accommodate their belief system. It has come to be known historically as the Samaritan Pentateuch. The Samaritans would make the claim that the place where Jacob’s well was put should be the true place of worship and the Jews claimed that the temple in
Jerusalem is the true place of worship.
In the New Testament story of the Samaritan woman who was at the well whom Jesus informed that she had five husbands and the one she was with was not her own realized that Jesus was a prophet. Upon this realization, she asks Jesus can you settle the age old debate between the Samaritans and the Jews as to where the legitimate place of worship is.
Here is that story:
John 4:4 Now he had to go through
Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in
Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 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.) 10 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.” 11 ”Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 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?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 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.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 ”I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 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.” 19 ”Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in
Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in
Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.” (NIV)
That is the short version of our Samaritan conflict. From the Assyrian invasion all the way into the New Testament, the Samaritans and Jews are enemies. The Samaritans claim they have a legitimate right to worship alongside the Jews and the Jews consider them to be illegitimate children. The tension between them is so tense that the Jews would not even cross into Samaritan territory even if it was the shorter way to get to their destination. The Jews considered the Samaritans unclean and sinful to be in their presence. When you read the New Testament dealings with Samaritans now, you will find this information extremely helpful in your understanding of those stories.
Okay, enough for today. Tomorrow we will conclude our Samaritan issue.
Stay encouraged!!!!!!!!
God Bless!!!!!!!!!!
Don’t forget to pray and read God’s word daily.