Go Where They Are
He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. But He needed to go through Samaria.
- John 4:3–4
No orthodox Jew would ever go to Galilee through Samaria. In fact, he would avoid that area altogether. It was faster and more direct to go through Samaria, but the Jews did not want to go that route because they hated the Samaritans. They already disliked the Gentiles, but in their minds, a Samaritan was even worse, because the Samaritan was essentially a Hebrew who had intermarried with others. And so the Jews wanted nothing to do with them.
So where did Jesus go? He went to the place that no other Jew would go. And who did Jesus go to? He went to a woman. Today that doesn't seem like a big deal, but in this culture, the Jewish men often looked down on women. And this woman not only was someone a religious Jew wouldn't talk to, but she was an outcast among her own people because of her multiple marriages and divorces-and the fact that she was living with a man at present.
I love that the Bible says Jesus needed to go to Samaria (see John 4:4). Why? It was because a woman who needed to hear the gospel was there. We need to go as well. We are to go whenever to whomever to wherever God directs us. Long before Earth was even created, a decision was made in eternity that Jesus Christ, God in human form, would have an appointment with a burned-out, immoral woman of Samaria and unfold the gospel to her.
We need to go to where people are. Jesus did not say that the whole world should go to church. But He did say that the church should go to the whole world. And so we need to engage people and reach them with the gospel.
