Want New Eyes on the Bible? Try This

Want a richer Bible-reading experience?

Here’s a tip: don’t overlook the ‘other’ verses.

You know them. They’re the verses that make your eyelids heavy. The ones you have to go through to get to the more inspiring verses. Verses that, if enough are strung together without a ‘good one,’ can cause you to set your Bible down - for weeks or months.

Here’s the thing: when it comes to God’s word, He orchestrates every word.

There’s more in those other verses than you think. Consider John 4:4:

You can turn the “…he had to…” of John 4:4 like a diamond in the light, and gain multiple illuminating reminders about the character of God, and our value to him.

He had to: The human need

If you’ve ever encountered a person in need at the corner of an intersection, you’ve sensed the tension: human need vs. the provision to meet the need.

But the things that come up in those moments for us are noticeably absent for Jesus as he encounters Samaria:

• Avoidance of the need.

• Hurrying past the need.

• Analyzing the validity of the need.

There’s an important truth to be grasped here: humanity has an inescapable need. And God is an inexhaustible provider.

He had to: The geographical route

Most of us miss the side faces and places on the way to the ones we emphasize.

It’s life in the hallway on the way to the next class. It’s the activity happening along our route to work. It’s anyone and anything we need to “get through” at about 11 am in order to arrive at lunch.

We have an orientation for moving through the transitions of life without much notice.

But Jesus?

Samaria wasn’t something to get through before the good things. It was the opportunity for God’s thing. The geographical arrangement was the very providence of God. It was that way for Jesus, and it’s that way for those who go out in the name of Jesus.

He had to: The Heavenly Father’s heart

You hear it, don’t you?

The Gospel is deeply entrenched in these 7 words we read in John 4:4. Samaria wasn’t a stop on the way to salvation. Salvation was making a stop at Samaria.

You see, he had to go through Samaria.

Human distinctions faded away. Jew and Samaritan didn’t matter. Male and female didn’t matter. Even the barriers between God and humans faded to the background for the sake of God’s mission at a well in Samaria.

Do you know why you don’t overlook those ‘other’ verses?

Because the more you sit with John 4:4, the more you realize what it actually says:

Jesus didn’t have to go through Samaria.

He got to.

Nathan