What is the meaning of John 4:22? You worship what you do not know Jesus is looking the Samaritan woman in the eye and lovingly exposing a spiritual gap. • The Samaritans had mixed the Pentateuch with pagan customs since the Assyrian resettlement (2 Kings 17:28-34), so their worship was sincere yet misdirected. • Ignorance in worship is no small matter; Hosea 4:6 warns, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” • Paul later meets similar devotion without truth in Athens: “What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you” (Acts 17:23). • Jesus’ words remind us that zeal must be anchored to revealed truth, not family tradition, culture, or emotion alone (Romans 10:2). We worship what we do know Now the Lord speaks from within His own earthly people, Israel. • The Jews possessed the covenants, the Law, and the prophets (Romans 3:1-2), giving them a clear picture of the one true God. • “HE declares His word to Jacob… He has done this for no other nation” (Psalm 147:19-20). • Even the temple mount where the Samaritans were excluded shouted God’s holiness and mercy in every sacrifice (Leviticus 16). • Jesus does not say “they worship” but “we worship,” identifying Himself with Israel’s revealed faith while standing ready to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17). For salvation is from the Jews This closing clause is the heart of the sentence; it looks forward to the cross while rooting it in God’s promise to Abraham. • The Messiah had to come “from the tribe of Judah” (Genesis 49:10) and “a shoot from the stump of Jesse” (Isaiah 11:1). • Through Abraham’s seed “all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Genesis 12:3), a promise echoed when Simeon held the infant Jesus: “a light for revelation to the Gentiles and glory to Your people Israel” (Luke 2:30-32). • Salvation is not merely offered to Israel; it originates there and then flows outward, as pictured in Romans 11:17 where Gentiles are grafted into the cultivated olive tree. • Rejecting or minimizing Israel’s role undercuts the credibility of Scripture’s storyline and the identity of Jesus Himself (John 1:11, 4:22). summary Jesus contrasts uninformed worship with informed worship and anchors redemption in God’s covenant with Israel. The Samaritans’ zeal without knowledge points us to our need for revelation; Israel’s stewardship of truth highlights God’s faithfulness; and the Messiah’s Jewish lineage secures our salvation. Right worship flows from knowing the revealed Savior who sprang from Israel yet now invites the whole world to drink of the living water. |
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