The NIV 365 Day Devotional
The Samaritan Woman
Perhaps in order to avoid the respectable townswomen who filled their water jars at sunrise and sunset, “the Samaritan woman” came to the well at noon, the hottest hour of the day. This immoral woman, who had five husbands, now lived with a man who was not her husband.
When Jesus purposely passed through Samaria on his way to Galilee, he met and spoke to the woman at Jacob’s well, near the city of Sychar, breaking three major social rules:
First, women were considered greatly inferior to men; in public no Middle Eastern man ever spoke to a woman, not even to his wife, mother or sister.
Second, no Jew ever spoke to a Samaritan. Jews believed Samaritans had betrayed their faith because they had intermarried with foreigners. The Jews and Samaritans hated and avoided each other.
Third, no self-respecting man, especially a teacher, would ever speak to a woman with such a reputation. This woman was a well-known social outcast.
Jesus disregarded these social barriers when he conversed with the Samaritan woman. He revealed himself as the greatly anticipated Messiah, offering forgiveness, redemption and new life. She drank from his cup of living water, ran back to town to the very ones who despised her, the people of Samaria. There she proclaimed with unembarrassed excitement the arrival of the promised Messiah.
The people of Samaria eagerly responded to Christ. They, too, yearned for his living water. Later, Jesus would challenge his disciples to witness in Samaria (Ac 1:8), and Philip, a deacon, would open a mission there (Ac 8:5). Yet the Good News of Jesus Christ was first proclaimed to the people of Samaria through the testimony of an outcast—a woman who drank the offered water and was forgiven, cleansed and renewed, never again to thirst.
Taken from The NIV Woman’s Study Bible.