“Ye Must Be Born Again” John 2-4 – Come Follow Me 2023 Podcast 7
Scot
Once again, we welcome you to Meridian Magazine’s podcast on the Come, Follow Me curriculum. It’s good to be with you again. This is Scot and Maurine Proctor, and we’re so happy to share these podcasts with you and to share our ideas about the lesson materials from each week. We hope that you tell your friends about this. That’s a process now in this modern world where you have to share through social media. We encourage you to go on Facebook and tag your friends. Tell them about this podcast and let this be a blessing to them as well.
Maurine
You’ll find all of these podcasts at ldsmag.com/podcast. And also, it’s available on most (or at least many) of the platforms that are available.
Now today we are studying John 2-4, beginning with a wonderful wedding at Cana. So let us set the scene for what a Hebrew wedding would look like. At a Hebrew wedding, late in the evening the bridegroom would set forth from his house, attended by friends and singers, to get the bride and bring her home for a feast. The guests were given fitting robes and the feast was filled with riddles and amusements.
Scot
Jesus was in attendance at such a wedding in Cana, which is in Galilee, when his mother Mary, apparently having some responsibility for the festivities, came to Him because they had run out of wine. Now, John the Baptist, he is fasting and garbed in camel hair, he’s living in ascetic life, he’s apart from the world. But Jesus came among the people associating with others in social friendship—a trait for which He would later be criticized.
Maurine
Now, when Mary told Him that there was a wine shortage, the traditional text in John 2:4 says that He answered:
“Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come” (John 2:4).
That seems like a rebuke from a son to a mother, and it feels inconsistent with the Jesus that we know. Everything about His character is always so loving. But Joseph Smith’s translation tells us better. I love this. He said:
“Woman, what wilt thou have me to do for thee? that will I do; for mine hour is not yet come” (JST, John 2:4).
And of course, “woman” was the common greeting at the time. That was not the part that seemed short. It was that He would not respond to her need. And of course, we learn from the Joseph Smith Translation that, of course, He responded to her need. And He could respond because His hour had not yet come when He would perform the mighty Atonement and be crucified on the cross. For these days, at least, He was with the people and able to respond to their needs.
Scot
Let’s look at this story and see how John is placing symbols in this so that we can see the story more deeply. In the home of this wedding stood six stone water pots used for the washing required by the intricate rules of the Mishnah. These stone vessels are not subject to impurity. If they were clay vessels the law would demand that if they became unclean they would be smashed. Second, they are very difficult to make since they are carved from a single piece of stone. It’s significant that there are six water pots, otherwise it wouldn’t be written in the scripture. The number six is the number of man—it’s the day that man was created. On the sixth day man was made from the dust and the stone water pots are symbolic of our flesh. So, when Jesus turned the water into wine, it was a miracle in the literal sense because the wedding feast did not run out of wine. It was also symbolic of the new spiritual life that Jesus would soon bring to man. This life would begin with an inner renewal of the spirit within our bodies.
Maurine
This was the breath of life that God was about to give to man, taking that which was common and breathing into it the Spirit which is only from God. This points out that in these chapters they are to be read both literally—yes, this really happened—and symbolically. John is an Apostle and he is receiving revelation as he puts together his own testimony. There is a theme here of being renewed, of being born again, of becoming a new man or woman through Christ that we can see all the way through chapters two through chapters four that we are studying today.
Scot
So there are these six water pots of stone and they contain two or three firkins apiece. Now, firkin is a middle English word. It’s not one of our common words now for measurement, but it’s slightly larger than a Hebrew bath. Of course, now you know what it is. But a bath, a Hebrew bath, is about eight and a quarter gallons. So slightly larger would be somewhere around nine gallons. So each one of these pots contained 20 to 30 gallons. And in fact, it’s very interesting that in many of the modern translations it is just translated as 20-30 gallons, rather than using what would have been common in the King James Version of the Bible, a firkin. I don’t know. I’m not measuring things in firkins these days, how about you?
Scot
Nope, not me either.
Maurine
So Jesus instructed the servants to fill these water pots, and then He said:
“Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast” (John 2:8).
And He did this apparently without a gesture or a word. He had transformed that water brimming in those pots into an abundance of wine. And it was so delicious that the governor mentions it. You know, it was the tradition that the best wine would be given at the first of a feast, and now here they are at the end. And so he says the best wine was traditionally served first, “but thou,” said the governor, “hast kept the good wine until now” (John 2:10).
What I love about this is that the Lord had provided generously. As He said:
“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).
Of course, that’s John 10:10. He gives us life abundantly.
Scot
I love that. Coming to understand more of His own characteristics, He is not a God of scarcity and austerity, making humanity scramble for their needs. He is the Lord of gracious giving and fruitfulness. This, the first recorded of the Lord’s miracles, looks forward to the last when He will reign in a millennial time, a time of peace and plenty when even the fruit of the earth will yield 10,000-fold.
Maurine
Sometimes we get confused because we don’t see immediate answers to the prayers that we are offering. And it is just important to know and remember that God is a God of abundance. So, if we are not seeing answers that we hope for, it is because He will not give us a lesser thing that we are asking for when He has something more abundant to give us. That might be hard sometimes to understand, but so important to have those eyes of faith to understand in our relationship with God.
Scot
I remember once we were heading on a trip, and it seems like whenever we have to prepare for an international trip, I always get more done than I ever can get done in that last period of time. But this time there was just too much to do. I looked at my list, and, if I remember correctly, there were more than 80 things—80 major things to do—, and I list them all out on my phone. And so, I just was getting a little panicked that I couldn’t get them done. I mean, one of them included selling a house that we had. And it was just it was just too much to think that I could get that sold, and get it finished, and get all these other things done as well. And I started thinking, there’s no way I can get any of these things done. And yet I was reading one day from Elder Richard G. Scott, some of his writing, and he said this thing. He said:
“Trust in God and in His willingness to provide help when needed no matter how challenging the circumstances” (Elder Richard G. Scott, “The sustaining power of faith in times of uncertainty and testing”, thechurchnews.com, April 6, 2003).
And that just changed my life. It just changed my whole perspective. And I immediately placed my trust in Him and I was able to accomplish all those things, including selling that house and getting it all done. And we went on the trip, and it was amazing how all those things came together. And to me it was a miracle, but it was also a direct answer and showed that God would absolutely be trustworthy in these things that are really important to us. He’s an abundant giver.
Maurine
Sometimes we think that just because it’s important to us, it may not be important to the Lord. After all, many of our cares are very trivial. But how important was it that they have enough wine to finish this bridal feast? It seems significant to me that Mary would ask the Lord to intervene in something that was essentially so small. And it gives me faith to know that I can ask the Lord about even the smallest things in my life that are troubling me where I need help, or answers, or solutions. I think that is one of the lessons for me in this beautiful story, as well as the idea that you can be cleansed in the inner vessel, that new life can be poured into you.
Scot
Well, speaking of cleansing, let’s go to the temple. In this next part of chapter 2 of John, we see the Lord is heading to the temple in Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those that were selling oxen and sheep and doves and the changers of money sitting there. And clearly, they had made it into what He referred to as a “den of thieves”. Now, we have to understand this setting a little bit better, because all the people who are coming from every nation, from all the places around, they came with their own money. And when they came to the temple, they had to exchange their coins for a certain temple half shekel to be able to do the rites that they had come to perform. And in that exchange, those money changers were charging interest, or usury, on that money. And so there’s this big interchange and merchandising going on, and it had clearly become not a temple place and it needed to be cleaned out.
Maurine
What’s interesting about that to me is that it’s not only the money changers who are taking advantage of this, but we know that the high priests—again, high priests appointed by Rome, Annas and Caiaphas—were also taking their cut. It was a sign of complete corruption of the religious hierarchy of the time. So of course Jesus would be concerned about this in His house. And so we know that
“[He] made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables” (John 2:15).
Some people take this as a sign that Christ was angry at this point. But I think it depends on how you define anger. So often we see anger as something that’s out of control, that it’s an emotion that is bigger than we are. This is not what we’re seeing in this scene. What we’re seeing is an example of the Lord cleansing the inner vessel—this time of the temple. And it goes perfect with the story we’ve just heard about the marriage in Cana because this is all about what’s happening in the inner vessel. We have to cleanse it in order to have new life.
Scot
It reminds me of something I experienced when I was in graduate school. I was, in those days, home teaching a family that had just moved into an apartment nearby. And the wife came to me and she said, “there’s just a dark feeling in our home and I can’t figure out what it is and I’m very concerned about it.” She was very sensitive to the spirit. And so I came over and we prayed and we talked about it, and then we started just looking around in this house, in this apartment, and we found in a little storage area by a window—there was kind of a window seat that wasn’t something they were very familiar with that it had a little door that would open on it—and we opened up that door and inside it was full of pornographic magazines, and they had no idea that they had been there. And so we took them all out and threw them in the trash and cleaned them all out completely and had another prayer. And immediately there was a wonderful feeling in their home and that feeling of darkness went away. It was just like this symbol of cleansing the inner vessel. And I’ve never forgotten that experience.
Maurine
This is obviously something that the people who had lived there before had left behind.
Now we go to John 3 and the wonderful Nicodemus story. And this is a story where Nicodemus comes to the Savior by night. And that is a very interesting thing just to begin with. Why come by night?
Scot
Clearly, he was investigating the Lord. He was interested, he was curious, and he came to find out more about Him and about His teachings.
Maurine
But “by night” is interesting. He didn’t come by day when others could see him. He came by night because he wanted it to be a secret. But then he says something interesting. He says:
“Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God” (John 3:2).
Who is this “we”?
Scot
Well, that’s a good question. We find out later that Nicodemus is close to Joseph of Arimathea—they’re both leaders in the Sanhedrin—and so at least he must be representing those two. But there may have been others, and he is there perhaps as their representative. You need to go and find out who this is and more about His teachings. And this is kind of his investigation. And he is coming there so he won’t be seen by other leaders of the Jews.
Maurine
So “Jesus answered and said unto him,” in verse three, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).
And Nicodemus answers with a really good question:
“How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born” (John 3:4)?
And, of course, Jesus answers this that he must be baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. But what does it mean to be born again, especially if all of us must be born again?
Scot
I turn immediately to the Book of Mormon to understand what being “born again” means. Alma the Younger, as he comes out of his experience of being struck by an angel and comes to his conversion, he says in Mosiah 27:25-26, he said:
“And the Lord said unto me,”—this is in the midst of his conversion, while he is still in what we might call a coma, a spiritual coma, he says—”Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters;
“And thus they become new creatures; and unless they do this, they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God.” (Mosiah 27:25-26)
What a great description of being born again.
Maurine
And what a requirement. “Become new creatures”? It seems like we spend most of our life trying to be happy with who we are. But here is the Lord telling us that we must “become new creatures”, which I would take to mean that every inclination, every emotion, every thought that is not like the Lord’s must be transformed.
Scot
I like what He says in Isaiah:
“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways […]
“For as the heavens are [above] the earth, so are my ways [above] your ways, and my thoughts [above] your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).
So He’s trying to tell us we are not like Him, but I’m going to—this is the Lord speaking—I’m going to lift you up so that you can be and think like I am and like I think.
Maurine
What an amazing privilege. Elder David A Bednar said:
“We are instructed to ‘come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny [ourselves] of all ungodliness’ (Moroni 10:32), to become ‘new creature[s]’ in Christ (see 2 Corinthians 5:17), to put off ‘the natural man’ (Mosiah 3:19), and to experience ‘a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually’ (Mosiah 5:2).” (Elder David A. Bednar, “Ye Must Be Born Again” April 2007)
Scot
Elder Bednar continues:
“Please note that the conversion described in these verses is mighty, not minor—a spiritual rebirth and fundamental change of what we feel and desire, what we think and do, and what we are. Indeed, the essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ entails a fundamental and permanent change in our very nature made possible through our reliance upon ‘the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah’ (2 Nephi 2:8). As we choose to follow the Master, we choose to be changed—to be spiritually reborn.”
Isn’t that wonderful?
Maurine
It is wonderful, and also means we shouldn’t be too attached to the weaknesses that we have because the Lord wants us to leave them behind, even our favorite weaknesses, whatever they are.
Now, it’s interesting, Scot, once for an institute class, I made a list of what are some of the characteristics of the natural man or woman, and some of the characteristics of the man or woman of Christ. It would be fun to talk about some of these.
Scot
I remember when you did this. I think that one of the first ones you said was the natural man or woman is self-centered.
Maurine
Absolutely. Spends our time watching out for number one. But the man or woman of Christ is other-centered, develops capacity to love and minister and see.
Scot
And on the natural side, the natural man or woman is fearful, afraid of everything, afraid of his own strengths or her own weaknesses, afraid of all the things that come at us in this world, and afraid of exercising good things in life and exercising faith.
Maurine
And afraid of what might be coming tomorrow; whereas the man or woman of Christ is faithful, full of faith. Trust the Lord that He knows how to make all things work together for our good.
Scot
The natural man or woman is stressed. And don’t we see that so much right now? Stressed is really a natural response.
Maurine
Whereas the man or woman of Christ is serene. I love that. “Peace be still,” He says.
Scot
The natural man or woman is negligent.
Maurine
That’s right. Feels overwhelmed, doesn’t want to take these spiritual things too seriously. Whereas the man and woman of Christ is devoted, is a disciple, is willing to have self-discipline in order to follow Christ.
Scot
Well, the natural man or woman is shrinking, shrinking from responsibilities, from things that are given in the kingdom, from things that may be given in family responsibilities, shrinking away from those things.
Maurine
Whereas the man or woman of Christ is courageous.
Scot
The natural man or woman is ignorant of spiritual things. Kind of reminds me of Laman and Lemuel, that they were constantly battling with each other and with their family, with their father, because they knew not that God who had given them life.
Maurine
Whereas the man or woman of Christ is hungry and thirsty for spiritual things. What tangible, wonderful words to be hungry and thirsty.
Scot
The natural man or woman is prideful. They need to be right. That’s just one of their characteristics.
Maurine
Whereas the man or woman of Christ is humble and desires to seek the truth from the One who calls Himself the most intelligent of them all.
Scot
The natural man or woman needs to be special, better than others.
Maurine
Whereas the man or woman of Christ seeks to have the attributes of Christ and sees everyone as a unique and special child of God.
Scot
Well, and one of my favorites, is the natural man or woman is always a victim.
Maurine
All these things happened to me, and they’re all so wrong, and nobody cares about me. Whereas the man or woman of Christ is an agent, knows that he or she can choose, and can choose to live and follow the Lord. One other thing that seems to come to mind is the natural man is resentful; whereas the man or woman of Christ is forgiving.
Scot
That’s wonderful. And the list could go on and on.
Maurine
Forever. I remember it was several, several pages when I did it. Albert Einstein said:
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.”
So the Lord is working on our hearts, and our minds, and He’s transforming our souls if we’ll let Him.
Scot
So how are we born again? By ordinances, of course, and by constant spiritual effort, line upon line.
Maurine
And study of the scriptures. President Spencer W. Kimball said:
“I find that when I get casual in my relationships with divinity and when it seems that no divine ear is listening and no divine voice is speaking, that I am far, far away. If I immerse myself in the scriptures the distance narrows and the spirituality returns. I find myself loving more intensely those whom I must love with all my heart and mind and strength, and loving them more, I find it easier to abide their counsel.” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball, 9)
Now there is one other interesting verse here. In verse eight, He says:
“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).
What does that mean?
Scot
Well, we learn from President Marion G. Romney:
“The Lord was teaching Nicodemus that the process of learning about things from the Spirit is real, even though the Spirit’s workings cannot be understood by those who have not been born again” (Marion G. Romney, “Receiving and Applying Spiritual Truth,” February 1984).
Maurine
And President Gordon B. Hinckley said:
“This thing which we call testimony is the great strength of the Church. It is the wellspring of faith and activity. It is difficult to explain. It is difficult to quantify. It is an elusive and mysterious thing, and yet it is as real and powerful as any force on the earth” (Gordon B. Hinckley, “Testimony” April 1998).
So though we cannot say, “this is the spirit and there it is, we feel it, we know it,” it’s powerful, it’s real.
Scot
We were once trying to take a beautiful image, a picture, a photograph, in Jerusalem to represent the story of Nicodemus coming to the Lord by night. So we were going through the streets of Jerusalem by night trying to find some kind of a house or an entryway or street or someplace where they might have met. And we looked everywhere for this. And, of course, it’s very dark in the old city there, but we kept looking. We finally found this beautiful archway and behind it was this light coming from a house that was tucked in behind and it was kind of spilling down these stairs. And so, it was going to take a very long exposure—this is in the days of just film, no digital in those days—and it was going to take a very long exposure to capture this beautiful scene.
Maurine
So we tried a two minute exposure, and a four minute exposure, and a six minute exposure, and an eight minute exposure. You had the easy job. You just had the camera. I had the hard job. I had to stop every passerby from walking in front of our camera while we were taking this long exposure.
Scot
I thought you did, I thought you did a great job.
Maurine
Not an easy job. That was hard.
Scot
It’s true. But I had that tripod set up and were just waiting and we just watched the clock and everything had to be just right as that was being exposed onto that film.
Maurine
And I remember on that longest exposure, at about six minutes, disaster happened: a cat wandered into the scene and sat on the front porch right where we were taking the picture.
Scot
Right on that step, and it just sat there.
Maurine
Oh! And then we were kind of going “shhh shhhhp, get on, get on!”. And finally, the cat very leisurely, and not paying really much attention to us, wandered on out of the picture. And we thought, oh no that is a ruined picture. And of course, being film, we couldn’t check it as we would be able to check today a digital exposure. So we went home thinking, oh no, our best exposure has a cat in it. And that was the surprise.
Scot
Because when we went to develop the film and look at it, that cat was not there. It had come, it had sat there for some time, and it had left, but it didn’t have enough light on it to actually make it exposed into the picture. And it was gone and disappeared, but we knew the cat had been there. So it kind of reminded us of this teaching about the Spirit cometh and like the wind it listeth where it may. And this cat we know was in there, but we can’t explain it to anyone who really couldn’t see it in that picture.
Maurine
Yes, we call that our invisible cat picture.
Now, I think it’s interesting about Nicodemus because we see him twice more. The question is, did he become a believer?
Scot
We see him later in John 7, where he’s defending the Savior. And the rulers of the people are talking about this Man, and the officers are saying, “Never man spake like this man” (John 7:46), and the Pharisees are very concerned about this. And Nicodemus stands up and he says:
“Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth?
“They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.” (John 7:51-52)
So there he is defending the Savior. So he goes from having come to Him by night and now he defends Him in front of the rulers of the people.
Maurine
And finally we see him at the end of Jesus’ life:
“And after this Joseph of Arimathæa, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus.
“And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes[.] (John 19:38-39)
Of course, that was to anoint the body. So he becomes a much more valiant follower of Christ. He has been convinced. In fact, this is a perfect example of Nicodemus has been born again.
Scot
Let’s now turn to John 4. This is one of my favorite stories. I love this. It starts with Jesus “must needs go through Samaria” (John 4:4). That’s an interesting verse because this is the shortest route, but not the usual route for a Jew in those days. They would always either go all the way over to the Mediterranean and go around Samaria, or they would go down into the Jordan River Valley and walk that way around Samaria. They’re not going to find themselves in Samaria. And the reason for this is because the Jews thought of the Samaritans as a mongrel lot. Back in the day, in 721 B.C., when the Assyrians came and conquered the Northern Kingdom, a number of the Jews stayed behind and they intermingled with the Assyrians. And so that’s why the Jews looked at them as the worst of the worst. They were a mongrel lot. They were people that you would never want to associate with. And so the Jews would avoid them at all cost and avoid walking through even the very land where they lived.
Maurine
Jesus came to Jacob’s Well, and he was there at the sixth hour. The sixth hour in Jewish reckoning was noon. The day began at six a.m., they counted the hours from there, and we see John often referring to the hours of the day. And so this is the sixth hour, and He sees a woman at the well. She has come to draw water. What’s so unusual about that?
Scot
The women always come early in the morning. We’ve been in many third world countries around the well, and the women are always there almost before sunrise. And it’s a very social time. They’re gathering together. They’re talking about their families. They’re sharing stories and challenges. And it’s a very wonderful experience for them, but it’s always early in the morning. And here she comes at noon.
Maurine
This says so much about her. She’s a marginalized woman, a despised woman. It has everything to do with her past. But then something incredible happens, and that is that the Lord begins to talk with her.
So it’s noon, and here is this woman in Samaria there to draw water, and Jesus says to her “give me to drink” (John 4:7).
Scot
I love this scene because the other disciples and those who are traveling with Jesus have gone into the city of Sychar and they are there trying to obtain some food. But, just like later on, we hear the story of the woman taken in adultery, when it gets to the last of that story it’s just the Savior and the woman talking. And here it’s just the Savior and the woman talking. And I think that’s part of the metaphor, or the type, that John is leaving with us, that this is this intimate discussion with just the Lord and one person.
Maurine
The place where we will all be at some day in the future.
Now, I think as modern readers, we do not see how countercultural this is that Jesus would be talking to a woman alone at the well. First of all, Jews did not talk to Samaritans for the very reasons you were just saying. They considered them unclean. And secondly, men did not talk to women. In fact, there was a really strong prohibition against it. Women were both segregated from men, so they weren’t ever around them, and then when they were, they didn’t talk. In fact, there is a Rabbi who said, “we have not found that the Almighty spoke to a woman except Sarah.” And in his view, because the holy book did not record God speaking to women, neither should men. It was very deep into their culture.
Scot
So John’s record includes this astonishment, the woman’s astonishment, at Jesus’ breach of social rules. And so the woman correctly asked him,
“How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?” (John 7:9)
So His behavior kind of cut through all the strongholds of Judaic social norms, and He spoke to the woman. He spoke to a Samaritan. He asked for the water even from an unclean pot. And His actions reinforced His message that God is no respecter of persons.
Maurine
“Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water” (John 4:10).
Now, of course, the woman is extremely confused by this idea and so Jesus goes on to explain what it means in verses 13 and 14:
“Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:
“But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never athirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:13-14).
A perfect complimentary story to what we just read about the wedding at Cana.
Scot
She is very interested in this kind of water because perhaps that would mean that she wouldn’t have to come and draw water from the well anymore if she could have this water that He is talking about.
Maurine
So “Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither.
“The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband:
“For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.” (John 4:16-18)
Now here’s a question. What does this tell us about the Lord and His understanding of her?
Scot
Well, He knows her well. He already knows her. He knows all about her life. And this immediately connects her to Him. And she says:
“Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet” (John 4:19).
You know, this gives her some confidence. It’s also probably not only astonishing but embarrassing. But then He just says “thou hast said well”, and I love that. It just makes her feel like she can be listened to.
Maurine
I love it that the Lord knows us that well, that we are not hidden from Him, but that He knows us well. And in response to His knowing her so well, that’s when she perceives that He is a prophet. I think that is, again, a true idea that when we understand how well the Lord knows us, then we say, hallelujah, I understand who thou art because I can see that thou knows who I am. We feel this again in verse 39:
“And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did” (John 4:39).
Scot
I also love how He really had selected her to be the missionary for this village of Sychar. She runs in there and she says, “come, see!” It’s the same as what John uses in the very first chapter when he says the apostles are saying to her—the future apostles are saying to each other—”come and see, come and see, come and see.” And now this woman of Samaria says, “come, see! We have found the Messiah.”
Maurine
He knows she will be a wonderful witness. So, He not only knows the sad things about her life, but He knows her amazing capacities. What a great thing.
Now, there is an interesting correction on verse 24.
Scot
In the King James Version it says in John 4:24,
“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).
But Joseph Smith gives us the words that were really spoken there:
“For unto such hath God promised his Spirit. And they who worship him, must worship in spirit and in truth” (JST, John 4:24).
Much more clear and correct doctrine.
Maurine
So this is a beautiful and tender scene. The Lord knows this woman. He knows good things about her, not just these negative things that have dragged her down. And He announces to her—the first time we really see it in scripture—that He is the Messiah. That moment speaks acres. It speaks oceans. It says, I will bear testimony to one who looks like they are the least of these. And don’t we all feel like the least of these so often?
Scot
Well, goodbye for now. Thanks again to Paul Cardall for the beautiful music which opens and ends this podcast.
Maurine
And next week we’ll be studying Matthew 5 and Luke 6, which is called Blessed Are Ye, which of course is part of the Sermon on the Mount. We’re looking forward to seeing you then.
Scot
See you next time.
The post “Ye Must Be Born Again” John 2-4 – Come Follow Me 2023 Podcast 7 first appeared on Meridian Magazine.
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