Mensa Otabil - A Religious Argument (10/31/2025)
You’re welcome to a brand new week, and we are continuing our teaching from John chapter 4. We are looking at Jesus’s encounter with a Samaritan woman by the well. So much has occurred during the conversation that Jesus is having with this woman.
In the last conversation we read yesterday, Jesus had asked the woman to go get her husband, and she answered, " I have no husband.» Jesus responded and said, «Yes, you spoke the truth, because you’ve had five, and the one you have now is not yours.» So, in all likelihood, she was with somebody’s husband or probably had not been properly married in that situation.
How does the woman respond to this very penetrating observation from Jesus? John chapter 4, verses 19 and 20 say, «The woman said to him, 'Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.'» After Jesus had revealed the secrets of this woman’s life to her, she probably thought that Jesus was more than just a passing Jewish rabbi moving from village to village. So she said, «I perceive you are a prophet,» which is not bad; she acknowledged that Jesus was somebody special.
However, look at what she does right after that: she changes the subject. She is not talking about the husband issue, she is not even talking about the living water they started discussing, and she is not talking about anything further regarding prophets. Instead, she changes the subject and starts to do what most people do when they feel convicted by the Holy Spirit; they change the subject and begin to throw out a religious argument. So she says, «Sir, I perceive you are a prophet. Now we Samaritans worship on this mountain " (that mountain is Mount Gerizim), «and you Jews say that we should worship in Jerusalem.»
What she is saying is, «Yes, you are a prophet. You know about me, you have living water, but I’m not ready now.» To show that she is not ready or that she is feeling too convicted, she changes the subject to a religious argument. One of the things you would find is that as the Holy Spirit convicts people of sin, as people come face to face with the reality of who Jesus is, they will throw out some argument about which religion is best. They might say, «Are you telling me Christianity is the best religion? Is Jesus the only way? Are you saying everybody else is going to hell?» They forget about their own situation and start talking about everybody else.
Now, Jesus is dealing with a woman, but she’s talking about Jews and Samaritans. This is the classic way in which people try to turn the conviction of the Holy Spirit into a debate. Now, if you are a Christian and you are presenting the gospel to people, you have to be careful not to get caught up in a religious debate. Nobody attains salvation by winning a religious debate. From what I’ve come to realize, it’s almost impossible to win a religious debate. Christianity is about the relationship God wants to have with us; it’s not about whose religion is right and whose religion is wrong.
We will find out how Jesus answered this woman later on, and that will tell you how God sees this whole issue concerning which religion is superior. Christianity is not about religious superiority; it’s about a personal relationship with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. God will reach out to everybody, no matter what their religion is, for Jesus is the Savior of all.
So, the woman deflects the argument, and tomorrow we’ll see how Jesus addressed the subject that has been hijacked by the woman at the well. I trust that as you go out evangelizing, God will help you with the wisdom to present the gospel without offense to many people.
Let’s pray. Say with me, «Heavenly Father, help me not to harden my heart when your Holy Spirit convicts me of my sins. In Jesus’s name, amen and amen.»