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7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a])
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
The Disciples Rejoin Jesus
After all, a gang of 13 Jews entering the Samaritan village of Sychar, uninvited, with meager food supplies and no water, just woun't have gone over in the same way! LOL!
The Disciples Rejoin Jesus
27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 35 Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.36 Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. 37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. 38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”
Many Samaritans Believe
39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.
42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said. Now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
~ John 4 NIV
Originally posted by lonewolf19792000
reply to post by NewAgeMan
And in going away to go back to his deep Jewish spiritual roots and to prepare himself for re-entry, while retaining a state of absolute purity for say about 18 years, might the historical Jesus not be considered a human historical crossroads in and of himself, spanning not only Jewish tradition and understanding, but also Greek thought, Egyptian thought, to the the living streams of Toaism (that arose from the sacred science of Brahamidva), of which there were three - eminating from three enlightened masters who lived almost contemporary to one another approx 500 years B.C., and what does the star of Bethlehem signify as an allegory, and the three gifts of the Three Wise Men from the Orient (far east), could that represent the three flavours of Taoism in the persons of Lao Tsu, Confucius and Buddha? All of that certainly could be the case if during "the lost years" he was in Persia, and beyond, where ideas about spiritual growth and perfection formed the very lifeblood of the whole civilization, while the Temple back home became increasingly corrupted by Roman Imperialism and by a strict religious doctrine and code of conduct and ritual devoid of any real heartfelt love and devotion which in Jesus' world is synonymous with the very will of the most high Godhead.
The 3 magi who found Yeshua as a child (toddler) came from Babylon, 700 miles to the east. They came bearing Daniel's gifts. On his deathbed Daniel told the Israelites who stayed with him after the captivity was over to deliver his treasure to the Messiah at his birth. Daniel was a biblical astronomer and prophet, he knew when Yeshua would be born. He was made a eunuch and so he had no sons so he sent his treasure to the Messiah down through the ages. You can tell the Magi were jews because they wanted to worship the new "King of the Jews". The Tetragrammaton YHVH was encoded in his name and title that they spoke, the very same title that was nailed to the cross over his head at his crucifixtion, Yeshua Ha'neseret Ve'melekh Ha'yehudim...YHVH (YHWH).
The "lost years" of Christ were not spent learning mysticism and all that other crap. He was the adopted son of a carpenter and he would have been learning the trade as the firstborn son would have taken over his father's trade. It was as a carpenter where he began to learn he was a maker/builder. At the age of 12 he was schooling pharisees in the law and he knew things he should not have and it astonished them. I don't believe those stories about him talking as a baby. What Mary and Joseph knew of him was told to them by Gabriel.
Originally posted by NewAgeMan
Originally posted by johngrissom
Absolutely extraordinary! Thanks so much for sharing. The conclusion he draws, at the very end, about superdeterminism, that, is the God I know and have encountered once myself. It's him!
While everyone else just posted knee-jerk based on all their preconceptions and biases, that flew right under the radar, and isn't that the way!
Quite the sense of humor and TIMING this God of ours has. It's incredible, yet credible, from every angle and perspective.
Originally posted by NewAgeMan
I think we're both right, in so far as Jesus was himself a highly trained individual who left and then returned to Jewish society AND that the Magi were Jews connected to Daniel, since no one else, not even Zorastrians from Persia are going to rush to Judea to worship a child as their king, that makes no sense.
32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work."
17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
Revelation 22:17 KJV
Originally posted by NewAgeMan
How did he KNOW and know what to do? Was he boxed in by prophecy? Or did he not also see and recognize in the framework of that box something greater still, that imbedded within it, and within his Magnum Opus (Great Work) resided both his own ultimate liberation, and our own..? ("If I seek only my own glory then that is no glory at all!").
Originally posted by NewAgeMan
The "Last" Supper
Fastforward approximately 35 years:
A man, a Pharisee, rides a galloping horse on the road to Damascus, his mind driven by a singular religious conviction, his heart, by an anger verging on hatred and a lust for vengeance growing only stronger with each arrest (and even the occasional "sentence").
Galloping..galloping...
WHAM! Blinding White Light, ("I can't SEE!"). THUD. Hit's ground. Tumbles to a painful stop ("WTH?"). Hears a voice, a pleasing to the ear almost mirthful, and certainly a kind, loving voice...
"Saul. Saul. Why do you persectute me?"
"Who ARE you Lord..?!!!"
Originally posted by adjensen
reply to post by NewAgeMan
Thanks, NewAgeMan... after an evening of watching Richard Dawkins (for something else) that was the perfect prescription to counter that nonsense
I think I'll listen to Lockridge's "That's My King" (with thanks to NOTurTYPICAL for always bringing that to my mind) to finish off the night.
Originally posted by NewAgeMan
reply to post by adjensen
Thank you too! At first I wasn't sure, though the folksy black minister of the south might have been putting one over on me, but then it continued.... and now here I am in tears, look what you've done to me!
And it's true.
Thank God or we'd all be totally screwed, but gratitude and joy, not fear is the real response. He's the courage, on the other side of fear (said like a black preacher!)
Nighty night.
Love to all, in Christ, the everlasting happiness... etc etc.,
NAM
Originally posted by NewAgeMan
reply to post by jmdewey60
Originally posted by jmdewey60
reply to post by NewAgeMan
Paul said Jesus was resurrected, and that is the main thing and different Gospel writers can describe what they think happened when that fact was discovered and I don't think it is so defeating to their integrity that they don't match up. It could be there was an inclination to add some profundity to the telling that kind of goes over our heads today, not being in the same sort of cultural milieu as they were.
. . . the bulk of the Gospels holds water and there is most assuredly a historical Jesus present in the midst of it all, it's unmistakable.
I think it is helpful to me to know that there are little hidden messages built in and to be open to finding them. I have been reading a couple authors who have spotted those things and I seek those out (in addition to the more mainstream sort of interpreters of course).
What, you don't think Jesus completed the whole ritual and finished what he started? Don't be absurd, it's no FUN without the resurrection, and it means everything. Did he totally die DIE? I don't care, all I know in examining the whole thing is that it was meaningful and that he knew what he was doing, and that he was obediant unto death. If his resurrection was "seeded" into the minds of people like Nocodemus and Joseph of Aramathea, or even a certain Roman soldier, that they came to recognize and understanding what he was doing, made it possible, makes no difference if Jesus was himself double-blind going into the ordeal, and suffer grievously he certainly did either way. I think he made it through by a mere thread, but that's just me. Nevertheless, the whole ritual as an enactment of an eternal evolutionary process of death and resurrection still functions, within the entire frame of prophecy, to a t (literally) That it was done in conjuction with the natural order also of the clockwork and the prophetic, communicative movement of the moon, the sun and the starry skies, well, let's just say it's the whole work, whether Jesus completely and utterly DIED and came back to life, or not!
Don't you see the marvel in it, in what he did, and why?
Read the passage involving the Road to Emmeus, and note how the resurrected Jesus, while still bearing physical wounds (now well on the mend), talked with his friends and explained everything to them, while employing the art of disguise, even asking for food when he was hungry, and you'll see. He made it! He went thorugh the eye of the needle, a "camel" or water bearer, across the desert of human history!
But he didn't know precisely HOW it was going to happen, until it happened, until he woke up naked, or bandaged, in that tomb, enough water to go three days, not even knowing until it happened how or who orchestrated it ie: he left it in God's hands. Mind you, upon awakening and realizing what happened, I'm sure he danced around in that tomb while praising God and shouted out, NICODEMUS! And laughing his ass off no doubt too!
And note the men in dazzling white, who the women encountered when they went to the tomb to treat the body as per custom, and what they said (no doubt there again either) with a very big smile..
When you consider the principal at the heart of it, it doesn't matter if there ARE any bones, because it's the kind of thing you just can't make any bones about!
P.S. I realize I misinterpreted precisely what you said, which was that the fact was spun in different directions, but I'm not about to edit or mess with what I just wrote so I therefore wan't to communicate this little P.S. here, so that you'll know I know we're both on the same page. Cheers, NAM