From
that city many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman, who testified, “He told me everything that I did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they begged him to stay with them. He stayed there two days. Many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of your speaking; for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”
John 4:39-42
John 4 [34.] Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work. Don’t you say, ‘There are yet four months until the harvest?’ Behold, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and look at the fields, that they are white for harvest already. He who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit to eternal life; that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this the saying is true, ‘One sows, and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you haven’t labored. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
John 4 [39.] From that city many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman, who testified, “He told me everything that I did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they begged him to stay with them. He stayed there two days. Many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of your speaking; for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”
John 4 [43.] After the two days he went out from there and went into Galilee. For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. So when he came into Galilee, the Galileans received him, having seen all the things that he did in Jerusalem at the feast, for they also went to the feast. Jesus came therefore again to Cana of Galilee, where he made the water into wine. There was a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to him, and begged him that he would come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Jesus therefore said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders, you will in no way believe.”
Meaning:
These verses bring the story of Jesus in Samaria to its joyful end. The harvest Jesus spoke of (John 4:35-37) is gathered in before the disciples’ eyes. Faith spreads in two stages: first through the woman’s testimony, then through hearing Jesus himself. The passage closes with one of the greatest confessions in John’s Gospel, spoken by people whom many Jews despised.
- “Many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman”
The woman’s testimony was simple: “He told me everything that I did.” She did not hide her past; she pointed to the one who knew it and had not rejected her. God used the witness of an unlikely person, a woman with a troubled reputation in a culture that gave little weight to women’s testimony. John uses the same word, “testified,” that he uses for John the Baptist and the apostles. Her words did what all true witness does: they led people to Jesus. As Paul says, “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17).
- “They begged him to stay with them”
The Samaritans, who normally had no dealings with Jews (John 4:9), now beg a Jewish teacher to stay. Prejudice gives way to hunger for truth. Jesus, who had been refused hospitality in another Samaritan village because he was heading for Jerusalem (Luke 9:51-56), gladly accepts. The word for “stay” is the same John uses for remaining or abiding. Like the two disciples who once stayed with Jesus all day (John 1:39), and the disciples at Emmaus who urged him, “Stay with us” (Luke 24:29), the Samaritans want more time in his company.
- “Many more believed because of his word”
Two days with Jesus produced a wider harvest. The woman’s testimony brought people to him, but it was his own word that deepened and spread their faith. John records no miracles in Samaria. Unlike the Galileans who would soon demand “signs and wonders” (John 4:48), these Samaritans believed through hearing Jesus.
- “We have heard for ourselves”
The townspeople are not belittling the woman. They are saying that their faith now rests on personal knowledge of Jesus, not only on someone else’s report. This is the goal of every witness: to bring people to meet Christ for themselves. Jesus prayed not only for his first disciples but “for those also who believe in me through their word” (John 17:20).
- “This is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world”
This title appears in the Gospels only here, and once more in the New Testament: “the Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the world” (1 John 4:14). The Samaritans grasp something many in Israel had not: Jesus is not merely a national deliverer but the Saviour of all peoples. John the Baptist had called him “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), and Jesus had told Nicodemus that God sent his Son “that the world should be saved through him” (John 3:17). God had promised through Isaiah that his servant would be “my salvation to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6). In Sychar that promise began to come true.
The Significance of John 4:39-42
- Every believer can be a witness
God used the simple testimony of a woman with a broken past. Anyone who has met Jesus can say, “Come and see,” and leave the rest to him.
- Faith that is personal
Faith often begins through someone else’s testimony, but it must become our own. Each of us needs to hear Christ for ourselves in his word.
- A Saviour for all peoples
Jesus is the Savior of the world, not of one nation or group. The Good News that reached the Samaritans is meant for every people on earth (Acts 1:8).
Cross-References:
1 John 4:14: “The Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the world.” The same confession in John’s letter.
Romans 10:17: “So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” How faith spreads.
Isaiah 49:6: “That you may be my salvation to the end of the earth.” God’s purpose for the nations.
Acts 8:14: “Samaria had received the word of God.” The harvest in Samaria after Pentecost.
Conclusion: In John 4:39-42 many Samaritans believe in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, then invite him to stay, and many more believe after hearing him for themselves. They confess him as “the Christ, the Savior of the world.” The passage shows how God uses ordinary witnesses, how faith becomes personal through hearing Jesus’ word, and how his salvation reaches beyond every boundary to all peoples.
PIB Scriptures are derived from the World English Bible