In John 4:6,8,31-35 we find Jesus talking to His disciples at a well where He had confessed to a heathen woman that He was the Messiah. He then proved it by telling her about her life. He and the disciples had been walking from Judea to Sychar (Samaria), which was about 20 miles, He had stopped at the well while the disciples had gone on into the city to buy food. Upon their return they were surprised to find Him talking with the woman. When they encouraged Him to eat, Jesus replied, “My meat (Gr.-broma–food) is to do the will of Him Who sent Me and to finish His work.” Recall that He had prayed for God’s will to be done on earth. In speaking with the woman, along with others she would bring to meet Him, Jesus was demonstrating to the disciples (and us) the will of God in action. His ministers are to speak His Truth to any and all who will hear it. God’s ministers are to live what they speak, thereby being His “light” to the world. All others within the Body of Christ are to live according to what their ministers tell them and to support them by meeting their needs, thereby freeing them to focus their time and energy on fulfilling God’s will, which is to take the gospel into all nations (Mat. 24:14).

An interesting aspect of this passage is found in Christ’s statement that He had come to earth to “… finish His (the Father’s) work.” Jesus came to finish the work God had begun with the conversion of Abraham. God’s work was the salvation of mankind, beginning with Abraham’s descendants–the Israelites. Having any dealings with the heathen world was a foreign concept to the disciples who did not understand that the Gentile “dogs” (Mat. 7:6) were to be offered salvation. For this reason they were surprised to find Jesus speaking to the Gentile woman at the well. In this episode Jesus was paving the way for the gospel to be offered to the world’s heathen masses. It is God’s will for all men to be saved. However, as Jesus would later tell His apostles, there was a time order in the spreading of His Truth. The gospel was to go “to the Jew first.” Jesus spent His time on earth among the Jews (tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi), thereby fulfilling the Lord’s “Jew first” command. Following His resurrection Jesus told the apostles not to go to the Jews nor to the Gentiles at that time. Instead, they were to “… go to the lost sheep of the House of Israel (the other 10 tribes scattered throughout the world)” and tell them that their Messiah had come (Mat. 10:6).

Christ’s statement that He had come to finish the Father’s work referred to Him taking the gospel to three groups of people: 1) the Jews, 2) the other 10 tribes of Israel and 3) the Gentiles. He Himself had preached the gospel to the Jews. Through His apostles He would now take it to the (physically and spiritually) lost children of Israel. Afterward, they would offer salvation to the Gentiles. As the God of the Old Testament, Jesus had proclaimed His plan to reach out to the Gentile world through His prophets. Jesus had taken the Father’s Word/Truth (Jn. 17:17) to the Jews. Following His death and resurrection it was time to take it to their fellow Israelites. Then they were to reach out to the Gentiles, which the apostles did then and their modern counterparts do now. This is our “meat”–the focus of our lives. God’s Word is being offered and the world is being given the opportunity to “come and dine.” Sadly, though many are called, few are chosen for having answered His call.

Church laity must have an holy attitude toward God’s Word–it must be their meat, that by which they live. We are what we eat, both physically and spiritually. THE BIBLE IS GOD IN WRITTEN FORM. BY CONSUMING GOD’S WORD AND OBEYING IT WE BECOME THAT WORD IN HUMAN FORM. JESUS–“THE WORD” (JN. 1:1-4)–WAS THE HUMAN REPRESENTATION (FACE) OF GOD WHILE ON EARTH. WE MUST “WALK (LIVE) AS JESUS WALKED (1 JN. 2:6) AND, LIKE HIM, BE THE HUMAN REPRESENTATION (FACE) OF THE FATHER. GOD’S SAINTS ARE THE WORLD’S ONLY VIEW OF GOD. But alas, the world, including the worldly Church, rejects God’s Very Elect, thereby rejecting God, as He said in 1 Samuel 8:7. Jesus would later say that to reject His Word was 1) to reject Him, and 2) to reject the very Words by which all people will be judged (Jn. 12:48-50). L.J.