by Hugh DeLong<\/p>\n
“You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews<\/em>” (John 4:22).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The background of this discussion is found in the history of the Samaritans. In short, they are descendants of Jews who returned from Babylonian captivity and intermarried with people who had been moved there during the same period. This, of course, happened over 400 years earlier and thus many generations.<\/p>\n
A long-standing debate developed: What does Scripture say about worship? The New American Commentary states concerning this:<\/p>\n
“The Samaritans argued that their temple was authorized by Moses (cf. Deuteronomy 27:4 in the Samaritan Pentateuch, which reads “Gerizim” instead of “Ebal”). They contended that Gerizim was the place that fulfilled the prediction of God’s “dwelling” (cf. Deuteronomy 12:5), which was called the mountain of God’s blessing (Deuteronomy 11:29 as here in John 4:21-24 over against Ebal)” [NAC (see another quote below)].<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Based on this, the Samaritans built their own temple on Mt. Gerizim and had their own religious rules for worship.<\/p>\n
With this background, and sensing that Jesus was a prophet, the woman took the opportunity to find an inspired solution to this old debate! Jesus’ answer probably came as a bit of a shock. In simple terms, the Samaritans were wrong, and the answer lay with the Jewish scriptures.<\/p>\n
Jesus here gives us some concepts about the worship of God.<\/p>\n
\n
- Worship of God is desired.<\/li>\n
- Worship of God is regulated<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Before Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, this was found in Old Testament revelation.<\/p>\n
The change is that ‘a time is coming’ when there would be a change! “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers<\/em>” (John 4:23).<\/p>\n
Such time has come!<\/strong> As the Hebrew writer stated: “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world<\/em>” (Hebrews 1:1-2).<\/p>\n
But that change is not that we are free to worship God in any way that we <\/strong>desire. Our worship is still desired and regulated, but that is found in New Testament revelation.<\/p>\n
The struggle today is about what is revealed. Many still, like the Samaritans, worship what they do not know – i.e., they worship according to their <\/strong>desires and not according to God’s revelation. This challenges us: do we know<\/strong>\u00a0what we worship? Is our <\/strong>worship based upon Scripture? Do you <\/strong>know what you worship?<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Hugh DeLong “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22). The background of this discussion is found in the history of the Samaritans. In short, they are descendants of Jews who returned from Babylonian captivity and intermarried with people who had been…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[1093,761,84],"class_list":["post-98741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-knowledge","tag-understanding","tag-worship"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":88790,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/worship-in-spirit-and-truth\/","url_meta":{"origin":98741,"position":0},"title":"Worship in Spirit and Truth","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 19, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton While it is true that worship must be in spirit (sincere and involving our hearts) and in truth (truly yielding to what God's word says, not following the commandments of men), the text in John 4:20-24 seems to point to something more. The discussion with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":88520,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-the-holy-spirit-not-bound-by-only-the-words-in-the-bible\/","url_meta":{"origin":98741,"position":1},"title":"Is the Holy Spirit not bound by only the words in the Bible?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 9, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi Jeff, I heard a sermon a while ago, and someone recently shared it on Facebook to say that brethren are too worried about emotionalism, and they don't worship in the Spirit and truth as God intended. \"The Holy Spirit is not bound in the words alone within the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18583,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wasnt-the-conversion-of-the-samaritans-proof-that-god-wanted-gentiles-saved\/","url_meta":{"origin":98741,"position":2},"title":"Wasn’t the conversion of the Samaritans proof that God wanted Gentiles saved?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 18, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Good day, The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Cornelius and his family was proof that the Gentiles were also accepted by God without the law or becoming a Jew, but Samaritans (Acts 8) were already being baptized into Christ before Acts 10. Was that not proof or were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":91601,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-samaritans-and-jesus\/","url_meta":{"origin":98741,"position":3},"title":"The Samaritans and Jesus","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 27, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Hugh DeLong If you study the history of the Samaritans and the Jews, particularly noting the events leading up to the time of Jesus, you will see the great animosity between them. John simply adds an explanation to help clarify this animosity in John 4:9: \"For Jews have no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":69626,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/room-for-all\/","url_meta":{"origin":98741,"position":4},"title":"Room for All","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 3, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Allen Dvorak via Biblical Insights, Vol. 15, No. 1, January 2015 \"Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before\u00a0him and to loose the belts of kings,\u00a0to open doors before him that gates may not be closed: 2 \"I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":97449,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/you-shall-not-act-like-this-toward-the-lord-your-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":98741,"position":5},"title":"You Shall Not Act Like This Toward the Lord Your God","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 21, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Zeke Flores \"You shall not act like this toward Yahweh your God\" (Deuteronomy 12:4). Deuteronomy 12 focuses on worship, but not vaguely. In Deuteronomy 12:4, Moses is referring to the casual, anything-goes worship practices of the surrounding nations. Israel wasn't supposed to improvise their own version of worship; God\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98741"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98744,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98741\/revisions\/98744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}