What Use Is A Well If It Doesn't Have A Bucket.

I came across a question in an article. It was a rhetorical question, but it got me thinking further. The question was “what use is a well if it doesn't have a bucket?”  But indeed, what use is a violin without a bow? Or, what use is a drum without a stick to hit it? It is impossible for someone to applaud anything with only one hand. Bear with me, now……

For years and years I have heard about the spiritual well of Christianity. We used to sing the chorus “There’s a well in me that’s overflowing. There’s a well in me that fills my soul”.

Jesus said it of himself... "But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." John 4:14

But in John ch4 there’s an aspect to the incident of the Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well that is always overlooked. And it is recorded back in verse 11 "The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep:" John 4:11

The Samaritan woman had a bucket to draw water but Jesus didn't. But then again, Jesus didn’t need the bucket. The woman was the one who was drawing water from the well.

The conversation then went on to the provenance of her faith. (v12, 20) She claimed that her faith was as old as Jacob himself and debated that The Samaritans’ faith was as old as Jacob and this was the land that he had left to his ancestors. But she argued that The Jews insisted that God could only be worshipped in Jerusalem.  And Jesus then went on to explain about the Living Water and declared that the time will soon come when God will not be worshipped at this well not in Jerusalem. Jesus then finally revealed Himself to her (v26). Then she went and brought the other Samaritans to hear Him. (V29, 40).

At the start of this blog I posed a question that “what use is a well if it doesn't have a bucket?”  By the end of the Bible passage I was asking “What use is a religion if it doesn't have a Saviour?”

I think the Samaritan woman might have been asking the same thing, too.

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