“What’s So Bad About Samaritans?” – FBC Morning Light (6/16/2023)

John 4 and the Samaritan Woman

Well, a good Friday morning. Here we are coming to the end of yet another week. Looking forward to the weekend and to our gathering together again on the Lord's Day. I hope you can do so. I hope you can join us for our Bible study time on Sunday morning at 9 .30, then the morning worship service at 10 .30, and the 6 o 'clock evening service as well.

If you can make any of these, we'd be glad for you to attend, and I know God will speak to you through his word, because he promises to do so. His word will not return void when it goes forth. Well, today, as God's word goes forth, we're reading in our Bible reading plan in 2 Kings 17 and 18, Romans chapter 3, and the second section of Psalm 119, verses 9 through 16.

But today, as we have all week been in the book of 2 Kings, I want to remain there and give us a little background to something we read about in the New Testament and look at passage in 2 Kings 17. You remember in John chapter 4, that's the account of Jesus going through Samaria and encountering and dealing with the Samaritan woman, and she came to faith in Jesus as her Messiah.

But one of the things that's brought out there is as Jesus strikes up a conversation with her, she's startled, because in the first place, in that culture, men didn't strike up conversations with women in a private setting like that, and secondly, Jews didn't speak to Samaritans at all.

She says, how is it that you, a Jewish man, speaking to me, a woman who is a Samaritan? Then John explains that the Jews don't have anything to do with the Samaritans. Why is that? Why was there such an animosity among the Jews toward the Samaritans?

The Assyrian Captivity and the Origins of Samaria

To understand that animosity, we have to go all the way back to 2 Kings chapter 17. The background to what we read here is that the northern tribes of Israel have finally been completely defeated. The Assyrians have come and defeated the entire nation.

They've taken thousands of people into captivity, the Assyrian captivity, and in doing so, they emptied cities of their populations, and they didn't want to leave the land, just completely go to waste, so what the Assyrians did was they transplanted a bunch of people to the area.

And so we read in verse 24, the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avah, Hamath, and from Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel. And they took possession of Samaria and dwelt in the cities.

Of course, Samaria, remember, was the capital city of the northern tribes of Israel. And so all these foreign people, these pagan people from pagan cities and areas, they came and populated the region of Samaria and the cities around Samaria.

Syncretism in the Worship of the Samaritans

And because of their paganism, we read that the Lord sent lions among them and killed some of them, and they were upset about this, and they went back to the king of Assyria and said, hey, we've got to do something about this.

We've got these lions that are attacking us. And it was explained to the king of Assyria, it's because they're not worshiping the god of that land. So the king of Assyria says, well, find one of the priests from Israel and send him there so they can teach the people, the pagans who've been transplanted there, how they should worship the god of that land.

And remember, in that culture there was this sort of territorial concept of the gods, each territory, each nation had its god, and their god was the god of their territory, and that god had to be worshiped in a particular way.

So anyway, that was kind of their mindset. So they send a priest to Samaria, and he starts telling the people, teaching the people, this is how you're supposed to worship the god of Israel. And so then we read this.

The priest went in verse 28 and taught them how they should fear the Lord, and in verse 29 it says, however, every nation continued to make gods of its own, and put them in the shrines on the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in the cities where they dwelt.

The men of Babylon made Succoth and Succoth-Benoth, the men of Kuth made Nergal, the men of Hamath made Ashima, the Abites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Shepherites burned their children in fire to Adramalek and Anamalek, the gods of Sepharvaim.

So, here's the conclusion of the matter, they feared the Lord, and from every class they appointed for themselves priests of the high places who sacrificed for them in the shrines of the high places. So they feared the Lord, that is, they worshipped Yahweh according to the way Yahweh demanded to be worshipped.

Verse 33 says, they feared the Lord, yet served their own gods according to the rituals of the nations from among whom they were carried away. To this day, they continue practicing the former rituals.

They do not fear the Lord, nor do they follow their statutes or their ordinances or the law and commandments which the Lord commanded the children of Jacob, whom they named Israel, and so forth. So, what do we have here is essentially syncretism.

That is, the blending together of the worship of Yahweh with pagan worship as well, and just blending it all together sort of like the attitude of, well, I got to cover all the bases. There are people today who religiously practice that way.

They'll go to a Hindu temple, they'll go to a Buddhist temple, they'll go to a Muslim mosque, they'll go to a Christian church, they'll go to a Catholic church, they'll go to a Protestant church, because they just want to cover all the bases in case they miss one.

That's the root of the animosity that is later felt, expressed by the Jews who are worshiping Yahweh exclusively. So, in the New Testament, the Pharisees and so forth who are trying to worship the Lord in the way that he dictates to be worshiped, they don't want to have anything to do with the Samaritans, because the Samaritans practice corrupt, compromised, syncretistic worship practices.

That's the background to it all. Were the Samaritans wrong? They absolutely were wrong. Is any kind of syncretistic worship in our day wrong? It absolutely is wrong. There is one God who is to be served in one way and worshiped in the way he prescribes in his Word through the one mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And adding and blending any other kind of religious stuff, rituals, practices, and so forth to biblical Christianity is a sinful, syncretistic compromise that must be avoided. Well, I hope that helps understand the background to the Samaritans.

Exclusive Worship of God Through Christ

Our Father and our God, we thank you for offering to us, showing to us, revealing to us how to worship you and you alone exclusively. May we do so, we pray, in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. All right, again, have a wonderful rest of your day, a great weekend, and gather with God's people, learn of the Lord this week, worship and serve him in spirit and in truth.

All right, have a good day. God bless.