What Time Is It? Time For God To Fulfill His Purpose
What time is it?
Ecclesiastes says, To everything there is a SEASON, a TIME for every PURPOSE under the sun.
I love studying the original language definitions of Scripture, and I love sharing what I find as well! Here is the original language definitions of Season, Time, and Purpose in The Complete Word Study Dictionary of the Old Testament:
1. Season - when used in Ecclesiastes, speaks of everything having a predestined time.
2. Time – speaks of time in a general sense, but context clarifies the specifics of the time.
3. Purpose – in Ecclesiastes, carries the idea of inclining toward something.
Understanding that everything has a season and time for every purpose, let’s talk about a familiar story in John 4.
The story is about a woman most often known, as the woman at the well. Many years ago, when I studied her story in great detail, I renamed her The Thirsty Woman With A Messy Life. The reason I named her this is based on my own deep, kindred connection with her. I feel like I know her because our stories parallel in many ways.
The initiation of her story illustrates Ecclesiastes 3:1 before she even entered the scene in John 4:4.
“But He (Jesus) needed to go through Samaria.” John 4:4
I remember the day the words, “He needed” struck me for the first time. The fact that Jesus needed to do something caused me to sit in wonder and ask the question, Why would Jesus NEED to do anything?
John clearly painted a picture of Jesus’ humanity showing that He was weary and thirsty. But the fact that Jesus needed to go through Samaria stood out to me like a neon sign saying, PAY ATTENTION! So, I did.
Context And Culture of Jesus’ NEED. (John 4)
Jesus was a Jewish rabbi. The Jewish world deemed Samaritans unclean which meant they avoided Samaria even if it meant taking the long way and going all the way around Samaria. However, Jesus did not avoid Samaria but intentionally went through Samaria. Was it because His humanity was overruling His divinity? Was He so tired and thirsty that spiritual things needed to be pushed to the side? Or, was it something else?
Everything in me shouted, IT’S SOMETHING ELSE!
Once again, I looked beyond the English language to get answers.
What did John truly mean when he wrote that He (Jesus) NEEDED to go through Samaria?
The Complete Word Study Dictionary of the New Testament defined the word needed in the original Greek language as, “the necessity established by the counsel and decree of God, especially by that purpose of His which relates to the salvation of men by the intervention of Christ.”
Zondervan’s Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary stated that the word needed, “indicated necessity: That Jesus going through Samaria was according to the plan and will of God.”
WOW!!! Did you get that? Take a moment and let that definition sink in. Jesus’ need was 100% not about His humanity, but instead about His divinity. We are about to see a season, predestined time, play out before us. Jesus’ need was about divine purpose, that inclined Him toward Samaria.
When I originally studied this, I was in Seminary getting my Bachelor’s degree. I told my professor, who also taught Greek, about what I had found related to the meaning of the word, needed. My professor said, “Yes Pat, Jesus’ need – pointed out a DIVINE APPOINTMENT.
Specificity Of This Divine Appointment
I think it is very interesting the specificity of details John gives us as he recounts the details of this story of a scandalous divine appointment. When reading John 4:5-6 below, see it from the perspective of looking through a telescope and narrowing the focus.
So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar,
near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
Now Jacob's well was there.
Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well.
It was about the sixth hour.
John 4:5-6
John gives us a satellite view of this divine appointment beginning with the broader picture of the region of Samaria. Then he narrows the focus, pointing to Sychar, a Samaritan city, then zooming in to a plot of ground, and next, to Jacob’s well. Finally, John specifies the time.
What time is it?
It is about the sixth hour. It is about the sixth hour. In today’s terms, it was noon, the hottest time of the day, the time when no one else wanted to come. And John 4:7 zeros in on the actual target.
John 4:7 says, A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
There in the cross hairs of God’s lens we see a woman with a bad reputation who had come to draw water from the well. She came alone because alone in her shame was easier than enduring the scorn of her shame from others. However, this time, she would not be alone.
Just as she intentionally came to the well at that hour, so did Jesus. He knew there would be a thirsty woman with a messy life there at that specific place and time. Remember Ecclesiastes 3:1, To everything there is a SEASON, a TIME for every PURPOSE under the sun.
John 4 shows us a season in human time when God came to earth with the intentional and specific purpose of offering the gift of salvation, i.e. true, abundant, and eternal life.
John 4 tell us that Jesus knew this woman’s story, her reputation, and her character flaws. Just like walking through an unclean city did not deter Jesus, neither did this woman’s shortcomings. Jesus purposed that moment in time to offer eternal thirst-quenching water that would take her messy life, redeem it and use it.
Her life was purposed for that time in history to be written and told throughout the ages. God purposed your life for this time in history.
So dear Sister, What time is it for you?
Are you thirsty? Is your life messy? What season of life do you find yourself in?”
Jesus knows where you are, what you are doing, and why you are doing it. He knows your story and your needs. What if you begin to see your past, your shortcomings and even your character flaws as a divinely purposed story that reveals the perfect will of God?
Take this moment as your divine appointment and drink from the fountain of living water that never runs dry and allow His cleansing water to transform the story of your life, just like this woman.
