Grow Guide | January 18, 2026
Text Study for Sunday, January 18, 2026
Series Theme: We Have Heard
Reading: John 4:1-15
CONNECTING QUESTIONS
Tell about a time you assumed you knew something about someone and were wrong. What was that like?
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION
Gracious God,
In this season of Epiphany, we gather as those who have heard the good news proclaimed:
that light shines in the darkness,
that hope is born among us,
that Christ is revealed for the world.
Open our ears again to hear Your Word with clarity and joy.
Open our hearts to receive the mystery made known in Jesus.
By Your Spirit, let what we have heard take root in us,
so that our lives may bear witness to Your glory.
Through Christ, the Word made flesh, we pray.
Amen.
CONTEXT
Epiphany celebrates the Magi finding Jesus and declaring his birth – it’s a season for talking about how the gospel crosses culture and language. Our sermon series, We Have Heard, will show the value of public witness. How will the witness of others grow our faith? How can we be changed by the good news that is Jesus? Often there are cultural barriers to sharing our faith or hearing others' stories, Jesus broke all those barriers for us! Jesus traveled to learn and to teach, to listen and to speak truth, He shared stories to build relationships, to grow His faith. Now it is our turn. Jesus is good news!
From Dr Craig Koester at EntertheBible.org:
Jesus meets a Samaritan woman beside Jacob’s well and tells her about living water. This is the longest conversation that Jesus has with anyone in the Gospels. The woman has come to the well to fetch water for her household but Jesus will offer her living water toward eternal life. The expression living water can have different meanings. In most contexts, living water simply meant flowing water, like the water in a spring or stream. Ordinary living water would quench bodily thirst and thereby enable people to live in the ordinary physical sense. Jesus, however, uses “living water” as a metaphor for the Spirit that meets people’s thirst for life in relationship with God (John 7:37-39). Jesus says that the spiritual water that he provides gives eternal life (John 4:14). The living water brings people into relationship with God and with Jesus. The woman at the well will then share this living water with her townspeople by inviting them to “come and see.”
LOOK AT THE BOOK
How is it with your spirit this week?
What was one take-away from listening to the Carry On Cast podcast that connects with this Grow Guide?
This is the season of Epiphany. What is an epiphany you have had in life? How did it happen?
Open to John 4. Tell about a time you tried to communicate with someone who spoke a different language.
What is happening in John 4:1-3? What is swirling before Jesus meets the woman at the well?
What do you know about Samaria? Find it on a Bible map. Where is Jesus walking to and from?
What is the unique detail about the village of Sychar?
What is the longest journey you have made in life?
What do we learn from the details in verses 7-9?
Why is coming to a well at noon odd?
What assumptions have you made about this woman so far?
Jesus talks about “living water.” What do you think that is?
Baptism is about our identity as a beloved child of God and connects us to Jesus’s life, death and resurrection. How might that influence how we talk to one another as a community?
Jesus crosses many cultural boundaries in talking to this woman. What cultural boundary might Easter being called to cross to “love one another?”
What would you like to talk about that we have not yet?
TAKING IT HOME
The next person you interact with that does not speak the same language that you do, ask their name.
Sending Prayer
God our Creator, through your Son’s teachings you show all your people what it means to follow you. By your Spirit, hold us in this word of challenge and comfort. Keep us faithful to the ways of your Son, who calls us to hear, and in whose holy name we pray. Amen.