41 And a great number more of them came to have faith in him because of what he himself said.
But you will have power, when the Holy Spirit has come on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judaea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
But when they had faith in the good news given by Philip about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, a number of men and women had baptism.
So they, being sent on their way by the church, went through Phoenicia and Samaria, giving news of the salvation of the Gentiles, to the great joy of all the brothers.
The rod of authority will not be taken from Judah, and he will not be without a law-giver, till he comes who has the right to it, and the peoples will put themselves under his rule.
And they were surprised at his teaching, for his word was with authority.
The spirit is the life giver; the flesh is of no value: the words which I have said to you are spirit and they are life.
And in my preaching there were no honeyed words of wisdom, but I was dependent on the power of the Spirit to make it clear to you: So that your faith might be based not on man's wisdom but on the power of God.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on John 4
Commentary on John 4 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 4
It was, more than any thing else, the glory of the land of Israel, that it was Emmanuel's land (Isa. 8:8), not only the place of his birth, but the scene of his preaching and miracles. This land in our Saviour's time was divided into three parts: Judea in the south, Galilee in the north, and Samaria lying between them. Now, in this chapter, we have Christ in each of these three parts of that land.
Jhn 4:1-3
We read of Christ's coming into Judea (ch. 3:22), after he had kept the feast at Jerusalem; and now he left Judea four months before harvest, as is said here (v. 35); so that it is computed that he staid in Judea about six months, to build upon the foundation John had laid there. We have no particular account of his sermons and miracles there, only in general, v. 1.
Jhn 4:4-26
We have here an account of the good Christ did in Samaria, when he passed through that country in his way to Galilee. The Samaritans, both in blood and religion, were mongrel Jews, the posterity of those colonies which the king of Assyria planted there after the captivity of the ten tribes, with whom the poor of the land that were left behind, and many other Jews afterwards, incorporated themselves. They worshipped the God of Israel only, to whom they erected a temple on mount Gerizim, in competition with that at Jerusalem. There was great enmity between them and the Jews; the Samaritans would not admit Christ, when they saw he was going to Jerusalem (Lu. 9:53); the Jews thought they could not give him a worse name than to say, He is a Samaritan. When the Jews were in prosperity, the Samaritans claimed kindred to them (Ezra 4:2), but, when the Jews were in distress, they were Medes and Persians; see Joseph. Antiq. 11.340-341; 12.257. Now observe,
Observe,
Jhn 4:27-42
We have here the remainder of the story of what happened when Christ was in Samaria, after the long conference he had with the woman.
Jhn 4:43-54
In these verses we have,
Observe,