A story is told of a young soldier in the army of Alexander the Great who became so paralyzed with fear during a battle that he turned and fled. When the battle was over, the young soldier was caught and brought before the great general himself. Alexander the Great looked at the soldier and said to the young man, “What’s your name?” 

The soldier replied, “My name is Alexander.” 

“Well son,” Alexander the Great replied, “you either change your conduct or change your name.” 

Many of us have the privilege (or burden) of carrying the name of another. Women often carry the name of their husband. Sometimes we are named after a parent or relative. Sometimes our names have special significance or meaning. Names are important, but what happens when we strip away the name?

For the next several issues, we will be looking at interactions Jesus had with people in the Bible whose names the Gospel writers chose not to record. It is as though these stories are so important that the writers of the Bible desired for the story itself to take precedence over the characters within it. 

Today, we look at John 4, where we find the longest conversation of Jesus recorded in the Bible, and yet, the woman with whom Jesus spoke remains nameless. What do we know about her?

The first thing John tells us about her is that she was a Samaritan and a woman. These two facts alone should have precluded any conversation with Jesus. It was not proper for a man to speak in public to a strange woman, especially if that man was a religious teacher or leader and since wells were often associated with romance, especially if that conversation took place around the town well. If a man was looking for romance, he might go down to the well to “spy” on the women as they gathered the day’s water. It was seen as a sort of unsavory and creepy thing to do. 

Moreover, John points out in verse 5 that Jews do not associate with Samaritans. This was especially true of Samaritan women who were considered unclean. For a Jewish man to touch a Samaritan woman or even to touch an object that a Samaritan woman had touched would have also made that man unclean. In the time of Jesus, being declared unclean meant that a man would have been in danger of God’s wrath until he underwent ritual purification. It is little wonder that the woman is surprised by the request of Jesus to give him a drink and that the disciples are “amazed” by the scene in verse 27. 

To Jesus, this woman was more important than any social or religious stigma. She mattered. Jesus specifically chose to travel this route. John 4:4 says simply, “He had to go through Samaria on the way.” This was despite the fact that Jews routinely made long detours to bypass Samaria. 

Amazingly, we matter to God. We matter beyond our name. We matter beyond our nationality. We matter beyond whatever titles we might possess. As we can see from the rest of the story, we even matter beyond our reputation. Jesus has made a divine appointment with every single heart, because we matter to Him, and He desires that no one goes thirsty. 

Jacob’s well, the well at which Jesus and the Samaritan woman met, was deep. This meant that the water never rose to the surface. As the woman points out to Jesus, one requires some sort of vessel that must be lowered into the ground to get this water. Someone could not merely walk up to the well and get a drink. It required effort. In fact, getting the household’s water was a never-ending daily task. For most of human history, the availability of fresh water guided human settlement and activity because healthy people require water daily. For this reason, when Jesus talks about giving away fountains, the woman exclaims, “give me this water.” 

With his next statement, Jesus draws the connection between what is true physically and what is true spiritually. Part of the issue between Jews and Samaritans revolved around where they worshipped. Jews worshipped at the Temple in Jerusalem. There were three pilgrimage festivals to the Temple every year. The Jewish religion revolved around temple sacrifices and ritual. We see this in the life of Jesus, who was presented at the Temple when he was a baby and whose visits to the Temple were recorded in the gospels. Samaritans, on the other hand, focused their worship practice on Mount Gerizim. Like the Jews, Samaritans had three pilgrimage festivals each year to the top of Mount Gerizim. Religion for both the Jews and the Samaritans focused on a specific place, and they argued about the exact location of that specific place. 

What they did not argue about was the fact that only men had access to the most holy places and only men offered the sacrifices. When Jesus tells the woman to go call her husband, all hope of receiving what Jesus has vanishes. She has no one who will make the claim for her to receive this fountain, just as she has no one who will ascend the mountain, enter the inner court, or make the sacrifice. “I have no husband.”Let’s ignore what comes next, the enigmatic line, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband”(John 4:17-18 NIV). It is easy to go down the rabbit hole of theories about exactly what Jesus meant. Was the woman a prostitute? An adulterer? A widow? Why did she choose to come to the well at noon in the heat of the day rather than in the cool of the morning when the well would have been crowded with people? Was she ostracized? Ashamed? Forced to hide away from her community? 

The important part is not that we know but that in this moment she knew that Jesus knew. Jesus knew more about her than that she was a woman. Jesus knew more about her than that she was a Samaritan. As she would later testify, Jesus knew everything about her, including the fact that she had answered correctly, “I have no husband.” Jesus knew that there was no one who could claim the water for her, so to her, Jesus reveals the truth that He is the Messiah, the Savior of the world. Because we matter, God Himself chose to come to us and become a spring of living water which brings life wherever or whenever or to whomever worships in spirit and truth.  

Worship is no longer constrained to one mountain or to the next. Worship is no longer constrained to the person with the perfect past. God in Jesus, the Messiah, the Savior of the world, came to us. Holy Spirit abides within us. As Paul tells the believers in Corinth: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is within you, whom you have [received as a gift] from God, and that you are not your own [property]?” (1 Corinthians 6:19 AMP). Every believer has become a well of living water spewing forth eternal life. 

The Samaritan woman is a testament to this very fact. While we might not know her name, we know for certain that because of her, many more names were written in the Lamb’s book of life. We read in verses 28-29: “So the woman left her waterpot and went into the city, and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is He?” And in verses 40-42, we see the result of her testimony: “So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. Many more believed because of His word; and they were saying to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One truly is the Savior of the world’’’ (NIV). Indeed, as her story is shared and re-shared over the years, even more people have come to know Jesus. She truly became a spring of living water.

That opportunity, promise, is still available for each of us today. Jesus knows everything we have ever done. He knows our talents. He knows our skills. He also knows our failures. He knows our doubts. He knows our secret thoughts. He knows our most private and hidden sin. He clearly sees all the good and the bad. In fact, He sees the wholeness of our lives much clearer than we ourselves see our lives. Knowing all of that, Jesus chose to come to us at exactly the place where we are to offer us the water of life. Like the Samaritan woman, we have the choice to leave behind our baggage, our shame, our sin, and to follow Jesus. We can have that river of life flowing in and, then, out of us. 

At The Salvation Army’s Camp Mihaska in Missouri, there’s a beautiful, crystal-clear spring. Often it is called the bottomless spring, even though it seems like you can see the bottom because the water is so clear, and you can see rainbow trout darting around it. Professional divers have gone into the spring and tried to locate the bottom of the spring, the source of all that water. Even with all their equipment and expertise, there came a point where the divers had to abandon their efforts. It just became too dangerous. The force of the water and the direction of the spring could not be determined. 

Springs of living water might sound safe, might sound serene and inviting even, but make no mistake: To choose to dive into the love and mercy of Jesus is just as dangerous as choosing to dive to the bottom of that spring in Missouri. We will never reach the bottom. We will never exhaust its mysteries. It is a leap we take by faith. Today, the question we must answer is, are we content to keep going to the well, or are we ready for that spring of living water to take us where God leads?

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Jesus and the Samaritan Woman: John 4:1-38

Jesus knew the Pharisees had heard that he was baptizing and making more disciples than John (though Jesus himself didn’t baptize them—his disciples did). So he left Judea and returned to Galilee.

He had to go through Samaria on the way. Eventually he came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.” He was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food.

The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?”

Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”

“But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water? And besides, do you think you’re greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his animals enjoyed?”

Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”

“Please, sir,” the woman ​said, “give me this water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to
get water.”

“Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her.

“I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied.

Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband—for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet. So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?”

Jesus replied, “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”

The woman said, “I know the Messiah is coming—the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Then Jesus told her, “I am the Messiah!”

llustration by Nicole Rifkin | This article was originally titled “Nameless and Known: The Samaritan Woman” in the January 2026 issue of The War Cry.