Chapter four of John in the Bible starts off telling us how Jesus was baptizing followers Himself, rather than His disciples, and was being compared to His cousin John the Baptist and even confused with him. Jesus then left Judaea and went to Galilee through Sam-aria as it was in between. Jacob the Jew's ancestor had dug a well that was in that area and Jesus stopped there on the way. As He and the disciples had already come a good ways, they were tired and needed to eat something. Jesus' disciples left Jesus there and went into the town to buy some food for everyone.
In verse number eight of John chapter four, the Bible states that all the disciples had gone to town to buy food. Who then told John about Jesus being approached by this samaritan woman ? This had to have been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit. This alone proves that the words of the Bible, at least in the writings of John, were given by God Himself for John to write down.
You might say, these things were relayed to John by Jesus Himself after the fact, but never does it say, the incident was relayed to John. It is written as though John was right there watching and heard every word. The whole account is backed up by the witness of the samaritan woman herself. She went into the town and told everyone who would listen about her meeting with Jesus and wanted them to come see Him. The disciples knew Jesus was talking with the woman because they saw them talking together on their return in verse 27.
The importance of all this is relayed in 1 Corinthians 15:14-17 where we find that if the the writings of John, if only a story written by a man telling of the life and resurrection of Jesus, are not considered to come from God and are suspect, then so is our belief that Jesus was risen from the dead, and the belief that we are saved by believing Jesus paid the price for our sin. Is our belief futile? Are we still floundering about condemned by our sins? This is where faith comes in.
We must either believe in Jesus as our true saviour, or say it is all just a very good story. The evidence seems to back up the belief that Jesus was a real person, and He really died on the cross. It also seems to back up the claim that Jesus rose from the dead. If you want to look only at the facts, they also seem to bear up the entire story. The New Testament, as we know it, is the best authenticated book in all history with over 260,000, documents in mans possession to document the books in there. Some people say why not some of the other writings from that period? They are not included, because the other supposed 'gospels' or stories are not authenticated by the facts, and do not line up with the books that are "in" the New Testament.
The Bible as we know it came from Martin Luther and William Tyndale, who took the known latin translations and left out the ones that could not be authenticated as being inspired by God, and made up the Old, and New Testaments as well as the Apocrypha, which tells of the time between the Old and New Testaments. The Apocrypha was dropped from the Bible we use around 1885, the official reason given was that the books of the Apocrypha were never part of the original Hebrew writings in the Old Testament, and they were in conflict with the writings of the Old Testament, as well as the fact that though the Old Testament is referred to many times in the New Testament, the books of the Apocrypha are never mentioned. There are many other reasons why these books were left out of our Bibles and there is not enough time for me to go into all of them.
Ultimately, we must either believe that these are the truthful inspired words of God the Creator in these books, or say we are lost in sin and will never be able to make ourselves good enough for God the Creator to accept. As with any addiction, the first thing we must do is admit we need help, we are hooked on being a sinner. We are hooked on sin. The main reason is self. We are hooked on ourselves and our wants and our needs. We ignore the affect our getting our wants and needs has on others unless they tell us. Jesus and His Father God want us to see the big picture, how our wants and needs affect other people around us. God the Father wants us to accept the free gift of forgiveness through the sacrifice His son Jesus made for us at the cross, and make ourselves available for His use in bringing others into His Kingdom.
If you are not saved, then I suggest you find a Church in your area, that is a Bible believing Church, and join up with them in your efforts to spread the Gospel of Jesus. It is up to the Holy Spirit to lead us where we should be, Not the world. If we claim to be saved, but are not led to be doing good works to spread the Gospel, then perhaps it is because of one of two reasons. One, we were never really saved by Jesus, or Two, we have become so numb to the spurring of the Holy Spirit, that we no longer feel when God leads us to do something. Either way, we must first admit,at least to God, that we have an addiction, then do our best to revive the relationship that God wants us to have with Him.
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