21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” John 4 (ESV)
What is meant by worshiping "in the Spirit and in truth"? Truth is not capitalized. It is not prefaced by the article "the." I'm used to understanding this verse in terms of worshiping as the Spirit leads grounded, rooted, established, growing out of the Truth of Who God is. But is that what this passage is saying? I mean, it makes sense. But it seems a little too removed from the situation at hand, too academic. The story of the woman at the well encountering Jesus is powerful and intimate. Jesus opens by displaying his own needs--he is tired, and he is thirsty. Against all cultural bounds, he asks the woman there for a drink. Which quickly turns into a discussion about spirituality, Jewish history, and eternal thirst. Jesus sees straight into her heart, sees her need and desire. Immediately following these verses, Jesus discloses to her that he himself is the long-awaited and desired Messiah. This story is full of heart-communication. (Yes, I just made that up. But it fits.) "Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know..." It is true that there is a mind-knowing, communicated in French using the verb <savoir>, and a heart-knowing, communicated with the verb <<connaitre>>. I don't know Greek, so I can't tell you what the verb is in this verse. (If anyone would like to enlighten me, I'd love to hear it!) I feel like the context, including the interaction that is happening, the desire being answered with these statements, God's desire for worshipers who worship "in the Spirit and in truth", lends itself to more the heart-knowing usage of the word know here. In which case, an exhortation to worship in the Spirit and in truth given to mean Spirit-led and Truth-grounded, while accurate, feels a little..stilted, academic, heady to me. I could be wrong here. I really could. I'm just thinking about this, and I'd love feedback here. What if, what if, "in truth" means "in sincerity"? What if this is an exhortation to be led by the Spirit (who communicates Truth) and to be honest and sincere in worship? Without pretenses or pretexts?
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