Tonight I am leading a Bible Study on John 4 (Jesus' encounter with a Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well) based somewhat loosely on the Big-hearted Lyfe guide.  This group meets monthly and enjoys what might be described as 'problematising' passages.  Most of the folk who come along are very well read, many have forgotten more than I ever knew about literary matters, and it is not easy to find a new angle, a new approach or whatever.  It probably doesn't help that I have preached on this passage oodles of times and heard oodles of other people preach on it too.

So, in the end I have decided to extend the range of verses beyond those in the guide book, and split the story into four parts.  I have conjured up some discussion starters which I'm not going to post here in case any of the group members happen to read this between now and 7:30.

For anyone else who might be interested, can I suggest you take some time to look at the first seven verses and see how they set the scene for what comes next... what do we learn about the embryonic Jesus' movement?  Why did Jesus et al take the quick route north?  And how did taking that road 'make all the difference' to plagiarise the well loved poem "The Road Less Travelled", though in this case it was possibly the road more travelled...