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A Missional perspective of John 4:1-42 : Hearing Jesus and the Samaritan woman and its Implicationsfor the Mission of the Contemporary Church

Traditionally, it has been argued that the Gospel of John was never a mission book (Missionsschrift) but rather a “Gemeindeschrift” written to confirm or deepen the faith of the early Christians of the Johannine community. In this study however, it is argued that although John’s Gospel may be encouraging to believers, the author rhetorically intended to persuade his readers to embody the missional motif, which started with the mission of Jesus. The narrative of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4:1-42, is investigated as an example of how Jesus for the sake of His mission crossed all barriers of His time to reach out to the Samaritans and therefore issued a pattern, which is to be followed by His followers. It is also argued that when the mission of Jesus and the narrative of the Samaritan woman are integrated, an ethical missional paradigm is constructed in which the believers as members of God’s family are called to embody the “missional ethics” of Jesus. Finally, it is argued that the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman could be interpreted as a narrative of social and spiritual reunion with moral principles that challenges the contemporary church to embark on missional journeys of restoration as Jesus did with the Samaritans. / Dissertation (MA Theol)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / gm2014 / New Testament Studies / Unrestricted

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:up/oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/42106
Date January 2014
CreatorsAbia, Peter Anibati
ContributorsKok, Jacobus (Kobus)
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeDissertation
Rights© 2014 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria.

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