A Brief Insight into John 4:20-26

Understanding the worship implications and how they impact our approach

Khen Lim




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Central to John 4:20-26 is the concept of worshipping God ‘in spirit and in truth.’ This is the hallmark of Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s Well. When Jesus revealed His knowledge of not only her many husbands but also her immorality of living with a man who is not her husband, the woman became unsettled and attempted to change the subject to matters of religion. 

Knowing her attempts to distract, Jesus delved into the heart of the matter, saying, ‘But the time is coming – indeed it’s here now – when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship Him that way’ (v23).

In Jesus’ lesson to the Samaritan woman, we learn that worshipping God in spirit and in truth isn’t about being in the ‘right’ location. In other words, the choice of church might not be so vital after all. It also isn’t about the necessary regulations imposed by the temporary provisions of Old Testament law. 

With Christ, the distinctions between Jew and Gentile are forever blurred and irrelevant and with that, the centrality of the physical temple in worship goes up in smoke. With Christ, all of God’s children – including you and I – have unfettered, equal and easy access to God through Him. Christ is, in other words, the key to the door that leads to our Father. And with all of that, worship becomes a matter of the head and the heart and no longer within the strictures of externalities. Worship must then be dictated by truth and guided in spirit in deference to ceremonious irrelevance.

In Deuteronomy 6:5, Moses laid down the template for loving God. He says, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength.’ From this, we will surmise correctly that our worship must be predicated by our desire to love Him with everything we have. This is nothing less than total love in the sense that our love for God is so complete in our hearts and our minds (Mk 12:30, Lk 10:27). And so, as we love Him, so we worship Him in spirit and in truth that necessitates our wholesome enveloping love in our hearts, souls, minds and physical strength.

True worship that is ‘in spirit’ must involve the whole heart. We are to give our heart to God, meaning that if we do not feel our heart swelling for Him, then there is no real passion or spark to speak of. And no real worship in spirit. In the same way, worship must also be ‘in truth,’ meaning that we are to know Who we are worshipping and why. In short, unless we are properly and fully informed, worship becomes as pointless as deifying a piece of furniture. This calls for a need to have sound knowledge and understanding of the God we choose to worship. And there is no other way than to peel open the pages of your Bible and study His Word.

Both spirit and truth are indispensable in honouring God with our worship. Spirit without truth is empty worship. It may be full of emotions but the emotions lead us to nowhere meaningful. It is a high but we will eventually fall back down to earth with a big fat thud. Truth without spirit is drier than a Martini and clinical and cold to touch as a billet of steel. It is passionless and leaves us completely joyless but legalistic.

But when we combine the both, we achieve a very powerful, inspiring and fulfilling worship that shows our true appreciation for God. The more we learn about God, the more we understand why we love Him. The more we increase our appreciation of Him, the greater and deeper our worship. The greater and deeper our worship, the more meaningful our whole life becomes. And the more God is glorified in not just our worship but in our daily lives.