Interpret → Preach
For the service
John Wesley’s own Explanatory Notes Upon the Old and New Testament on the day’s readings — his verse-by-verse commentary, not a summary of it. Read the full edition ↗
first Exodus 17:1-7
- v.1They journeyed according to the commandment of the Lord, led by the pillar of cloud and fire, and yet they came to a place where there was no water for them to drink — We may be in the way of our duty, and yet meet with troubles, which Providence brings us into for the trial of our faith.
- v.5Go on before the people — Though they spake of stoning him. He must take his rod with him, not to summon some plague to chastise them, but to fetch water for their supply. O the wonderful patience and forbearance of God towards provoking sinners! He maintains those that are at war with him, and reaches out the hand of his bounty to those that lift up the heel against him. If God had only shewed Moses a fountain of water in the wilderness, as he did to Hagar, not far from hence, Gen. xxi, 19, that had been a great favour; but that he might shew his power as well as his pity, and make it a miracle of mercy, he gave them water out of a rock. He directed Moses whither to go, appointed him to take of the elders of Israel with him, to be witnesses of what was done, ordered him to smite the rock, which he did, and immediately water came out of it in great abundance, which ran throughout the camp in streams and rivers, Psalm lxxviii, 15, 16, and followed them wherever they went in that wilderness: God shewed his care of his people in giving them water when they wanted it; his own power in fetching it out of a rock, and put an honour upon Moses in appointing the water to flow out upon his smiting of the rock. This fair water that came out of the rock is called honey and oil, Deut. xxxii, 13, because the people's thirst made it doubly pleasant; coming when they were in extreme want. It is probable that the people digged canals for the conveyance of it, and pools for the reception of it. Let this direct us to live in a dependance, 1. Upon God's providence even in the greatest straits and difficulties; 2. And upon Christ's grace; that rock was Christ, 1 Cor. x, 4. The graces and comforts of the Spirit are compared to rivers of living waters, John vii, 38, 39; iv, 14. These flow from Christ. And nothing will supply the needs and satisfy the desires of a soul but water out of this rock. A new name was upon this occasion given to the place, preserving the remembrance of their murmuring, Massah - Temptation, because they tempted God, Meribah - Strife, because they chide with Moses.
psalm Psalm 95
- v.3God's — Above all that are called God's angels, earthly potentates, and especially the false gods of the Heathen.
- v.4Hand — Under his government. Strength - The strongest or highest mountains.
- v.7Pasture — Whom he feeds and keeps in his own pasture, or in the land which he hath appropriated to himself. The sheep - Which are under his special care. Today - Forthwith or presently.
- v.8Harden not — By obstinate unbelief. Provocation - In that bold and wicked contest with God in the wilderness. Temptation - In the day in which you tempted me.
- v.9Works — Both of mercy, and of justice.
- v.10Do err — Their hearts are insincere and bent to backsliding. Not known - After all my teaching and discoveries of myself to them; they did not know, nor consider, those great things which I had wrought for them.
- v.11My rest — Into the promised land, which is called the rest, Deut. xii, 9. This psalm is a part of that which was delivered to Asaph and his brethren, 1 Chron. xvi, 7, on occasion of bringing up the ark to the city of David. Here is a call to praise God, as a great and glorious God, ver. 1-9. To rejoice in his judging all the world, ver. 10-13.
second Romans 5:1-11
- v.1Being justified by faith — This is the sum of the preceding chapters. We have peace with God - Being enemies to God no longer, ver. 10; neither fearing his wrath, ver. 9. We have peace, hope, love, and power over sin, the sum of the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters. These are the fruits of justifying faith: where these are not, that faith is not.
- v.2Into this grace — This state of favour.
- v.3We glory in tribulations also — Which we are so far from esteeming a mark of God's displeasure, that we receive them as tokens of his fatherly love, whereby we are prepared for a more exalted happiness. The Jews objected to the persecuted state of the Christians as inconsistent with the people of the Messiah. It is therefore with great propriety that the apostle so often mentions the blessings arising from this very thing.
- v.4And patience works more experience of the sincerity of our grace, and of God's power and faithfulness.
- v.5Hope shameth us not — That is, gives us the highest glorying. We glory in this our hope, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts - The divine conviction of God's love to us, and that love to God which is both the earnest and the beginning of heaven. By the Holy Ghost - The efficient cause of all these present blessings, and the earnest of those to come.
- v.6How can we now doubt of God's love? For when we were without strength — Either to think, will, or do anything good. In due time - Neither too soon nor too late; but in that very point of time which the wisdom of God knew to be more proper than any other. Christ died for the ungodly - Not only to set them a pattern, or to procure them power to follow it. It does not appear that this expression, of dying for any one, has any other signification than that of rescuing the life of another by laying down our own.
- v.7A just man — One who gives to all what is strictly their due The good man - One who is eminently holy; full of love, of compassion, kindness, mildness, of every heavenly and amiable temper. Perhaps-one-would-even-dare to die - Every word increases the strangeness of the thing, and declares even this to be something great and unusual.
- v.8But God recommendeth — A most elegant expression. Those are wont to be recommended to us, who were before either unknown to, or alienated from, us. While we were sinners - So far from being good, that we were not even just.
- v.9By his blood — By his bloodshedding. We shall be saved from wrath through him - That is, from all the effects of the wrath of God. But is there then wrath in God? Is not wrath a human passion? And how can this human passion be in God? We may answer this by another question: Is not love a human passion? And how can this human passion be in God? But to answer directly: wrath in man, and so love in man, is a human passion. But wrath in God is not a human passion; nor is love, as it is in God. Therefore the inspired writers ascribe both the one and the other to God only in an analogical sense.
- v.10If — As sure as; so the word frequently signifies; particularly in this and the eighth chapter. We shalt be saved - Sanctified and glorified. Through his life - "Whoever liveth to make intercession for us."
- v.11And not only so, but we also glory — The whole sentence, from the third to the eleventh verse, may be taken together thus: We not only "rejoice in hope of the glory of God," but also in the midst of tribulations we glory in God himself through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation.
gospel John 4:5-42
- v.5Sychar — Formerly called Sichem or Shechem. Jacob gave - On his death bed, Gen. xlviii, 22.
- v.6Jesus sat down — Weary as he was. It was the sixth hour - Noon; the heat of the day.
- v.7Give me to drink — In this one conversation he brought her to that knowledge which the apostles were so long in attaining.
- v.8For his disciples were gone — Else he needed not have asked her.
- v.9How dost thou — Her open simplicity appears from her very first words. The Jews have no dealings - None by way of friendship. They would receive no kind of favour from them.
- v.10If thou hadst known the gift — The living water; and who it is - He who alone is able to give it: thou wouldst have asked of him - On those words the stress lies. Water - In like manner he draws the allegory from bread, chap. vi, 27, and from light, viii, 12; the first, the most simple, necessary, common, and salutary things in nature. Living water - The Spirit and its fruits. But she might the more easily mistake his meaning, because living water was a common phrase among the Jews for spring water.
- v.12Our father Jacob — So they fancied he was; whereas they were, in truth, a mixture of many nations, placed there by the king of Assyria, in the room of the Israelites whom he had carried away captive, 2 Kings xvii, 24. Who gave us the well - In Joseph their supposed forefather: and drank thereof - So even he had no better water than this.
- v.14Will never thirst — Will never (provided he continue to drink thereof) be miserable, dissatisfied, without refreshment. If ever that thirst returns, it will be the fault of the man, not the water. But the water that I shall give him - The spirit of faith working by love, shall become in him - An inward living principle, a fountain - Not barely a well, which is soon exhausted, springing up into everlasting life - Which is a confluence, or rather an ocean of streams arising from this fountain.
- v.15That I thirst not — She takes him still in a gross sense.
- v.16Jesus saith to her — He now clears the way that he might give her a better kind of water than she asked for. Go, call thy husband - He strikes directly at her bosom sin.
- v.17Thou hast well said — We may observe in all our Lord's discourses the utmost weightiness, and yet the utmost courtesy.
- v.18Thou hast had five husbands — Whether they were all dead or not, her own conscience now awakened would tell her.
- v.19Sir, I perceive — So soon was her heart touched.
- v.20The instant she perceived this, she proposes what she thought the most important of all questions. This mountain — Pointing to Mount Gerizim. Sanballat, by the permission of Alexander the Great, had built a temple upon Mount Gerizim, for Manasseh, who for marrying Sanballat's daughter had been expelled from the priesthood and from Jerusalem, Neh. xiii, 28. This was the place where the Samaritans used to worship in opposition to Jerusalem. And it was so near Sychar, that a man's voice might be heard from the one to the other. Our fathers worshipped - This plainly refers to Abraham and Jacob (from whom the Samaritans pretended to deduce their genealogy) who erected altars in this place: Gen. xii, 6, 7, and Gen. xxxiii, 18, 20. And possibly to the whole congregation, who were directed when they came into the land of Canaan to put the blessing upon Mount Gerizim, Deut. xi, 29. Ye Jews say, In Jerusalem is the place - Namely, the temple.
- v.21Believe me — Our Lord uses this expression in this manner but once; and that to a Samaritan. To his own people, the Jews, his usual language is, I say unto you. The hour cometh when ye - Both Samaritans and Jews, shall worship neither in this mountain, nor at Jerusalem - As preferable to any other place. True worship shall be no longer confined to any one place or nation.
- v.22Ye worship ye know not what — Ye Samaritans are ignorant, not only of the place, but of the very object of worship. Indeed, they feared the Lord after a fashion; but at the same time served their own gods, 2 Kings xvii, 33. Salvation is from the Jews - So spake all the prophets, that the saviour should arise out of the Jewish nation: and that from thence the knowledge of him should spread to all nations under heaven.
- v.23The true worshippers shall worship the Father — Not here or there only, but at all times and in all places.
- v.24God is a Spirit — Not only remote from the body, and all the properties of it, but likewise full of all spiritual perfections, power, wisdom, love, holiness. And our worship should be suitable to his nature. We should worship him with the truly spiritual worship of faith, love, and holiness, animating all our tempers, thoughts, words, and actions.
- v.25The woman saith — With joy for what she had already learned, and desire of fuller instruction.
- v.26Jesus saith — Hasting to satisfy her desire before his disciples came. l am He - Our Lord did not speak this so plainly to the Jews who were so full of the Messiah's temporal kingdom. If he had, many would doubtless have taken up arms in his favour, and others have accused him to the Roman governor. Yet he did in effect declare the thing, though he denied the particular title. For in a multitude of places he represented himself, both as the Son of man, and as the Son of God: both which expressions were generally understood by the Jews as peculiarly applicable to the Messiah.
- v.27His disciples marvelled that he talked with a woman — Which the Jewish rabbis reckoned scandalous for a man of distinction to do. They marvelled likewise at his talking with a woman of that nation, which was so peculiarly hateful to the Jews. Yet none said - To the woman, What seekest thou? - Or to Christ, Why talkest thou with her?
- v.28The woman left her water pot — Forgetting smaller things.
- v.29A man who told me all things that ever I did — Our Lord had told her but a few things. But his words awakened her conscience, which soon told her all the rest. Is not this the Christ? - She does not doubt of it herself, but incites them to make the inquiry.
- v.31In the meantime — Before the people came.
- v.34My meat — That which satisfies the strongest appetite of my soul.
- v.35The fields are white already — As if he had said, The spiritual harvest is ripe already. The Samaritans, ripe for the Gospel, covered the ground round about them.
- v.36He that reapeth — Whoever saves souls, receiveth wages - A peculiar blessing to himself, and gathereth fruit - Many souls: that he that soweth - Christ the great sower of the seed, and he that reapeth may rejoice together - In heaven.
- v.37That saying — A common proverb; One soweth - The prophets and Christ; another reapeth - The apostles and succeeding ministers.
- v.38I — he Lord of the whole harvest, have sent you - He had employed them already in baptizing, ver. 2.
- v.42We know that this is the saviour of the world — And not of the Jews only.