Verse from John

“你们不是说‘还有四个月才到收获的时候’吗？我告诉你们，举目向田观看，庄稼已经熟了，可以收割了。”
‭‭约翰福音‬ ‭4:35‬ ‭

“Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.”
‭‭John‬ ‭4:35‬ ‭

Context is significant for understanding the meaning of a passage in Scripture. The context for today’s passage gives some eye-raising information to the original reader. These verses follow the story of the woman at the well. She was a Samaritan, a people-group the Israelites hated.

Jesus’s words “Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest” (John 4:35) follow John’s statement that the people “came out of the town and made their way toward him” (v. 30). In other words, Jesus was telling the disciples that God’s harvest of people was right in front of them and from a group they would have least expected.

This is partly why Jesus says we reap what we have not worked for. The disciples had not worked for the harvest of Samaritans; indeed, they probably never would have dreamed of working for such a harvest. But our God is a great gardener and He grows fruit where we cannot.