Jesus came to the well of Jacob through Sychar, a town in Samaria. He met a Samaritan woman who asked him a question, “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” She referred to Mount Gerizim, the historical worship site of the Samaritans, and contrasted it with Jerusalem, where the temple stood. She was asking whether true worship was to happen on Mount Gerizim, as the Samaritans believed, or in Jerusalem, where the Jews worshiped. She raised a contentious topic between the two groups. 

Jesus answered her with authority. He said, “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.” He was not affirming the Jewish traditions but pointing to the revelation God gave through them, which the Samaritans rejected. However, Jesus did not defer to either side. He said, “Woman, believe me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.” Although the Jewish system was more correct than the Samaritan religion, the Jews themselves had deviated from and added to the revelation of God. Thus Jesus did not equate God’s system with the Jewish system. 

The root issue was that both the Jews and the Samaritans were ignorant of God. Neither of them could claim superiority based on geography alone, and soon it would not matter at all. Jesus came to dismantle all systems built on places, calendars, traditions, and intermediaries. He was the reality and fulfillment of the types and shadows, including the places of worship. He established a total shift away from temple-centered worship. Worship would not be bound to sacred places. 

Then Jesus made the decisive point: “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.” God is spirit. He demands worship that reflects his nature. Worship in spirit does not denote emotionalism or mysticism. Sincerity alone does not suffice either. True worship begins only when there is rational agreement with God’s revelation, where our perception of God is aligned with who he is and what he says. An intellectual understanding and affirmation of the Word must be the foundation. True worship is spiritual. It has to do with what we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths, and not with sacred rituals and locations.