Rivers of Living Water

Rivers of Living Water
John 7.31-39

‘A pint of water every hour, and don’t forget!’

I was setting off into the desert, and my host was understandably anxious. Coming as I did from a cool and damp climate, I might easily forget how important it was to keep drinking plenty of water. Even though I was only going out for the day, to walk in the hills above the ancient settlement of Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, it would be quite possible to become seriously dehydrated. Every soldier in the army, I was told, drank a pint of water every hour when they were on exercises in the desert, and so should I.

When you’re in that kind of climate all sorts of things in the Bible suddenly make new sense. Most of the Bible, after all, was written in the Middle East, where much of the land is desert and water is quite simply the number-one requirement wherever you go. If a town or tribe has a good water supply, from a stream or spring or well, it can thrive; if it hasn’t, it can’t...

Taken from John for Everyone – by Tom Wright