A Year in Luke/ActsНамуна

For centuries, the Samaritans had not been allowed to go to the Temple in Jerusalem, so they had their own temple on Mount Gerizim. You might remember the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4 asks Jesus which mountain God should be worshiped on, and Jesus says that the time is coming when worship will be about spirit and truth. As human beings become God’s temples, the good news comes to the Samaritans, who, under the old system, could not participate in the heaven-on-earth place:

“The gospel reaches out; and a people who are barred from the Jerusalem Temple, by the Judeans and their own traditions, are embraced within the new heaven-and-earth reality.” (Wright, p47, The Challenge of Acts)