Serving Across Differences: A Three-Session Bible Study

Begin with people whose words and actions matter

The three readings concern differences that the passages themselves name: Jew and Samaritan, Jew and Gentile, people described as far off and near. They do not offer a generic claim that all beliefs or practices are identical. Instead, they show encounters and reconciliation in which truth, listening and God's initiative remain important.

Read the people in each passage as participants rather than as examples of a category. The Samaritan woman asks substantial questions. Cornelius prays, sends messengers and gathers a household. Peter listens, explains and learns. The believers addressed in Ephesians are called to remember their former situation and recognize their new belonging. Their actions help determine what service and welcome mean.

Before each session, read the assigned passage and list who speaks, who listens and who acts. Notice what changes through the encounter. End with a specific practice that respects another person's agency. The aim is to learn faithful service, not to turn someone outside your familiar circle into a project through which you demonstrate your own openness.

Session 1: Jesus begins with a request

Read John 4:1–42. Jesus arrives at Jacob's well weary from the journey, and a woman of Samaria comes to draw water. He asks her for a drink while his disciples are away buying food. The encounter begins with a real request in a place connected with ordinary bodily need.

The woman names the unexpected character of the request: he is a Jew and she is a Samaritan woman. John adds that Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. The difference is therefore part of the text's own account, not something a reader must invent to make the scene significant. Jesus continues speaking with her rather than allowing that difference to end the encounter.

Notice that the passage does not explicitly say she gives him a drink. It moves into the conversation about God's gift and living water. A careful reading can observe Jesus' request without supplying a completed exchange the narrator does not report. That small restraint helps us keep the encounter grounded in the text.

For application, consider the posture of someone willing to ask a question or make a request rather than arriving only as the person with something to offer. Service can include learning what another person knows and hearing what they say. This does not remove your responsibility to speak truth; it makes room for an encounter with a person rather than a speech delivered at them.

The woman’s questions carry the conversation forward

Jesus speaks of the gift of God and living water. The woman asks how he can provide it without a drawing vessel and whether he is greater than Jacob. Her questions respond to what he has said and to the well before them. The conversation develops through her participation, not through her silent acceptance of a lecture.

When Jesus speaks about her husbands, the text reports five past husbands and a present man who is not her husband. It does not explain why those marriages ended. Nor does it say that she comes to the well alone because the town has rejected her. A study should not turn those unreported details into an invented biography of shame.

Jesus acknowledges the truth in her answer that she has no husband. The conversation then moves to worship, and she recognizes him as a prophet. Truth about her circumstances and serious religious questions occupy the same encounter. We do not need to reduce her question about worship to a dishonest distraction; the text does not explicitly assign that motive.

When speaking with someone whose experience differs from yours, listen to the question they actually ask. Do not assume you already know the story behind it or that their background explains every motive. Respectful attention makes it possible to address real concerns without inventing a person who is easier to categorize.

Truthful conversation leads toward testimony and further hearing

The woman asks about the mountain and Jerusalem as places of worship. Jesus answers her question rather than pretending the disagreement does not matter. He speaks of worshipping the Father in spirit and truth and says that salvation is of the Jews. The scene does not support a simple story in which Jewish worship is dismissed and Samaritan identity is idealized.

Jesus announces the coming hour and the Father seeking worshippers. Read those words without adding the claim that sacred places were always meaningless or that the physical world is beneath spiritual life. The passage directs attention to the Father, truth and the identity of the one speaking. When the woman mentions the Messiah, Jesus identifies himself to her.

She goes into the city and invites others to come and see. Many believe because of her testimony; the Samaritans then ask Jesus to stay, and he remains two days. More believe through hearing him themselves. Her witness opens an encounter that continues beyond her first report. The narrative gives her a meaningful role without making other people's faith dependent on never hearing further.

For practice, make room for someone to ask, answer and contribute. In a conversation about faith, you can share what you believe while taking a sincere question seriously. In practical service, you can ask what would help and invite the person to shape the response. Listening is not the abandonment of truth; in this scene, conversation is one of the ways truth is encountered.

Session 2: God’s initiative brings people into an encounter

Read Acts 10 in full. Cornelius is introduced as a centurion who fears God, gives alms and prays. An angel tells him that his prayers and alms have come before God and directs him to send for Peter. Cornelius responds by explaining the matter to servants and a devout soldier and sending them to Joppa.

Meanwhile, Peter goes to pray and receives a vision involving animals, a command to eat and a declaration concerning what God has cleansed. He initially objects. The vision is repeated, and Peter is still considering its meaning when Cornelius's messengers arrive. The Spirit then directs him to go with them.

The narrative therefore includes instruction, uncertainty, messengers and a journey. Peter is not portrayed as having understood every implication before an encounter becomes necessary. He asks why the men have come, hears their explanation, hosts them and then travels with them and companions from Joppa.

For reflection, notice how much learning happens through concrete steps. The chapter's extraordinary visions are not a promise that every reader will receive the same guidance. Yet the story can challenge a habit of demanding complete comfort before listening or engaging. Peter responds to the direction given and enters a situation in which understanding continues to develop.

Peter names what he has learned and hears Cornelius’s account

Cornelius gathers relatives and close friends and waits for Peter. When he falls at Peter's feet, Peter raises him and says that he too is a man. Peter's arrival does not require the household to treat the messenger as divine. His authority to speak remains distinct from a claim to be the source of the salvation he will announce.

Peter then explains that God has shown him not to call any person common or unclean. This is the interpretation he states in relation to entering the house. The animal vision should not be discussed in a way that loses the human encounter the narrative itself emphasizes. Peter is learning how to receive the people before him.

He asks why he has been summoned, and Cornelius recounts his experience. Cornelius then says that those gathered are present before God to hear what Peter has been commanded to say. The scene includes both a commissioned message and serious listening to the host's account. Neither person is reduced to a passive prop in the other's story.

An application can begin by noticing labels that prevent you from hearing a person. A label may describe a real difference, but it cannot tell you everything about their questions, gifts or needs. Peter's account does not erase the differences named in the chapter; it changes how he regards the people across them.

The encounter includes the gospel, the Spirit and baptism

Peter announces that God shows no partiality and speaks of people in every nation who fear him and do righteousness. He then proclaims peace through Jesus Christ, Lord of all. The speech tells of Jesus' ministry, death, resurrection, appointed witnesses, judgment and forgiveness through his name. Welcome does not replace the substance of what Peter has come to say.

While he is speaking, the Holy Ghost falls on those hearing the word. The believers who accompanied Peter are astonished that the gift has been poured out on Gentiles. They hear them speaking in tongues and magnifying God. The story names their astonishment rather than pretending that the encounter merely confirms what everyone already expected.

Peter then asks whether water can be withheld from those who have received the Holy Ghost as they have, and he commands baptism in the Lord's name. The chapter holds Spirit and water together. It should not be used to dismiss baptism as irrelevant because the Spirit has been received. The narrative explicitly continues to the command to baptize.

The household asks Peter to remain for a time. The encounter becomes an ongoing shared presence rather than a moment in which people are briefly acknowledged and then left at a distance. For application, consider whether your welcome allows for relationship, learning and participation after the first greeting.

Session 3: remember distance and recognize shared belonging

Read Ephesians 2:11–22, then look back at verses 1–10. The chapter begins with God's mercy, love and grace, and speaks of people made alive with Christ and created for good works. The later account of belonging grows from that divine generosity. It is not a story of people earning admission through social usefulness.

Verse 11 calls Gentile readers to remember their former situation. Verse 12 describes distance from Christ, Israel's commonwealth and the covenants of promise. Verse 13 then says that those formerly far off are brought near by Christ's blood. The change is attributed to Christ and his work, not to one group's power to make itself acceptable by copying another group's social status.

The passage's references to Israel and the covenants should remain visible. Shared belonging is not an excuse to speak as though those earlier promises and people never mattered. The chapter describes reconciliation and access in relation to the story it names. Careful reading honors that history while attending to the welcome now proclaimed.

For reflection, consider the difference between remembering exclusion in order to practice welcome and using a new position to exclude someone else. The command to remember can cultivate humility. A person who has received belonging has reason to resist turning it into a possession guarded by contempt for others.

Reconciliation is shared access to the Father

Verses 14–18 name Christ as peace and describe the making of both one, the breaking of the dividing barrier, reconciliation in one body through the cross and shared access by one Spirit to the Father. The passage speaks strongly about the ending of enmity. It does not merely ask people to tolerate one another at a safe social distance.

Verse 15 includes difficult and substantial language about commandments and ordinances within this account. Read it with the stated purpose: making peace and reconciling both to God. It should not become a casual claim that every sacred practice God had given was worthless. The argument's focus is the reconciling work of Christ and the ending of hostility.

Verse 19 then describes fellow citizens with the saints and members of God's household. These are images of participation and belonging. A guest who is continually reminded that they have no voice or place does not fully illustrate the welcome those words convey. The passage gives a richer account than temporary permission to remain nearby.

Modern applications require honesty about the difference between a theological declaration and a practical arrangement. The text does not provide a complete plan for every organization. It does challenge a community to ask whether its speech and habits make shared participation possible, and whether status assumptions contradict the belonging it professes.

The building grows through being fitted together in Christ

The closing verses describe a building on the foundation of apostles and prophets with Jesus Christ as chief cornerstone. In him it is fitted together and grows into a holy temple; the readers are built together as a dwelling of God through the Spirit. The repeated emphasis is relational and corporate. The people are not pictured as isolated structures congratulating themselves on independence.

The temple image expresses sacred belonging and God's dwelling. The image affirms God’s dwelling among his people without dismissing the sacred significance of physical places dedicated to him. Let the image do what the text gives it to do: describe a people joined in Christ and inhabited through the Spirit.

Being built together also challenges a view of service in which one group always acts and another only receives. People bring questions, gifts, needs and responsibilities into shared life. That does not make every role identical, but it invites attention to who is permitted to contribute and whose participation is routinely overlooked.

For practice, examine a familiar gathering or service activity. Who helps define the need? Who is asked for advice? Who gets thanked, and who is only described as a recipient? These questions are applications of shared belonging, not a claim that the passage specifies a modern management structure. They can expose habits that a warm welcome alone does not change.

Christ is the center of the encounter and the reconciliation

The three readings name Jesus directly: he speaks with the Samaritan woman and identifies himself as Messiah; Peter proclaims him as Lord of all; Ephesians calls him our peace and the cornerstone. Service across differences is therefore joined to truthful witness and belonging through him. The passages give no need for a forced symbolic connection. They invite readers to listen attentively, speak honestly and recognize the people Christ gathers, with the Spirit and the Father named in the shared access Ephesians describes.

Choose one practice that allows genuine participation

Choose a setting where you already meet people whose background or experience differs from yours. Ask one person what they would find useful, confusing or difficult in that setting. Listen before deciding what the answer means. Do not ask them to represent an entire group or disclose more of their history than they wish.

Identify one practical change within your responsibility. It might be clearer information, a chance for someone to contribute, a more accessible time for a conversation or an invitation to help shape an activity. State what you can offer honestly. A specific improvement is more useful than a broad claim that your community now welcomes everyone perfectly.

Review the action with the person where appropriate. Did it address what they actually said? Did it leave room for their questions and contribution? Did you speak truthfully about your own beliefs and limitations? Shared service can include disagreement handled respectfully; these passages do not promise that every encounter will produce immediate agreement or the same outcome as Acts 10.

A prayer for this study: Jesus, teach me to meet people with truth and attention. Correct the labels that prevent me from listening. Help me speak faithfully, receive what others contribute and make room for practical care. Let the welcome I offer reflect the peace and shared belonging you give. Amen.

Sources and editorial note

• John 4

  Session 1 reads verses 1–42, attending to the woman’s questions, Jesus’ teaching and the town’s further hearing.

• Acts 10

  Session 2 follows the complete narrative: visions, messengers, encounter, proclamation, Spirit, baptism and continued hospitality.

• Ephesians 2

  Session 3 reads verses 11–22 within the chapter’s account of grace, good works, reconciliation and shared belonging.

Prepared with AI assistance for Learn of Christ and checked against the passages and sources listed here. This revision has not received independent human scholarly review. Scripture quotations are from the King James Version unless another translation is named. Prayers and exercises are original examples.

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