Brand-new believers Spreading the word of Christ to unbelievers

In John 4.39 there is the ending part of the story of Jesus talking to the woman at the well in Samaria. In the city Jesus and the woman were in, many people came to believe in Christ because the Samaritan woman had such an incredible encouter with Jesus that she testified to others about the conversation they had, namely that Jesus was able to tell her of all the things she had done. As she “testified” there is a question of how to translate the participle, for it is anarthrous. Some would take it to be an adverbial (temporal) usage, which could be translated “because of the word of the woman as she testified.” (Kostenberger, 164). Perhaps a better translation though would be to take the genitive participle as an object of the preposition διὰ. Though this an interesting option, it should rather be taken as a substantival participle, because when a participle is anarthrous it can be either adjectival or verbal. (Wallace, 619) Thus, the better translation is “because of the word of the woman who testified…” Regardless of the choice of interpreting the anarthrous participle, the importance of her testimony or testifying is that the Samaritans believed in Christ as the savior of the world!

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