The power of the word

Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me all that I ever did." So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world." (John 4:39-42)

1. I suppose this is the difference between a friend telling you about Jesus vs. you coming to know Jesus yourself. Roughly speaking, this seems to illustrate knowledge by description vs. knowledge by acquaintance.

2. A person can see all the facts and evidences for Christianity and even intellectually assent to belief in Christianity. Take many people who grew up in Christian households. However that's not the same as a person coming to trust and commit themselves to the one, true, and living God, who is the God of the Bible. Consider Bethan Lloyd-Jones' testimony:

[Martyn Lloyd-Jones'] own wife had come into a state of concern and conviction. Having attended church and prayer meetings from childhood, Bethan Lloyd-Jones had always believed that she was a Christian. Not until she heard Martyn preach for the first time (on his second visit to Sandfields in December 1926) was she confronted, in his sermon on Zacchaeus, with an insistence that all men are equally in need of salvation from sin. The message shook her, even frightened her, and she almost resented the teaching which appeared to place her in the same condition as those who had no religion at all. In a sense she had always feared God; her life was upright, and yet she knew that she had no personal consciousness of the forgiveness of sins, no sense of inward joyful communion with Christ. In Mrs Lloyd-Jones' own words:

I was for two years under Martyn's ministry before I really understood what the gospel was. I used to listen to him on Sunday morning and I used to feel, Well, if this is Christianity I don't really know anything about it. On Sunday night I used to pray that somebody would be converted; I thought you had to be a drunkard or a prostitute to be converted. I remember how I used to rejoice to see drunkards become Christians and envy them with all my heart, because there they were full of joy and free, and here I was in such a different condition.

I recall sitting in the study at 57 Victoria Road and I was unhappy. I suppose it was conviction. I felt a burden of sin, and I shall always remember Martyn saying, as he looked through his books, 'Read this!' He gave me John Angell James' The Anxious Enquirer Directed. I have never forgotten what I read in that book. It showed me how wrong was the idea that my sin could be greater than the merit of the blood of Christ - his death was well able to clear all my sins away. There, at last, I found release and I was so happy.

(Iain Murray. The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones: 1899-1981, p 110.)

3. Many people read the Bible but the Bible is a dead book to them. It's no different than reading other ancient texts like Homer, Thucydides, Virgil, Suetonius, the Bhagavad Gita, Norse mythology, the Quran, etc. They might believe in its general historical reliability, that it teaches good morals like loving our neighbors, and so on, but ultimately the Bible isn't any different from other books.

However, on Christianity, the Bible is not a dead book, but a living book: "For the word of God is living and active..." (Heb 4:12). The problem isn't the Bible, but the problem is the person. Their spiritual dullness or deadness: stony hearts. Their spiritual blindness: they see but do not truly see. Their spiritual deafness: they have no ears to hear.