4:4

Samaria: In Jesus’ time, Samaria was the name of the Roman district through which Jesus occasionally traveled. Later, his disciples took the message of Christianity there. Though its exact boundaries are not known today, it lay between Galilee in the N and Judea in the S, and it extended W from the Jordan River to the coastal plains of the Mediterranean Sea. For the most part, the district embraced the territories once belonging to the tribe of Ephraim and the half tribe of Manasseh (W of the Jordan). Though Jesus occasionally passed through Samaria on his way to and from Jerusalem (Joh 4:3-6; Lu 9:51, 52; 17:11), he told his apostles to avoid preaching in Samaritan cities because their primary assignment was to go “to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” that is, the Jews (Mt 10:5, 6). This restriction, however, was for a limited time only. Just before his ascension to heaven, Jesus told his disciples that they should carry the good news to “Samaria” as well as “to the most distant part of the earth.” (Ac 1:8, 9) When persecution broke out in Jerusalem, some of the disciples, Philip in particular, declared the good news throughout Samaria. Peter and John were later sent there so that the Samaritans could receive holy spirit.​—Ac 8:1-17, 25; 9:31; 15:3.