The Farewell Teachings of Jesus

The synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, all record a last supper of Jesus with his disciples, followed by prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane and then, finally, the arrest of Jesus in the garden. (See Matthew 26: 17-56, Mark 14: 12-42, and Luke 22: 7-45.)  The apostle of John elaborates on these events by providing additional details about the upper room conversations including more private instructions which occur after the traitor, Judas, has been dismissed.

Merrill Tenney calls this "The Period of Conference" in his commentary on the Gospel of John. These last teaching of Jesus roughly follow the five chapters of John 13-17. They include:

1. The Last Supper, including washing the disciples' feet and the dismissal of Judas,
2. The announcement of upcoming events followed by questions from Peter, Thomas, Philip and Judas (not Iscariot). 
3. These responses elaborate the teachings on the Holy Spirit (John 14.)
4. Teachings on the Vine, primarily John15
5. Teachings on the eventual conflict with the world, primarily John 16,
6. Lengthy prayer for the disciples, John 17.

Some of these teachings occur in the Upper Room in Jerusalem; some presumably occur while walking to the Mount of Olives.

Here is an online exposition of this passage, as a series of linked sermons (I think)from Bible.org.

There are a number of good Wikipedia articles on the Last Supper and the Farewell Discourse, along with an article on the Cenacle, a supposed location of the upper room in Jerusalem.

The Samaritans

A reader of the New Testament learns that there is a collection of people called "the Samaritans." They are mentioned by Jewish leaders in derogatory ways (in the Gospel of John, for example) while Jesus uses them in his story about the "Good Samaritan."  The Samaritans represent a New Testament ethnic and racial division and it is interesting to see how Jesus interacts with the Samaritans.

To the devout Jew, the Samaritans were a mixed breed, involved in a false version of Judaism. To many the term "Samaritan" was derogatory. When Nicodemus challenges the Jewish leaders in John, they respond by calling him a Samaritan.

The Samaritans developed as a separate, distinct portion of Israel, probably around the time of the Assyrian invasion in 721 BCE. They may have originated from the northern tribes of Israel and were later accused of intermarriage with the local, pagan inhabitants.  A lengthy Wikipedia article on the Samaritans provides considerable details of their history.

In that racial environment, Jesus goes out of his way to include them in his ministry.  He deliberately begins a conversation with a single Samaritan woman in John 4, breaking a number of social taboos. He heals Samaritans in the gospels.  He uses a Samaritan as his central figure in a lecture on the meaning of the phrase "Love your neighbor" (see Luke 10: 30-37.)  Luke's gospel also records Jesus healing ten lepers; it is the Samaritan who returns to thank him (Luke 17: 11-19.) In John 8, Jesus is accused of being a Samaritan, a charge which he does not refute.  (He is also charged with being demon-possessed and does respond to that accusation.)

In Acts, Samaria is the next region, after Judea, to be evangelized. (Acts 1:8, Acts 8:1-25.)

John's Presentation of the Messiah

Theologian Merrill Tenney outlines the Gospel of John as follows:

1. 1: 1 - 1: 18, Prologue
2. 1: 19 - 4: 54, Period of Consideration
3. 5: 1 - 6: 71, Period of Controversy
4. 7: 1 - 11: 53, Period of Conflict
5. 11: 54 - 12: 36a, Period of Crisis
6. 12: 36b - 17: 26, Period of Conference
7. 18: 1 - 20: 31, Period of Consummation

(Obviously Tenney enjoys poetically making everything "P... of C...".  He also seems to like 7 divisions for this book.)

In the "Period of Consideration", Tenney sees Jesus presented at the beginning of his ministry to a number of different groups.  In chapter 1, John the Baptist claims witness to the Messiah and introduces the Messiah to his disciples.  In chapter 2 of John's gospel, Mary presents her son to family and disciples, after which Jesus makes a statement in Jerusalem about the future of Jewish worship by driving out the temple merchants.  A Jewish religious leader, Nicodemus, gets a private interview in chapter 3, followed again by witness from John the baptist.  After that, a non-Jew, a woman from the reviled Samaritans, also gets a private interview.

These presentations of the Messiah occur primarily in Judea and Jerusalem and apparently happened before the opening of Jesus's great Galilean ministry.  A. T. Robertson, in his classic harmony of the gospels, puts the opening of Jesus's Galilean ministry, recorded in Mark 1:4, Matthew 4:17 and Luke 4:15, after the visit with the woman of Sychar, which ends at John 4:45.

Beginning in John 4:46, Jesus is presented to the people of Galilee as he heals a nobleman's son in Cana, the site of the earlier wedding.  The nobleman is from the town of Capernaum, a place that Jesus will shortly set as his home.