How Jesus Treated Women

 

 

I.  How did Jesus treat women?

 

Jesus’ treatment of women was revolutionary!  No where in the Gospels do we see Jesus treating women as inferior second-class beings.  He broke social customs to treat women right.

 

Jesus’ ministry was directed to male and female alike, whether preaching, healing, providing miracles or raising the dead.

 

Jesus’ teaching applied equally to women as to men.  He balanced his parables with male characters and female characters, male activities and female activities, so both genders could hear the good news.

 

Jesus used feminine imagery several times in describing God.

 

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her!  How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!”          Luke 13:34 (NAS)

 

“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one.  Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?  And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’  I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”  Luke 15:8-10 (NIV)

 

Again he asked, What shall I compare the kingdom of God to?  It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked through the dough.”  Luke 13:20-21 (NIV)

 

Jesus used gender inclusive language.  Daughter of Abraham, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, etc.

 

Jesus gave no instructions that apply only to women.  He explained that there are no sexual distinctions in eternity.

 

“For in the resurrected state neither do (men) marry nor are (women) given in marriage, but they are as the angels in heaven.”  Matthew 22:30 (Amp)

 

He did NOT confine women’s role to the domestic sphere, yet he himself frequently served in the role of women and servants.  He cooked meals:

 

When they landed, they saw a fire burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.  Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.”  Simon Peter climbed aboard and dragged the net ashore.  It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn.  Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.”  None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?”  They knew it was the Lord.”  John 21:9-12 (NIV)

 

He fed and showed hospitality by serving the five thousand:

 

For there were about five thousand men.  And (Jesus) said to His disciples, “Have them (sit down) reclining in table-groups (companies), of about fifty each.”  Luke 9:14 (Amp)

 

And washed feet:

 

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place.  “Do you understand what I have done for you?”  he asked them.

John 13:12 (NIV)

 

Jesus rejected the idea that all sexual sin has its origin in women.  It was revolutionary when he said:

 

“but I say to you, that everyone who looks on a woman in lust for her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.”  Matthew 5:28 (NAS)

 

II.                 How was Jesus’ ministry financed?

 

And it came about soon afterwards, that He began going about from one city and village to another, proclaiming and preaching the kingdom of God; and the twelve were with Him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses: Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who were contributing to their support out of their private means.  Luke 8:1-3 (NAS)

 

Verse one shows that these women traveled with Jesus as he preached throughout every city and village.  Nowhere is it written that Jesus expressed disapproval, or at any time did he tell them, “to stay at home and learn of their husbands.”

 

“There were also women looking on from a distance, among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and Joses, and Salome.  These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee: and there were man women who had come up with him to Jerusalem.”  Mark 15:41-40 (NRSV)

“Many women were there, watching from a distance.  They had followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs.  Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.”  Matthew 27:55-56 (NRSV)

 

III.               Who was the first woman evangelist who testified and won many to Christ?

 

The Samaritan woman who was marred by her own sin and marginalized by her social and ethnic diversity, yet Jesus revealed that He was the Messiah to her early in his ministry.  He turned her into an evangelist who evangelized her city

 

Read: John 4:4-42

 

Jesus told his disciples that one sows (a woman!) and another reaps. 

 

“I sent you to reap what you have not worked for.  Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”  Many of the Samaritans from the town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”

John 4:38-39 (NIV)

 

Jesus stayed with the people of the woman’s town at their urging for two days and many became believers because of this woman’s testimony.

 

Something to think about:

 

Read: Mark 7:24-30

 

Jesus went to the vicinity of Tyre and a Greek woman begged Jesus to drive a demon out of her daughter.  Jesus told her that it was not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to dogs.  The woman responded that even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs!  For her faith, Jesus healed her daughter.

 

Later in Acts 21-3-6 find Paul landing at Tyre and finding disciples.  Could it be this Syrophoenician woman had evangelized her town of Tyre just as the Samaritan woman at the well had?

 

IV.               Did Jesus encourage women to learn theology?

 

Rabbinic tradition forbid the teaching of scripture to women and the acceptance of testimony of women in court.  Jesus taught women the scriptures.  Jesus taught the Samaritan women at the well about His Messiahship and true spirituality.  The famous story of Mary and Martha show how Jesus praised Mary for sitting at his feet, listening and learning (John 11).  The KJV says that Mary “also” say at His feet.  Evidently the twelve and other disciples were sitting there with her.

 

In John 8 Jesus sat down and was teaching the people in the temple, when the Scribes and Pharisees brought in the woman taken in adultery.  Jesus must have been in an area of the temple that women were permitted?  This whole chapter 8 if full of teachings including the great “I AM” teaching:

Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you; before Abraham was born, I AM.”  John 8:58 (NAS)

 

“These words He spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one seized Him, because His hour had not yet come.”           John 8:20 (NAS)

 

This verse is often overlooked!  What area was near the “treasury”?  THE WOMEN’S COURT!

 

In Luke 21 Jesus saw a poor widow put her small offering in the treasury!  Again Jesus was teaching in this area of the temple.

 

“Now during the day He was teaching in the temple, but at evening He would go out and spend the night on the mount that is called Olivet.”  Luke 21:37 (NAS)

 

Jesus was teaching at the temple each day.

 

V.                 Did Jesus divinely commission a woman to first proclaim His resurrection?

 

Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”  Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!”  And she told them that he had said these things to her. 

John 20 17-18 (NIV)

 

“The angel said to the women….He is not here; He has risen, just as He said.  Come and see the place where he lay.  Then go quickly and tell his disciples….Suddenly Jesus met them…Do not be afraid.  Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” 

Matthew 285-7,9-10

 

“There is little wisdom in inquiring---shall women preach. When the Head of the Church Himself sent a woman out to preach the Resurrection before the sluggish male disciples had yet had apprehension of the fact”

                      ~Women of the Bible, Dr. H. A. Thompson

 

“And (the women)  returned from the sepulcher, and told all these things unto the eleven, and to all the rest.”  Luke 24:47 (KJV)

 

Who may these “others” have been?

 

“After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brethren at the same time, most of whom are still living though some have fallen asleep.”

 

All four Gospels (Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, John 20) record the great commission that Jesus called men and women to accomplish: To preach “repentance and remission of sins unto all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”  Luke 24:47 (NIV)

 

Is a woman disciple limited in how she may serve her Lord because she is female?  Does it matter whether the message of the kingdom is given by a woman or by a man, to an individual or to a crowd, in a house or in a temple?  The Christian mandate is that unsaved, lost people need to be found and rescued?  Whether this task is undertaken by a man or by a woman, affecting one person or a hundred people is immaterial.

 

Did Jesus say that a woman’s highest calling is motherhood?”

 

In that age women were praised for being “baby machines”, but Jesus valued women’s discipleship over their biological function!

 

As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out,  “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.”  He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word and obey it.”  Luke 11:27-28 (N(IV)

 

It is a wonderful privilege to be married, a wonderful privilege to bring children in the world and raise them for Jesus Christ, but not all women will find themselves in these roles.  Single women and married women without children are no less, not second class, not inferior, in Christ’s kingdom!  Discipleship is what really is valued and commended.

 

VI.               Why didn’t Jesus have any women numbered among the twelve?

Some would say that since Jesus didn’t have any female apostles among the twelve, we can’t have women leaders today.   Jesus was in a setting where he needed people to be with him—these men were chosen for a definite purpose: “that they might be with Him”  Mark 3:14.  Except when Jesus sent them to preach, they were His constant attendants – they accompanied Him day and night.  Such close and sustained association with a member of the other sex would have given rise to defamatory rumor.  He sunned “the appearance of evil.”  Women just could not be with Him everywhere he went.

 

There were areas in the temple that women could not go.  The same was true of the gentiles.  Gentiles could not enter some of the courts of the temple where Jesus preached.  There were no gentiles among the twelve, nowhere there any slaves.  Does that stop gentiles and slaves from ever being used in building the church?  Very soon afterwards, among the deacons, there were gentiles, and others called apostles, even a woman is called an apostle  (Romans 16, some wish to debate this).  So in the very next ripple going outside that culture, there were women and gentile too.

 

There is one definition of Apostle in Acts 1:21-22:

 

“So now we must choose someone else to take Judas’s place.  It must be someone (male or female?) who has been with us all the time that we were with the Lord Jesus—from the time he was baptized by John until the day he was taken from us into heaven.  Whoever is chosen will join us as a witness of Jesus’ resurrection.” (NLT)

 

Many translation use the word “men” or “man” in the beginning of verse 21, however the original Greek doe not seem to contain a masculine word here.

 

The more I study the gospels, the more examples of Jesus’ encounter with women I find.  There are definitely many more than discussed above.

 

For example, the story of the hemorrhaging woman in Luke 8:40-56. 

Why did Jesus call this women back to speak out about what had happened to her?  Could it be that Jesus wanted to make clear to the crowds that he had touched someone “unclean”?  That He performed an act of ritual cleansing, washing from womanhood the degradation of centuries?