Bible Studies
![](images/web_arrow.gif)
![](images/web_arrow.gif)
![](images/web_arrow.gif)
Report Article
Dr. Luke is the only Gospel writer who tells the stories of Mary and Elizabeth who was the mother of John The Baptist. He alone tells of Anna the prophetess. At the end of Christ's life He alone tells of His words to the daughters of Jerusalem who lamented as He was led to the cross. He tells more of the story of the women's role at the empty tomb. In Acts He gives women a major place; more so than many of the twelve Apostles. Mary at pentecost and then Sapphira, Priscilla, Drewsilla, Bernice, Tabitha, Mary the mother of John Mark, Rhoda, Lydia, The Slave Girl, Damaris of Athens, the four daughters of Phillip, and Paul's sister as an incidental reference in Acts 23:16.
Dr. Luke might well be called the Father Of Women's Equality. His Gospel is an example of a marvelous balance of men and women. It was so different from other Jewish writings that were dominated by men. In his Gospel God deals directly with women and not just through their fathers or husbands as we see in 1:25 with Elizabeth. If we survey the book we see this emphasis on women. Largely about Elizabeth and Mary, but with a balance of Zechariah, Joseph, and the shepherds.
2:36-38 Anna the prophetess balances the story of Simeon.
4:25-26 The widow balances out the male leper story in verse 27.
4:38-39 Peter's mother in law is healed balancing the healing of the man.
7:11-17 Story of the widow of Nain right after the story of the Centurian.
7:36-50 The sinful woman balancing the story of the Pharisees.
8:1-3 Women balancing out the 12 disciples.
8:43-48 Healing of woman right after healing of demoniac.
8:40-56 Healing of daughter showing female child of equal value.
10:38-42 Women learned and became disciples as well as men.
13:10-17 Healing of woman in synagogue where they were to be silent.
15:8-10 A woman's loss to balance out the shepherds loss.
17:32 Lot's wife.
17:34-35 Female image balancing male image.
18:1-8 Widows need.
21:1-4 Widow honored.
22:54-57 A woman brings shame on Peter.
23:27-31 Women at the cross in a positive role.
23:55-56 Women at the tomb balancing the role of Nicodemus and Joseph.
24:1-12 Women play a major role in resurrection story.
Luke begins and ends his Gospel with women in a major role with a generous sprinkling of female involvement along the way. The Speaker's Bible says, "St. Luke's Gospel has been called the Gospel of womanhood. The word "woman" accures in Mark and Matthew 49 times, and in Luke alone 43 times, almost as many times as in the two others put together."
E.M. Blaiklock writes, "Macedonian inscriptions bare witness to the respected and responsible position of women in the Northern Greek communities," and suggestions that the exaltation of womanhood in the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts fits well with the tradition that Luke was a Macedonian." Here is another way of seeing the balance of men and women in Dr. Luke.
Zachariah 1:5-22,26-38 Mary
Simeon 2:25-38
Naaman 4:25-27 Widow
Demoniac 4:31-39 Peter's mother in law
Centurian 7:1-17 Widow of Nain's son
Pharisees 7:36-50 Public sinner
Twelve 8:1-3 Women followers
Demoniac 8:26-56 Woman with hemorage and daughter of Jairus
Samaritan 10:29-42 Mary and Martha
Men 11:31-32 Queen of South
Dropsey 13:10-17 Crippled woman - 14:1-6
Mustard 13:18-21 Woman with yeast
Shepherd 15:4-10 Woman with ten coins
Sleeping 17:34-35 Women grinding
Pharisees 18:1-14 Widow
Scribes 20:45-21:4 Widow's mite
Joseph 23:50-56 Women from Galilee
Disciples 24:1-35 Women at tomb
In the book All We Were Meant To Be, Letha Scanzoni and Nancy Hardesty wrote, "In speaking of liberation for the Christian woman, we are not thinking of an organization or movement, but rather a state of mind in which a woman comes to view herself as Jesus Christ sees her-as a person created in God's image whom he wants to make free and whole, to grow, to learn, to utilize fully the talents and gifts God has given her as a unique individual."
2:36-38
36 And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher; she was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years from her virginity,
37 and as a widow till she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.
38 And coming up at that very hour she gave thanks to God, and spoke of him to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.
Dr. Luke no doubt had a practice that brought many widows to him, for we see a special interest in his Gospel toward widows. Matthew uses the word widow only one time; Mark uses it three times and John only once. Luke, however, has 12 references to widows, and this even surpasses Paul who refers to them 7 times in ITim. 5, as he gives instructions about them. James had one reference also. Luke has more to say about widows than all the rest of the New Testament put together. It is of interest that in all 12 references of Luke the widow is always pictured in a positive light. Luke, of course, always puts women in a positive light.
Jesus pointed out how widows were taken advantage of in his day, as has always been the case, and he blasted the Pharisees for devouring widows houses. He used the widow as an example of great faith. A widow by persistance made an unjust lawyer take her case, and a widows mite put the Pharisee's gifts to shame. Luke tells us in Acts that it was the needs of widows that led to the appointment of deacons in the church. Widow's have played a major role in the church from the beginning.
It is good to keep in mind that widows are not a unique type of person in a catagory by themselves. They are every kind of personality, and their needs vary greatly. That is why we see Paul giving instructions about the differences in I Tim. 5. Do not stereotype widows. Some need to remarry; others need to remain single and serve the Lord in special ways. God does not expect all to follow the same pattern. Anna became a widow only 7 years after her marriage, and she lived a long life of service without ever remarrying.
There are about 8 million widows in the United States, and only 2 million widowers. This shows clearly that the basis for so many widows is that men die younger. It is of interest to note that just as meeting the needs of widows was the first social problem of the early church, so the first national public program of subsidy in this country was the Widows Pension Act of 1914. In the Old Testament they also had a social security system as we see in Deut. 14:28-29.
The name Anna means grace or gracious. She was a prophetess. This means she was a spokes person for God. The female had a role in Israel's religion, for God could and did speak through women as well as men. Matthew Henry writes,
"The spirit of prophecy now began to revive, which has ceased in Israel above 300 years." We see in Acts 2:17 the equality of the sexes as channels of prophecy. Anna was one of the last of the old, and first of the new. As a prophetess she would pass on to others the truth of God. It is likely she did so just with devout women. In the Old Testament, however, we have the example of Huldah who spoke to men.
II Chron. 34:22f and II Kings 22.
Anna was very old. Old age is magnified by Dr. Luke. He rejoices in old people, for long life was his aim in the medical profession. They were a neglected group, but not by Luke, and not by God. The old were the first to know. The first two people not directly connected with the birth to recognize the reality of the incarnation were old people. God honored the faithful aged who looked for his promised king. These old lay people were not pictured as retired saints, but as faithful servants to the end. Wesley wrote, "Let the example of those aged saints animate those whose hoary heads, like theirs, are 'a crown of glory,' being found in the way of righteousness." These old saints were not weary in well doing.
Anna had labored long in the field, but could not be persuaded to retire until her labor bore fruit. Faithful to the end, and God rewarded her with this experience of seeing the Christ child. There is no retirement from serving God. Here was a godly woman who had great sorrow. She lost her husband after a very short time together. She had a long life of loneliness, but she was not bitter, but ever faithful in her prayers. Suffering either makes us harder or softer. She was old and alone, and yet sympathic, hopeful, and faithful.
She never missed, but was ever loyal, and every day she was in the temple fasting and praying. Had she missed this one day, this event would have been missed, and she would never had been heard of, but she was there. She was an old faithful among the people of God. New people are often a greater blessing and more exciting than those who are just always there. You don't have to worry about them or wonder where they are. They are just there. They are often taken for granted, but they are a real blessing in any organization.
The reason she was priviliged to see the Messiah was because of her faithfulness and eager anticipation. Aged Anna is one of the unique people in the Biblical record. She apparently never left the temple, and so she stayed in one of the dozens of outbuildings scattered about the various courts. She would have to live off of the alms given to her. It doesn't sound like much of a life, but she plugged away day after day with the hope that the Messiah would come in her life.
Talk about a nobody, and yet, she was selected to be named in the Word of God. Luke could have skipped this little detail, and left her in oblivion, but he did not,
and this nobody became a somebody in the life of Christ.
Calvin in refering to Anna and Simeon wrote, "These two persons are entitled to greater reference than an immense multitude of those whose pride is swelled by nothing but empty titles." Calvin also says of her being there night and day, "It deserves our attention, that the same rule is not enjoying on all, and that all ought not to be led indiscriminately to copy these performances, which are here commended in a widow......Silly ambition has filled the world with apes, from superstitious persons ceaseing, with more zeal than knowledge, everything that they hear praised in the saints." Calvin is simply saying, most are not called to a life like that of Anna. She was unique an that is why she is being honored by God in this unique way.
In verse 38 we see Anna giving thanks, and so she is the first person on record who thanked God for the gift of His Son. Christmas to us was thanksgiving to her.
How could she know what was going on without a special revelation? So we see here a balance with Zechariah who also received special revelation on John the Baptist. Anna's song would have been, mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. She was old, but she was not looking back to the good old days, but forward to the coming better days. The best was yet to be, and she bore witness to God's best coming in the Christ child. Here was one of the first preachers of the good news. A woman was used by God to be one of His first communicators of the Gospel.
Anna spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. It would be wonderful to know just how much she knew about the child, but the fact that she knew enough to tell others means she was one of the most informed people on the planet. God was using a woman first to tell the good news of Jesus. Adam Clark writes, "As Daniel's 70 weeks were known now to be completed, the more pious Jews were in constant expectation of the promised Messiah." John Wesley wrote, "The sceptre now appeared to be departing from Judah, though it was not actually gone; Daniel's weeks were plainly near their period..."
Anna, like Simeon, was a waiter and a witness to other waiters on God. If people were not looking, there was no point in telling them. Those who looked for an wait for salvation are a select group of people. Noah and his family were an example of those expecting God to do something in the world when everybody else went about their business as usual. Those who expect God to act and look for it experience more than those who do not. Waiting is not the same as being idle. It means to be faithful in God's service knowing His promise will be fulfilled, and thus, you are ready when it is. Anna was a Widow, a Worshiper, and a Witness. We see clearly that there is room in the kingdom of Christ, as there was in the kingdom of Israel, for the service of a woman. Women are able to render equal service to Christ, for the gifts of the Spirit are not devided into male and female gifts.
Anna was the pioneer of women preachers. Many no doubt would merely humor the old gal knowing she was not long for this world. Sure you saw the Messiah. You see all the 8 day old babies coming to be circumcized. I'm sure you could tell which of these little 8 day old tykes was the Messiah. After departing they would have a good laugh at her strange conviction. What is strange is that old people, foreign people, like the wisemen, and the lowly shepherds were the people in on this great event. The so called wise and religious leaders did not have a clue.
Luke 4:25-26
25 But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over all the land;
26 and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.
Luke 4:38-39
38 And he arose and left the synagogue, and entered Simon's house. Now Simon's mother-in-law was ill with a high fever, and they besought him for her.
39 And he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her; and immediately she rose and served them.
In Mark 1:31 it says that Jesus took her by the hand and helped her up. These were the hands that created the world and they had power to lift and heal. It was the touch of the Master's hands that made her well again.
Luke 7:11-17
11 Soon afterward he went to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him.
12 As he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a large crowd from the city was with her.
13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, "Do not weep."
14 And he came and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, "Young man, I say to you, arise."
15 And the dead man sat up, and began to speak. And he gave him to his mother.
16 Fear seized them all; and they glorified God, saying, "A great prophet has arisen among us!" and "God has visited his people!"
17 And this report concerning him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.
Luke only records two of the three raising from the dead. Matthew and Mark tell only of the daughter of Jairus and John tells only of Lazarus. In each of the two that Luke records the male and female roles are balanced. Here it is the mother and son, and with Lazarus there is the balance of his sisters. Augustine wrote, "Of the numerous persons raised to life by Christ, three only are mentioned as specimens in the Gospels." It is of interest that all three of those mentioned are fairly young people, and were single. In the Old Testament when Elisha raised the widows son, and then when Paul raised up Eutichus who fell out the window we see again that they are young and single. We do have Dorcus raised by Peter but most were young. This does make sense in that there is little reason to raise an old person, for what caused their death would soon cause it again, whereas a younger person could conquer the problem and live long. For all practical purposes there is no wisdom to pray for the resurrection of an old person. Jesus had greater compassion on those who lost youth, for to die young is always a tragedy in the Bible.
NAIN. This is a small city in Southern Galilee. Most who lived here were poor and of the underprivileged class. Jesus spent most of His time in Galilee. The Saducees said, out of Galilee arises no prophet. God would not chose a leader from such people they thought. But Jesus chose most of His disciples from Galilee. Jesus chose to go where the need was greatest.
There was a great crowd in the funeral possession, and so there were many eye witnesses to this miracle. This is the first raising of the dead that Jesus did. A procession of death met the procession of the Lord of life, and life conquered and turned a funeral into a party of rejoicing. Note the timing: The burial would have been over had Jesus come a little later, and it would not have been there yet had He been a little earlier. We see the providence of God goes hand in hand with a miracle. It was no miracle that they met at the right time, but it was essential for the miracle to become a reality. Sometimes Jesus planned bad timing for a purpose, as when He came late after Lazarus died.
We see multiple miseries here. Not only did her son die, it was her only son, and she had no husband and was now left all alone. It was a sad situation, and few people could see it and lack compassion. The Bible knows of no greater loss than the loss of the first born or of an only child. It leaves one childless which was a great burden to the Jews.
This was not like other miracles that were asked for. It grew out of spontaneous compassion for a sorrowing mother. It was not an answer to prayer. God gives much more than what is asked for. Everyday we receive blessings that are not asked for. God's grace goes beyond prayer. He does not act only when we plead with Him to act. Millions are healed who never ask for it. Even unbelievers have marvelous blessings by the grace of God, and they neither ask nor give thanks. Here is total grace that is freely given just because God is love. Jesus did not do this to prove anything, and that is probably why John did not select it as one of the great signs. Here is a miracle that grows out of the tender humanity of Christ.
Compassion is sympathy. The Saxon word is fellow-feeling. He suffered with her in that He felt her sorrow. The soul motive here is the pure impulse of His compassion. Jesus had never been cut off from love, and He could deeply sympathize with the loss of such a value as this mother had just experienced. She was apparently weeping as she walked, for He said do not weep, and He could say this because He was going to do something to stop her tears. He who will one day wipe away all tears began that ministry even on earth. Jesus was moved by tears. We see it at the tomb of Lazarus where He wept, and we see it here. He did not say to her great is your faith, for He did not ask for any faith. This was an act of pure grace where nothing was required of the woman.
To be truly Christlike we must sometimes just act in compassion and not ask whether people deserve it or not. Jesus did not ask if the son died from something stupid he did, or from some sin and suffering he had brought on himself. He just saw a need and did something about it. Sometimes we just need to fight suffering and gain a victory over it reguardless of the circumstances. Compassion is to motivate us to do what we can to conquer suffering. There are two other reactions we can have to suffering. Complacency says there's nothing I can do. Condemnation says they probable deserve what they are getting. But compassion says, how can I help.
You may not agree with the ministry of Oral Roberts, but he says something that is quite relevant here. He writes, "I know when the gift of healing moves in me and I know when it doesn't. Here's what happens: I get a feeling of compassion, as opposed to a feeling of sympathy. When I get sympathetic I want to kind of stroke the person and say, "Now, now, it's going to be all right; God bless you." I have found the moment I get sympathetic I am dead as far as the ministry of healing is concerned. Compassion, on the other hand, is an irresistable urge to rid the person of torment. I mean, you feel it down deep and you can scarcely restrain yourself. You have to pray, touch, say a word, or do something. In that moment of compassion people can misunderstand the look on your face in the same way that you can misunderstand a great doctor. Most of the great doctors I've ever dealt with are rather impersonal. There explaination is: "We've studied to be impersonal because the moment we have too much closeness, we get into the area of sympathy, and sympathy destroys the effectiveness of our relationship with the patient. In a sense, when compassion comes on you, your face, your eyes can change so that a person may wonder if you're angry. You're not mad at the person, but you're grappling with the enemy as you come against the power that destroys."
Death here is not seen as God's friend taking the son to be with him, but rather as an evil force that separates loved ones. Jesus reversed death, which He would not do if God had appointed it, and it was for the best. No detailed reading of the Bible can lead to any other conclusion but that death is an enemy, and our great joy is that Jesus is superior to it. Jesus is touched by the sad situations of life, and any theology that makes God responsible for these sad situations is contrary to the revelation we have of Christ. The highest revelation of God is in Christ, and so whatever does not fit the picture of Christ is not true.
A visitor to the island of Raiotea in the South seas tells of seeing 600 children gather to worship Jesus. Had the Gospel not come there these children would have been offered in sacrifice to pagan gods. An old gray haired chief said, "Oh that I had known the Gospel was coming. My children would be here among this happy group. But I destroyed them." Jesus and His Word have saved many from a foolish death. Prevention rather than cure is the primary way Jesus works in history. Jesus makes it clear that suffering and death are of the kingdom of darkness, and are enemies of the kingdom of light. God forbid Israel to offer babies in sacrifice, but many did anyway, and all of these deaths were contrary to His will.
One of the greatest lacks in the Christian world is the lack of compassion. The world is filled with unbelievable need, but there can be no adequate response unless we are moved by compassion to meet those needs. C. Leslie Miller writes, "At a Sunday School convention a pastor told me of his wayward teenage son. "He has broken almost every law of God and man. He is killing his mother with sorrow and is breaking my heart. I've tried everything. What can I do?"
Press for attention by other people, I abruptly asked, "Have you ever tried a tender tear?" He went away in anger at my strange suggestion. A year later we met at another convention. He greeted me with, "It worked! It worked! When I got home that night my boy was asleep. As I stood by his bed my heart was flooded with a new and tender compassion. I found myself on my knees clasping my boy to my heart and bathing his face with tender tears. Almost before I knew what was happening he was on his knees beside me weeping and both of us weep our way back to God. Tom's a new boy. Our home is radiant with happiness." Paul reminded the Ephesians, "By the space of three years I ceased not to warn everyone of you night and day with tears." Acts 20:31.
We see here that Jesus did not worry about the ceremonial defilment of touching the dead. Others would have avoided the polution, but Jesus did not avoid a head on encounter with death because He could do something about it. The body was wrapped in folds of linen, and often with the face open. We must recognize that we cannot be like Christ in all ways, for it would be sheer folly for us to stop a funeral with any hope of making a difference. Jesus told the young man to get up. A dead person cannot respond, but Jesus asked him to. What we see here is that when God gives a command, He gives the power to respond to that command. It is impossible for the dead to respond on their own, but God can give such power. He gives the power of all who are dead in sin to respond to the Gospel and be resurrected to new life.
Jesus did not go through incantations and some long ceremony. He merely spoke the word just as He did when He said, "Lazarus come forth." His power and authority is direct, and none can resist. One day He will command all who are in the graves to arise, and they will at His word. He had power over death even before His own death, but He had not conquered it completely until He entered it Himself and overcame this final foe. George Macdonald spoke to this mother, "O mother! mother, wast thou more favoured than other mothers? Or was it that, for the sake of all mothers as well as thyself, thou wast made the type of the universal mother with the dead son-the raising of him but a foretaste of the one universal bliss of mothers with dead sons?"
It is of interest to note that Jesus did not ask him to come and follow Him as He did to many, for the point of raising him was to restore him to his widow mother who needed him. Jesus did this not for the sake of getting a new disciple, but for the sake of the mother. One day He will give back all children that death has taken from mothers. Jesus hates what death does in robbing us of loved ones and He will restore all relationships in heaven. Jesus recognized that the hard part of death is not the dying, but the separation from loved ones left behind. The sting of death is for the living, and that is why he gave her back her son.
Most people die between birth and age 1. If you get past that your next rough spot is age 77. About 60 million people die every year, or about 2 every second. Death is a relevant subject to everyone, and so the one who can save us from it is relevant to everyone. Jesus is the Relevant Redeemer. The people were filled with awe, and so would any crowd be today who were at a funeral and saw the dead rise up and kiss his mom, and walk home with her.
Lewis Paul Lehman has outlined this story:
I. DIVINE APPOINTMENT-met her at Nain.
II. DIVINE ASSURANCE-weep not.
III. DIVINE ACHIEVEMENT-gave him back to mother.
LUKE 7:36-50
36 One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house, and took his place at table.
37 And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment,
38 and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.
39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner."
40 And Jesus answering said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to you." And he answered, "What is it, Teacher?"
41 "A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.
42 When they could not pay, he forgave them both. Now which of them will love him more?"
43 Simon answered, "The one, I suppose, to whom he forgave more." And he said to him, "You have judged rightly."
44 Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.
45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet.
46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.
47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little."
48 And he said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."
49 Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, "Who is this, who even forgives sins?"
50 And he said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."
Spurgeon points out how delicately Dr. Luke handles the story of this woman.
"The evangelist-" the beloved physican, "Luke-does not lay bare the minute particulars of this woman's life's sins, but delights to dwell rather upon the story of her penitence and its fair fruits, and so makes her to shine resplendently as a wonder of redeeming grace." He shows us the three stages in the journey from darkness to light: Penitence, Pardon, and Peace.
When John Dillenger was riddled with bullets in front of a Chicago threatre, the paper had a most unusal picture-only the feet of the dead gangster was shown. The caption under the picture was-"These are the feet of John Dillenger-who knows where these feet might have gone if someone had guided them aright?" Our passage could be portrayed with a picture of the feet of Jesus saying, "Who knows where they will go who follow these feet aright?"
This is the story of a good man who was no good, and a bad woman who was so good. It is of interest to note that most of the great female sinners were guilty of sins of the flesh. You have the woman taken in adultry; the woman at the well living with a man who was not her husband, and here the prostitute. The male sinners, on the other hand, that Jesus confronted were guilty of sins of the spirit. You have the sins of intolerance, prejudice, the rich young rulers greed, and the pride of the Pharisees. In those days the men were in control and so women could only go astray in the area of the flesh. Men had a monopoly on the rest of worldliness. Today women can be guilty of all the same sins of the spirit. So with the advantages of equality come the greater risks of condemnation. Women have always been equal in being saints, but now they can be eqaul in being sinners.
Do not judge the content by the cover. The Pharisee judged both the woman and Christ by circumstantial evidence. He could not see the heart of either. He judged that Jesus was ignorant because of His acceptance of her, when in fact, it was His compassion that made Him accept her, and not His ignorance of who she was. The Pharisee just slapped a label on her and did not consider that people can change and no longer be what they have been. He had pride without pity, and so he treated the sinner as the sin, making him cold as polar ice. The surest sign that one's religion is not truly godly is a lack of tenderness toward the sinner. If you are more concerned about judgment than about salvation, you do not have the spirit of Christ.
Jesus did not condemn Simon but gave him the rope he needed to hang himself. Parables and illustrations take people from the unknown to the known so that people can see the truth that applies to others also applies to them. Better than arguing with someone is the method of Jesus which helps another to see where they are wrong.
HER TEARS
If there is any truly holy water in the world, it is the tears of the grateful penitent.
Jesus would not be sitting at a table, but would be down on the floor with His feet out behind and His sandals removed. She intended to bathe His feet with ointment but her emotions made her use tears instead. She had not planned on this and so she had no towel, and that is why she had to use her hair. It was not a mere trickle of tears, but a torrent of tears. Deep emotion ought to characterize those who confront the Savior after repenting of a sinful life. Weeping implies she was deeply repentant, and one who had been cleansed, and who longed to express her love for the One who changed her life. To wipe His feet with her hair gives the impression of a wild head of hair. Here we see the depth of humility and love. She cared not for herself but only for His comfort. The kissing was not customary hospitality, but an unusal expressionof gratitude. This clearly indicates she already been delivered from sin,
and was a new woman.
She knelt and wept and with her untressed hair
She wiped the feet she was so blessed to touch.
And He wiped off the soiling of despair
From her sweet soul, because she loved so much.
There is not the least resistence or resentment on the part of Jesus. Most men in that situation would try to impress the host and push her away, or at least protest. It is of interest to note that only this sinful woman and Judas are recorded as putting their lips upon the Master. It was a scandalous act as far as the Pharisee was concerned. He doubted that Jesus could be of God if He could torerate such familiarity with one like her. It is likely most of us would tend to feel just like the Pharisee. A repentant prostitute would not receive a very warm welcome in most churches. The Pharisee thought that one is more godlike the further distance he keeps between himself and the sinner. If this was true, of course, there never would have been the incarnation. Had this woman come near His feet she would have gotten a kick in the teeth for her trouble.
Spurgeon said, "These are blessed words: "At His feet." That is where we also would stand and weep. That is where we would sit and learn. That is where we would wait and serve. That is where we hope to live and reign forever-at His feet."
Clarence Macartney writes, "There has been a vast amount of talking and writing about Jesus Christ.....and yet a single tear of a penitent, a forgiven sinner like this woman, will tell you more about Christ and His person and His kingdom and His power and His redeeming love than all those others put together."
Some have asked the question, how did the Pharisee know she was a sinner? Edersheim, the great scholar, suspects that he knew her professionally. However he knew, he concluded that a truly holy man will have no dealings with unholy people. This was not the spirit of Christ at all. He had a great love and compassion for sinners. Being called a sinner does not imply there were some women in the city who were not sinners. This woman was a professional sinner, for she made her livelihood by sin. She was not a repectable person in that society. Even Jesus says in verse 47that her sins were many. Jesus knew just how bad she was.
Spurgeon makes a point of this fact and writes, "Our Lord allowed her to wash His feet with her tears, but He knew well what those eyes had looked upon. When He allowed those lips to kiss His feet He knew right well what langauge those lips had used in years gone by; and when He suffered her to show her love to Him He knew how foul her heart had aforetime been with every unhallowed desire.............Yet, glory be to divine grace, she was not cast out when she came to Jesus, but she obtained mercy, and is now shining in heaven as a bright and special star to the glory of the love of Christ."
She was putting Jesus to a real test to see if He really did love and exault women, or was it just a front. She knew that in this context He would have to show His true colors. She would be treated with tenderness and respect, or she would be booted out as scum. Raymond Calkins writes, "His purity did not repel her. His goodness did not present an invisible barrier between Him and her. Oh, there must be a defect somewhere in what we call our goodness. We are good, but we are not gracious. We speak the truth, but we do not speak it in love. We have virtues and we lack insight and sympathy.I sometimes think one of the most tragic things in the world is the number of unlovely good people in it. One does not question for a moment the reality of their goodness. Yet the pity of it is, the more you know them the less you want to be with them; the less even you want to be like them."
Elizabeth Fry used this passage of Scripture as her main theme, and with it transformed many lives both male and female, and she also transformed the prisons of England.
Edgar Dewitt Jones writes, "Our tendency is to regard a person who is irreproachable in private life but who may be unforgiving, self-rightous, and censorious of others, in higher esteem than a person of kind and generous dispostion who transgresses the laws of what the community judges to be public and private decency. We are prone to treat sins of human frailty much more drastically than sins of human pride, temper, and lovelessness." Jesus never once blasted or rebuked a fallen woman. He did not favor in any way their sinful lifestyle, but He never denounced them when He met them. He only had sharp words of anger and rebuke for the self-rightous Pharisees.
Dr. William J. Dawson in, The Man Christ Jesus says of His attitude, "In His alarming system of spiritual pathology, the first (that is, sins of temper, pride, and lovelessness) resemble the paralysis of vital organs, the second (sins of human fraility), an attack of fever. Any man may contract a fever and after dreadful wanderings in the realms of delirious imagination may emerge again into a life of sanity. He may lie blind and helpless at the mercy of the flame that consumes him,
but he may still retain his goodness of heart, his sense of right, and even his real passion for integrity.
But in the growth of evil tempers there is no crisis and no cure. They involve not a temporary obsuration of moral faculties, but there destruction. They are like paralysis, a decay of vital organs. Fraility of the flesh is curable; corruption of the spirit incurable."
Jesus is so often the friend of sinners, and they are not falsely accused sinners. They are the real thing. Jesus had a different attitude toward sin than most religious leaders of His day, or any day. Jesus saw the sinner as a victim of sin. Sin was an enemy of their life and happiness, and it had entangled them making their life miserable. He desired to help them get free. His main concern was not how to punish them, but how to set them free. This clashed with those who approach to the sinner was how to see that they got what they deserved. This is the clash of law and grace to this day. Grace wants to reconcile the sinner, and law wants to punish. Love grows out of forgiveness and acceptance. Where this is not real there can be no love. The rightous need so little forgiveness that they feel so little love. They need to see their sinfulness on a deeper level in order to have a greater love.
In this text Jesus is dealing with a man and a woman, and as often is the case they see life from very different perspectives. Modern studies show that men are more rational and women more emotional, and we see it here. Simon is a good man as far as the law goes. He likely has a good head on him, and Jesus deals with him by the intellectual means of a parable where he has to make an evaluation and give a judgment. He is a head man. The woman, however, expresses herself, not by the head and words, but by the heart and action. She is motivated by emotion rather than intellect. Jesus does not reject either, but recognizes both to be essential. We are to love God with all our mind and heart. Jesus does not discount the womanly approach, but recognizes it as legitimate and not as a weaker, but rather in this case, superior to that of Simon.
Why do you suppose most of the stories of great sinners being forgiven by Christ are women? It is likely because they were discriminated against, and Jesus was concerned about justice as well as compassion, and Dr. Luke felt the same. See also in Matt. 21: 28-32. Jesus did not hesitate to have a social relationship with anyone.Here He was spending an evening with the class of people He most often blasted, and the class who sought to kill Him.
By the lack of hospitality it appears that this Pharisees did not really appreciate Jesus, but had another motive for the invitation. Jesus was being snubbed by the religious and wealthy leaders, but in that context He was being grately appreciated by a sinner. She had to have already repented to come and expose herself to the eyes of the Pharisee and his guests. Here is a bold woman who is a known sinner, and she had the audacity to enter a Pharisees house. She was obviously highly motivated. Maclaren points out that the expensive oniment was likely part of the spoils of her sinful employment. A bad woman with stolen goods, as it were, and she is drawn to Christ. It is hard to grasp the paradox, for evil hates the light and flees from it, and yet sinners were attracted to Jesus like the sick to a physican. She had in her a desire to be forgiven and made clean.
There are many who feel that this woman was Mary Magdalene. Christian poetry and art often say so. Others say it was Mary the sister of Lazarus. (John 11:2) Magdalene is the most popular view, but the fact is there is no basis whatever, and all the evidence is opposed to it. Mary Magdalene had 7 devils cast out of her, but this is no basis to believe she was a prostitute. This woman is unnamed for a good reason.
Simon had all people in pigeon holes. He had a code of conduct by which he knew just how to act toward each person. Jesus dealt with people as persons, and it didn't make any difference what pigeon hole they fit, for they were all sinners who needed His love and forgiveness. Lockyer said, "Contact with a sinner no more contaminated him than the sun is fowled as it shines on a dung heap." Simon said if He knew what she was He would have nothing to do with her, but Jesus not only knew what she had been, He knew what she could become. It is the future that motivates Christ and not the past. To be like Christ we need to treat people in the light of their potential, and not on the basis of their failures of the past.
Jesus uses a parable to teach Simon. Dr. Luke is a great parable lover. He has 35 of them in his Gospel, and 19 of them are unique to him, and this is one of them. Jesus illustrates sinners as debters. All are equally in debt, but not all are in debt equally. When we sin we are in debt, for there is a penalty to be paid. All have equally sinned but not all have sinned equally. Some are greater sinners, and when they are forgiven they usually have a greater gratitude. Jesus admits that the Pharisee was a better man than she was as a woman, yet she loved more for she could sense His love more, for she had so much more to be forgiven. Jesus does give Simon credit for a less sinful life, but it did not make him a better person than her.
We see here that there are different degrees of love. This could lead to a false conclusion that says if only a great sense of sin can lead to a great love, then one is better off living in great sin like this woman before conversion, for great forgiveness is not possible if one lives a good life and does not greatly sin. Both Simon and this woman had nothing to pay off their debt and so they were alike in this in their inability to pay. People can prevent their debt from getting greater than it might otherwise be, but they cannot pay off the existing debt. Jesus freely forgives both. It is not harder for Him to forgive the big debt than the little one, for all are equally covered by His atonement. The fact is the greatest sinners often make the greatest saints because of their greater gratitude. The Prodigal is a hero, and not the elder son who never ran off to sin.
We learn from this account that it is possible for a woman to be a worse sinner than a man. But we also learn that it is worse to be a lesser sinner who won't admit it than to be a greater sinner who will. Simon thought because he was a lesser sinner that he was not in debt. You might point out that you do not owe Sears of Wards nearly as much as other people, but this does not cause them to regard your debt as no responsibility. True, there are others who owe more, but you are still in debt, and if you don't pay it is you who much suffer the consequences. And also, the terrible sinner is not less forgiven than the lesser sinner. Simon's problem was he could not change his thinking about people who have changed. He had a label on them, and the label would stay even though the contents had changed.
Jesus was fully conscious of being neglected and not being given the common acts of hospitality. He was not indifferent to how He was treated. Jesus calls him to look at this woman who, though a sinner, was more loving and hospitable even though he was not her guest, and this was not her home. Jesus appealed to His sense of logic and He came to the right conclusion in the abstract example. Now let's see how you do in real life. Look at this situation again Simon. Is it possible that this woman who is a great sinner is closer to God than a Pharisee? Simon could pass a test intellectually and get an A, yet flunk the real life test. Jesus gave her the A and said she was superior to him. Simon did not experience the grace of forgiveness because he felt superior and in no need of it.
She loved much because she was forgiven much. Maclaren writes, "He does not mean to say that her love was the cause of her forgivenes-not at all. He means to say that her love was the proof of her forgiveness, and that it was so because her love was a consequence of her forgiveness." One of our greatest sins is in not realizing how much we have been forgiven, for this leads to a lack of love. It is hard to say thank you with zeal if you have no great awareness of the value of the gift received. Spurgeon wrote, "It is, dear friends, a deep sense of our sinfulness, coupled with the perfect consciousness of our forgiveness, that will work in us intense love to Christ."
Again Spurgeon writes, "The Lord has made the first to be last, and the last to be first. Simon thought himself far in advance of this woman; but now that Christ had explained their true position, I should think he began to see that the woman was far ahead of him. Jesus did not condemn the sinner, for He knew what modern psychology has learned.
Dr. George Benson, a Christian Psychoanalyst says that often the condemnation of a sinner only helps the sinner go on sinning. They often hate themselves and rather than deal with this issue of self-hate, which is the real problem, they do evil and make others mad, and thus get their enemy outside of them where they can fight, and feel better about it. A rebel in a Christian home is often guilty with self-hate, but does what is rotten to get his family mad and screaming so he can have an external battle rather than an inner battle. He can then blame others for his problem, and not face his real inner problem.
If you give genuine acceptance it deprives a guilty person of the ability to fight outwardly, and they are forced to look in and see they are the problem. This will lead either to repentence, or to anger at you for showing them they are their own worse enemy. The battle with self-hatred that leads one to get others to reject him is seeing in Peter in Luke 5:3-8. He felt sinful in the face of a great blessing undeserved, and he asked for rejection. It is healthy to feel unworthy in the presence of Christ and His power. But if one does not overcome it by feeling the acceptance of Christ in spite of your unworthiness, then one is in for real psychological battles.
Condemnation and rejection are only fitting when love and acceptance is rejected."A friend of mine, and elderly Quaker lady, entered her Paris hotel room to find a burglar rifling her bureau drawers where she considerable jewerly and money. He had a gun which he brandished. She talked to him quitely and told him to go right ahead and help himself to anything she had, as obviously he needed it more than she did if he had to be stealing it. She even told him some places to look where there were valuables that he had overlooked. Suddenly the man let out a low cry, and ran from the room taking nothing. The next day she received a letter from him in which he said, "I'm not afraid of hate. But you showed love and kindness. It disarmed me."
Chester Warren Quimby in Jesus As They Remembered Him writes, "At no place is the sympathetic mind of Jesus shown more graciously than in His dealing with wayward women. He treated them with the same respectful courstesy that He would have given His mother or sisters. Before Him, they found themselves to be gentle women. He never let Himself be fooled. They knew He perceived what manner of creatures they were. Yet from Him came no scorn, and no rebuke. Always He approached them with the same high respect others accorded only true gentle women.
These women were read and known of all men. They knew what to expect from men:from the pious, snubs and scron; from the lewd, ribald jokes; from the lascivious, demands for physical satisfaction; and from their respectabl sisters, cruel gossip. Then they faced this strange, clean man. Though He knew all, there were no insinuations, no contempt, no sly smiles. Jesus saw that under their bizarre manor they longed for true womanhood. While in His presence, they were again gentle women.
Spurgeon says this women is Mary of Bethany, and if he is right we have a prodigal daughter in the Bible, and she had her elder sister just as the Prodigal son had his elder brother.
Note, it was not her love or her tears of repentence that saved her, but her faith. It was a faith that acted in love. Note also that Jesus always says go. You cannot stay in one place even is it is with Jesus. Depart from me into life and live with the effects of being with me everywhere and everyday. Go in peace for you are forgiven and accepted and need not live in fear and doubt and self-hatred for your folly and sin of the past. You are now in the ark of God and can face the storm unafraid. The pharisees may still gossip about you, but all is well between you and God.
Oh cease my wandering soul,
On restless wing to roam;
all this wide world, from pole to pole,
Hath not for thee a home.
Behold the ark of God,
Behold the open door;
Hasten to gain that blest abode
And roam, my soul, no more.
Kahlil Gibran in Jesus, The Son Of Man has the woman describe what happened to her soul when she first met Jesus. "It was in the month of June when I saw Him for the first time.....I was dead. I was a woman who had divorced her soul. I was living apart from the this self which you now see. I belonged to all men, and to none......
Then He looked at me, and the noontide of His eyes was upon me, and He said,......"Other men see a beauty in you that shall fade away sooner than their own years. but I see in you a beauty that shall not fade away, and in the autumn of your days that beauty shall not be afraid to gaze at itself in the mirror, and it shall not be offended.
I alone love the unseen in you.....
And then He walked away.
But no other man ever walked the way He walked. Was it a breath born in my garden that moved to the east? Or was it a storm that would shake all things to their foundation? I know not; but on that day the sunset of His eyes slew the dragon in me, and I become a woman.......
The heroes of the Old Testament were bold and mighty men of battle, but when we come to the New Testament Jesus changed all that. He was not weak, but He combined the best of manliness with the values of womanliness. None was ever more couragous, yet none was ever more kind, gentle and compassionate. Strength does not exclude tenderness. This is the new ideal of manhood. One can be strong and yet tender. Jesus was the first true gentleman.
LUKE 8:1-3
1 Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him,
2 and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out,
3 and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.
Here were 12 men and a number of women who were not married to the men, and, who in some cases had been evil women, and yet here they are together. A task not to be attempted by any but the Lord Himself, for only He can make the lion lay down with the lamb and not have trouble. Peter did have his wife along as we see in I Cor. 9:5. Most of the disciples may have had their wives as well. G.K.Chesterton writes, "It is constantly assumed that when the lion lies down with the lamb the loin becomes lamb-like. But that is brutal anexation and imperialism on the part of the lamb. That is simply the lamb asorbing the lion instead of the lion eating the lamb. The real problem is-can the lion lie down with the lamb and still retain his royal ferocity? That is the problem the church attempted; that is the miracle she achieved."
Barclay writes, "There is nothing which the church needs more than to learn how to yoke in common harness the diverse temperaments and qualities of different people." Christ did it, and in Him it can be done. Behind the service of these women was deep gratitude for service received. True dedicated service grows out of a sense of gratitude. If one has not received much from Christ, it is hard to be motivated to give much too Christ. Jesus did not depend upon chance hosptiality. He had women of means to support Him. Each had apparently been healed by Jesus. We do not see a group of men who had been healed, but rather women. Is it because women were more grateful? Remember the ten lepers, and only one returned to give thanks. Men were not as grateful. Women respond dead to their healing by giving their lives for His service. This is a unique aspect
of the ministry of Jesus that He raised womanhood to a level of active service. Jesus restored women to a place of service along side of men. They were not equal to the men in status, but they were in service.
Many feel like Archie Bunker who said to his wife in a theological debate, "Stifle yourself Edith. God don't want to be defended by no dingbat." These women were people saved from sickness, both mental and physical, and they followed Jesus, and were likely among those 120 at Pentecost. No doubt they did the work of women in that day. They cooked and cleaned and washed garments, but they also likely bore witness verbally to what Christ has done for them. You had wives and single women right alongside of the men doing what was needed to help Jesus accomplish is purpose, and this has always been the case. Women have played a major role in fulfilling the great commission.
These women would also be available for counselling with other women who had needs, or who feared to come to Jesus to be healed. It would not have been proper in that day for men to counsel with women and so to give the ministry of Jesus a ministry to all he needed women with him. Also, Jesus did not do a miracle to feed his disciples three times a day, and so he needed their expertise in their cooking skills. "We can live without science and we can live without books, but even Christians cannot live without cooks." Jesus depended upon women and not miracles to provide for the physical needs of his disciples. It is never God's will to do a miracle to provide what can be provided by natural means.
Paula 347-404 A.D. was a wealthy Roman noble woman helped Jerome translate the Vulgate and found a monestery, a convent, and a hospice. Other women in the middle ages founded religious orders and became leaders over huge monesteries for both men and women. "To paraphase John, there are also many other things which women have done in the churche's history; were everyone of them to be written, I suppose that the volumes would fill library shelves equal to those already devoted to the history of men's work in the church." None of the gifts of the spirit have a label on them, for men only.
MARY MAGDALENE
Barclay writes, "Clearly she had a past that was a dark and terrible thing." Many conclude that she was a prostitute, but there is no proof of this. The 7 demons she had cast out does not indecate she was an evil person. She was apparently a woman of means like the other women.
JOANNA The wife of Cuza. He had a good job working for Herod and so she had means. She could use them to support Jesus, and so we can assume her husband was in support of Jesus as well. Her following of Jesus was not a mere fly by night temporary gratitude which quickly faded. She was with him to the end, and is with Mary Magdalene in the resurrection story in Luke 24:10. While her husband devoted time to king Herod, she gave her time to the King of Kings.Often women can do more than men, for men are busy earning a living, and women can share that living with Christ. At least this was true for much of history.
Some feel that Cuza was the nobleman of Capernaum whose dying son was healed by Jesus in John 4:46-54. If so, this would be one of the reasons for Joanna being so devoted. There was great Christian influence in the house of Herod for in Acts 13:1 we read of another notable Christian from Herod's house.
SUSANNA means lily. Jews named their women aftet flowers and trees. Rhoda for example means a rose, and Tamar means a palm. Nothing is known about Susanna. All we know is that she was a follower of Jesus and a supporter of His ministry.
AND MANY OTHERS. Very few are named, but there were many unnamed women that we will never know in time. God knows them and their names is in the Lamb's book of life. The three that are named are well known. Most of the followers of Jesus all through history are not people known by name.
Flora Larsson in My Best Men Are Women is about the Salvation Army. The scene is described in a Bethesda Chapel on a Sunday in 1860. The crowd of over 1,000 listened to William Booth as Catherine sat in the minister's pew with her 4 year old son at her side. She sense an inner voice urging her to speak a word, but she resisted, for she had not prepared, and she did not want to be a fool. Then she said to herself, I will be a fool for Christ, and when William finished, she rose to go to the pulpit. He was startled and puzzled knowing her timid nature. He asked her what is the matter? And she said she wanted to say a word. He let her,and thus began the history of women preaching in the Salvation Army. When she finished William announced that his wife will preach this evening.
Catherine was a strong beleiver in women serving Christ with all of their gifts. She wrote in a love letter to William: "God has given to women a graceful form and attitude, winning manners, persuasive speech, and above all, a finally tuned emotional nature, all of which appears to us eminent qualifications for public speaking....I believe that one of the greatest boons to the race would be women's exaltation to her proper position, mentally and spiritually. Who can tell its consequences to posterity? If indeed there is in Jesus Christ neither male nor female, but in all touching his kingdom they are one, who shall dare thrust women out of the churches operations, or presume to put any candle which God has lighted under a basket?"
She met resistance, but she got the door open, and thousands of others in the Salvation Army became women preachers. In 1878 out of 91 officers in the field 41 were women. William Booth was reluctent at first, but when he saw the success of women he gave it full support. He wrote a manual for guiding the Salvation Army in which he said, "Women have the right to an equal share with men in the work of publishing salvation. A woman may hold any position of authority or power in the army. Women must be treated as equal with men in all the intellectual and social relationships in life.
The results were that a 17 year old girl led a revival in Wales and hundreds of men were converted. Police reported crime down 50%. In London the young female officers saw over one thousand repent in the first 6 months. Some came to America, and in a short time had tremendous crowds coming to an old fortress they had purchased and turned into a meeting house. Many of them were only 16 and 17. Some of these teen age girls were born leaders, and they preached night after night to great crowds.
In 1881 the call came from Paris to send troups. It was decided that Katie, the daughter of Catherine Booth, be sent. She was only 21, and there was much opposition in Paris. The first meeting drew the roughest element into the little hall. A near riot made the police close the hall for 6 weeks. Poor Katie had preached to thousands in England, but the way seemed blocked in Paris, but he did not give up. When they opened again, a heavy woman nicknamed the devil's wife sat in the center of the hall and mocked all that went on. One night some of the audience got up to dance. Katie cried out, "I'll give you 20 minutes to dance if you give me 20 minutes to speak." They agreed, and after she spoke one young workman responded-her first convert on French soil. Then more came, and one night a young lout swore at Katie, and the devil's wife gave him a blow that nearly failed him. This amazon from then on became Katie's bodyguard.
She preached at night and during the day helped girls who were trapped in prostitution get out of it. Converts grew and the Salvation Army became well founded in France. The women of the Salvation Army dared to go where policemen would not go, and win people for Christ. No army was ever more brave than this woman's army.
In 1900 the Salvation Army lauched a crusade in Japan to liberate prostitutes.Every city had its district where the poor girls were prisoners, and where the police would return them if they did escape. The only way out was suicide. When they old or sick they were thrown out. A special edition of War Cry offered to help any who wished to escape. The group marched into the district in Tokyo singing and handing them out. The brothel keepers attacted them and broke their instruments, and tore their uniforms, and they were beaten.
The next night two girls came knocking on the door of the Salvation Army, and they were hidden. Letters came from others asking for help. There keepers threatened death to all Salvation Army people. The press became alarmed at foreigners being beaten in the streets for opposing evil. Public opinion ran high, and the Emperor signed and ordinance stateing that any girl who wished to leave a brothel was free to do so by filling a notice of cessation. Within a year 12,000 girls gained their liberty. The Army set up a home to receive them. They taught them cooking, sewing, and housework. They helped them get respectable work.Many became Christians who would never have heard the Gospel without this freedom to escape.
Evangeline Booth, the daughter of William and Catherine, holds the record for the longest female leadership in the Army's history. She was Commander for 30 years in the United States, and then General of the whole Army from 1934 to 1939. She was preaching at 10 years old with power and eloquence. As a teen she filled the halls of London, and even great preachers came to hear her. She had her opponents, and in one open air meeting a man threw a stone and cut her arm. She marched up to him and said, "Bandage this quick! You did it, so you fix it!" The man did and later joined the Army. She was clever . One time she was being hissed and could not be heard. She left the stage and came back with the American flag wrapped about her. Hiss if you dare she shouted, and with dead silence she went on to charm the crowd with her eloquence.
LUKE 8:40-56
40 Now when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him.
41 And there came a man named Jairus, who was a ruler of the synagogue; and falling at Jesus' feet he besought him to come to his house,
42 for he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying. As he went, the people pressed round him.
49 While he was still speaking, a man from the ruler's house came and said, "Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the Teacher any more."
50 But Jesus on hearing this answered him, "Do not fear; only believe, and she shall be well."
51 And when he came to the house, he permitted no one to enter with him, except Peter and John and James, and the father and mother of the child.
52 And all were weeping and bewailing her; but he said, "Do not weep; for she is not dead but sleeping."
53 And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead.
54 But taking her by the hand he called, saying, "Child, arise."
55 And her spirit returned, and she got up at once; and he directed that something should be given her to eat.
56 And her parents were amazed; but he charged them to tell no one what had happened.
Lockyer writes, "Standing by the little bed, Jesus took one of the girl's cold hands in His and tenderly said in her own Aramaic tongue, "Rise up, little maid!" No lengthened process was necessary once His divine hand had been put forth."
Jesus knows what it is like to be a celebrity welcomed by a great crowd of eager cheering people. No doubt this atmostphere helped Jesus in performing miracles, for where faith is strong his power is demonstrated. Jesus must have made it clear that He was crossing the lake only for a short while, for they were all waiting His return. He said, thy faith has made thee whole. Much does depend upon the faith of the person, and not just the sovereignty of God. See Mark 6:5-6.
In New York City the greatest welcome in history was for Lt. Colonel John Glenn after his flight into space. The mass of colored paper cleaned up after was 3,474 tons. They actually weighed this welcome and measured it. There was no way to weigh the welcome of Jesus, but the very fact that it is mentioned makes it likely that it was a huge and excited crowd.
The greatest of men are helpless and need a great physican, for no other can halt death. Here is a religious ruler among the class who rejected Jesus, but now when his daughters life is at stake, he does not rely on his theology but desperately needs a deliverer. This father cares not for the crowd or his peers, but comes to Jesus and falls at His feet begging for help. This reveals the great distress and the genuine desire. He dearly loves his daughter, and this tells us she had a good family and likely a good life. Girls were less thought of in the ancient world as a whole, but here is an individual girl who was greatly loved. Illness often makes a family appreciate a child more, for it causes fear that they might be taken away. He had great faith or he would not have left his only daughter dying in order to get to Jesus.
Many people are afraid to ask for help.They are ashamed that they have a need and they fear publicity. But here we see a man of public authority who was willing to admit he needed help. The woman who came and touched Jesus led to a delay,and the news came that his daughter had died. Now the need was not just for restoration, but resurrection. But the good news is, Jesus is never too late. Even death does not mean the end of His reach. He has the key to death.
What a comforter Jesus was. This poor man would be a nervous wreck. The interuption of this sick woman would be almost intolerable. She was sick for 12 years, and that is rough, but he would be thinking my daughter is about to die and it is far better to sick and alive,so why bother with her, let's go where the greater need is. It had to be a crushing blow when the news came that his daughter was dead. But Jesus gave him immediate assurance that she would be healed. Timing is not that important when it comes to a miracle.
In verse 52 Jesus says the girl is just sleeping. Munger writes, "If Christ had done nothing more for humanity than to give to it this word sleep in place of death, He would have been the greatest of benefactors. To that which seems the worst thing, He has given the best name..."
LUKE 8:43-48
43 And a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years and could not be healed by any one,
44 came up behind him, and touched the fringe of his garment; and immediately her flow of blood ceased.
45 And Jesus said, "Who was it that touched me?" When all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the multitudes surround you and press upon you!"
46 But Jesus said, "Some one touched me; for I perceive that power has gone forth from me."
47 And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed.
48 And he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace."
G. Campbell Morgan, "On account of the peculiar form of physical disease from which she was suffering she was excommunicated from the temple, and not allowed to mingle with the worshippers. By that selfsamelaw she was divorced from her husband, not allowed to live with him. By that same law she was ostrasized from society, and in appalling loneliness she had lived for twelve years."
Spurgeon tries to imagine all things she was advised to do, and all the quack drugs she no doubt took. One of the crazy prescriptions of that day was to eat the nail of a man who had been hanged. Spurgeon writes, "The wonder is that for 12 years poor human nature could stand out, not against the disease, but against the doctors."
She fits the picture of one who had tried all else and failed, then finally comes to Christ. Dr. Ceremony and Dr. Religion have prescribed all sorts of prayers and services, and Dr. Morality, all sorts of good deeds, and Dr. Civility all kinds of community envolvement, but after it all has left you worse than before you realize you need a Savior. Jesus did not charge. She was broke, and yet He healed her for nothing. Was she fearful He would charge, and that is why she came in secret? It is not likely, for He did all He did freely and publically. Others say she did it in secret because her touch deviled, and she did not want anyone to know that she had touched Christ.
She illustrates that no one needs to come to Jesus publically to experience His healing. If one comes in secret believeing that is enough. Jesus however, does want a public confession. Spurgeon said, "O my hearer, you can be saved in silence. You have no need to speak to any person of your acquaintance, not even to mother or father. At this moment, while in the pew, believe and live. Nobody will know that you are now touching the Lord."
Legend says she was Veronica, the woman who ministered to him when he was dying. Legend also says she was wealthy at one time, but spent all to be healed, and now she finally gets it free. The best things in life are often free. We see here the cooperation of body and spirit, for both faith and her finger were necessary. Physical contact is not necessary, but in her case it was because she was trying to do it secretly. It almost seems as if the healing power of Christ was objective, for she got a healing without His willing it. It was like she was a pickpocket who came from behind and took healing out of his back pocket. An actual flow of power, like electricity, flowed out of Jesus into her. Jesus was sensitive to this power flow. He knew it was not just someone in the crowd pressing upon Him.
Near Him she stole, rank after rank;
She feared appraoch too loud;
She touched His garments' hem, and shrank
Back in the sheltering crowd.
A shame-faced gladness thrills her frame;
Her twelve years' fainting prayer
Is heard at last; she is the same
As other women there.
She hears His voice; His looks about;
Ah! is it kind or good
To drag her secret sorrow out
Before that multitude?
The yes of men she dares not meet--
On her they straight must fall:
Forward she sped, and at His feet
Fell down, and told Him all.
His presence makes a holy place;
No alien eyes are there;
Her shrinking shame finds god-like grace,
The covert of its care.
"Daughter," He said, "be of good cheer;
Thy faith hath made thee whole";
With plenteous love, not healing mere,
He would content her soul. (G. MacDonald)
Sankey in Gospel Hymns wrote of her,
She only touched the hem of His garment,
As to His side she stole,
Amid the crowd that gathered round Him,
And straightway she was whole.
Reach out and touch someone is a popular phrase, and this woman reached out for the one who could heal by a touch. We talk about getting in touch with someone, and she got in touch with the Healing Christ. "Touch is the sense which love employs." Contact eliminates all distance between one who loves and the object of his love.
Clearly she was a woman of great determination and hope. After 12 years most would say I'll always have this problem, and just give up. She was still hoping for a cure. Women are supposedly stronger than men in suffering. The Christian attitude should always be to never give in and accept it unless it is clearly the will of God, as was Paul's thorn in the flesh. If you accept something as God's will you don't fight it, and so if you go to get medicine you are declaring, this is not God's will. Here is a woman driven by need and drawn by hope to find a cure. Many have tried to help her but none could. She had to bear pain and great loneliness. She was defiled, and according to the law she was practically an outcast, for all that she touched or sat upon would be defiled. She was so ashamed of her problem she did not come and ask for public healing. Like many with female problems, she did not want to broadcast it. She was hoping for a hidden miracle that nobody would know about but herself. Instead, it turns out that the whole of history became informed of her problem and her miracle.
Here is doctor Luke admitting that doctors cannot cure all problems. This is humility on his part. He was not so proud as to think man had the answer to all. The world is filled with people who have problems that the wisdom of man cannot solve. Jesus is the hope of the hopeless, and He alone can heal the sinsick soul. She was a good example of ambivilance, for she believed and yet was not so sure and so wanted all to be in secret. Cowper wrote,
Conceded amid the gathering throng,
She would have shunn'd thy view,
And if her faith was firm and strong
Had strong misgivings too.
Note the contrast between her and Jairus. He was bold and straighforward, but she was sneeky. Their is a parallel between them also, for the daughter had been born 12 years ago and she had developed her problem 12 years ago. One was losing a great blessing and the other was hoping to lose a great curse. We have here the case of the stealing of healing. She had to have greater faith than most to believe she could be healed without even asking Jesus, or having Him speak a word. No man is recorded as having this kind of faith that a mere touch could heal. Here is an unconscious healing. Jesus was on His way to heal another, and this was just an extra. Spurgeon called it, "A sort of oversplash of the great fountain of mercy." This was a side road and an interuption in His journey, but as Spurgeon said again, "The episodes of the Lord Jesus are as beautiful as the main run of His life's poem."
This interuption would give Jarius an illustration of the power of the touch of Jesus and strengthen his own faith. There are different types of touch. There is the touch of enforced nearness of the crowd which had no meaning. Then there is hurt touch with a purpose. It was aimed deliberately at Jesus for a specific gift of healing. We can still reach out and touch someone, and if that someone is Jesus we can still receive healing and forgiveness of sin. Every sinner needs to reach out and touch the hem of His garment, which today is the body of Christ, the church, which is to wear the robe of righteousness that can be touched.
Jesus asked, "Who touched me?" Godet writes, "There is no reason for not attributing to Jesus the ignorance implied in the question..." "Anything like feigning ignorance ill comports with the candour of His character."
There is a paradox here. Jesus brings this woman out to give a public testimony, and yet he puts the gag on Jarius and his family in verse 56. He made the one who wanted to stay hidden come public, and made the one who wanted to shout it from the house top to keep it private. This was a minor miracle on the way to a major miracle, and so maybe it was not so impressive that it could not be brought to the attention of the crowd.
LUKE 10:38-42
38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a village; and a woman named Martha received him into her house.
39 And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching.
40 But Martha was distracted with much serving; and she went to him and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me."
41 But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things;
42 one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her."
LUKE 13:10-17
10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath.
11 And there was a woman who had had a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years; she was bent over and could not fully straighten herself.
12 And when Jesus saw her, he called her and said to her, "Woman, you are freed from your infirmity."
13 And he laid his hands upon her, and immediately she was made straight, and she praised God.
14 But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the sabbath, said to the people, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be healed, and not on the sabbath day."
15 Then the Lord answered him, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his ass from the manger, and lead it away to water it?
16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?"
17 As he said this, all his adversaries were put to shame; and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.
Here is a case where Jesus showed public compassion for a woman in a context where women were to be inferior and unnoticed. If Jesus had healed a lamb that had broken its leg they probably would not have objected, but ot heal a woman in the synagoge and on the Sabbath was just to radical. When Jesus does something for someone unasked, it is usually a woman He is helping, and so it was with this woman with severe curvature of the spine. Here we see the value system of Jesus in contrast with the value system of the Jewish leaders. They said tradition is the key value, but Jesus said people are. Jesus was not asked by her or anyone else to heal her. He just chose to respond out of compassion. She had resigned herself to live with her problem, and did not even come with the hope of being healed. The presence of misery prompts His mercy. It did not make any difference to Him what day of the week it was. His mercy was in operation 7 days a week, and He had no day off from doing good.
It is possible that her problem was psychosomatic, for Satan can bind us by negative and obsessive thoughts. She had a spirit of infirmity, and this does imply her problem could be psycholosomatic. Frank Lauback said, "Every thought tends to become true in proportion as it is intense and as it is long dwelt upon." Dr. David Morton of the University of Southern California said, "You are not what you think you are. What you think, you are."
Luke alone records this healing on the Sabbath. Barclay points out that this is the last time we ever hear of Jesus being in a synagogue. The authorities were watching His every move, and waiting to ensnare Him. Jesus was concerned that the Sabbath be not just a time of teaching but of action. It is a Christian duty for doctors and nurses and others to work on Sunday just as Jesus did. Jesus deliberately broke the traditions to make clear that people and their needs are more important than traditions and religious rituals. He was not trying to secularize the Sabbath, but to make it truly sacred by making it a day for person centered activity.
This woman was bent over like a hunchback, and must have been a pathetic sight. Jesus called this distortion of the body a work of Satan and not the will of God. This woman was apparantly a faithful attender at the synagogue, but had been ill for 18 years. The faithful often must suffer long the afflications of Satan before being delivered. Jesus was giving first class attention to what others considered second class people. She would be in a segregated part of the synagogue. If anyone had good reason to stay away from the worship service it was this woman. She had every right to stay home as a shut in, but had she not been there this day she would have missed her miracle. Every time we miss a service we risk missing a blessing God has for us.
We see here that Satan can be responsible, not just for mental problems, but for physical problems, and he can keep even godly people bound by these problems. This is why the ministry of healing is a part of the Christian church. God's people can become bound by Satan, and only the power of Christ can set them free, and the gift of healing is the means by which many are set free. Jesus did not lay hands on all He healed, but here He did, for the power of touch was essential to convey true acceptance. For Jesus to walk over to a woman in the synagogue and touch her would be shocking to the Pharisees. It just was not done, but Jesus did it and taught the need for physical expression of acceptance. Words are often too easy and cheap. We need to express love and acceptance by touch.
Her response of praise was as immediate as her healing. This, no doubt, disturbed the Pharisees who did not like the outburst of a woman in the synagogue. Doing the will of God and sharing love to others will not always please everyone. The rulers were more concerned about the system than about people. Religious people can put the highest value on their ritual even if it ignores the needs of people. Barclay writes, "It is all too tragically true that more trouble and strife arises in churches over legalistic details of procedure than for any other reason. In the world, and in the church, we are constantly in peril of loving systems more than we love God and more than we love men."
This leader was actually angry and put out with Jesus for violating a tradition. The fact that a life was set free from bondage to great joy did not touch him. All he cared about was that a rule had been broken. He could not distinguish between work and service. To work, in the sense of doing labor to earn wages, is not wise behavior on the Sabbath, and Jesus never once encouraged this. But to meet a need and serve people for their benefit is what God wants to happen on this day off from the routine of manual labor. Note how he scolds the congregation, for he did not have the nerve to attack Jesus, or this woman who was praising God. So he launches an attack on the general principle that the crowd should not come to the synagogue on the Sabbath expecting any practical blessing from God, such as healing.
General Booth in his book In Darkest England tells of a runaway girl who came to the Home For Fallen Women, and applied for a nights lodging. The clerk took her name and address and asked, "Are you a fallen woman?" The girl blushed and looked down at the floor and explained that she was not, but she had not money and needed a place to stay. The clerk told her that this institution was for fallen women only. She left and then came back later and said, "I am qualified now, will you take me in now?" The rule was made more important than the person. The rule made her do evil in order to get help, and such a rule is evil in itself. When a rule robs people of their dignity and value, the rule ought to be violated. The purpose of rules is to avoid hurting people. When the rule is going to hurt people it should be broken for the sake of the person. If you were standing before a red light and saw a little boy about to run his tricycle off the curb into the street on the other side, you would be a fool not to break the rule and run through the red light to save the child.
The synagogue ruler was angry, and when you are angry over th violation of a rule, even though it was of great benefit to a person, your spiritual values are messed up. Jesus only got angry at that which hurt people and degraded them. He never got angry at rule violation, for rules tend to put rulers and institutions above people. History is full of stubborn anger that has injured people. Godly anger will always be for the benefit of people. Benjamin Franklin said, "People of action will make many mistakes, but they never make the biggest mistake of all-doing nothing." That was the mistake of the ruler.
Gilbert and Sullivan, the two talented music men who wrote lite opera, were partners. Sullivan one day ordered a new carpet for a theatre they bought. When Gilbert saw the bill he blew his stack. One thing led to another until they ended in court over it. They never spoke to one another again. When Sullivan wrote music for a new production he mailed it to Gilbert. When Gilbert wrote the words he mailed it back to Sullivan. Once they had to make a curtain call together. They stood as far apart on the stage as possible. Here was stubborn anger that put their pride and rules above the value of persons, and this was folly. Imagine being mad at your own partner, but worse yet, imagine being angry at Jesus for healing a poor woman who had been bound for 18 years. Perverted values can make men angry even at life's best values.
Jesus got angry at those who got angry because of His compassion for people.The worst sins from the point of view of Jesus were those of religious people who lacked compassion. People who resist acts of love are the greatest hinderance to the ministry of Christ. Jesus argues from the less to the greater. If something is valid on a lower level, is it not more valid on a higher level. If compassion for animals leads to exceptions, how much more ought compassion for people lead to exceptions in Sabbath observance? See 14:5.
It is hypocritical to pretend to be concerned about God's law when you do not care about God's people. It is people that really matter, and all we hold dear must be evaluated in the light of how it affects people. It is a warped value system that puts animals above people. They cared more for bound and thirsty animals than they did about a bound and suffering woman. It is not that their love for animals was wrong, but that their love for people was so inadequate. The lesser realms of life are to be a guide for conduct in the higher realms. If people have great love and compassion for their animals, even enough to break some of the rules for their benefit, how much more should this apply to the needs of people.
We hear of the sons of Abraham, but Jesus is the first to call a woman the daughter of Abraham and give women and equality of inheritance. Jesus does not view all suffering as a value. Here is a case where she was a victim and a prisoner for 18 years, and what was good was her release, and not her bondage. She had been in this conditon for 18 years, and so it was really no emergency. Jesus could have made an appointment for the next day, but He healed her on the spot because it was only right to meet her need as soon as He became aware of it. Barclay refers to a Latin proverb that says, "He gives twice who gives quickly." Barclay writes, "Jesus' whole action in this matter makes it clear that it is not God's will that any human being should suffer one moment longer than is absolutely necessary." "No helpful deed that we can do today should be postponed until tomorrow."
LUKE 13:18-21
18 He said therefore, "What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it?
19 It is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his garden; and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches."
20 And again he said, "To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?
21 It is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened."
These two parables have in common the concept of the small and seemingly insignificant having, in the long run, a great and powerful influence. They differ in that the one with the man so sowing the mustard seed stresses the external growth of the kingdom which the world can see. Whereas, the one with the woman stresses the hidden working of the kingdom. We have both the visible and invisible at work, and the female is used to illustrate the invisible.
Jesus is saying something that has been true throughout the history of the church. Women have been more like the yeast. They have worked behind the scenes hidden from the public view to bring about changes and advances in the kingdom. At Pentecost they were there in prayer, and the Holy Spirit fell on them, but they were in the background, and men held the public spotlight. They provided the gifts and talents such as Dorcus in Acts 9:36, and the mother of John Mark who opened up her home in Acts 12:12. Pricilla had more public gifts in Acts 18:26 and Rom. 16:3, as did the daughters of Philip in Acts 21:8-9. Women are more like the Holy Spirit who is in the background, and men are more like Jesus who is in the forefront, but both are essential to the kingdom of God.
Jesus tells two brief parables here using both male and female and we see the balance he gives to the sexes. He included women illustrations in his teachings to give them a feeling of equality and belonging. The small and hidden can become major, and this is what has happened to women in the kingdom. They were almost unnoticed to start with, but they grew in importance to become a major factor in the kingdom of God. It starts with an act of mercy to one woman on the Sabbath, and grows until the Sabbath becomes a day for mercy to all people. It starts with a story of kindness to a Samaritan woman, and grows until prejudice for all must die, and all people be accepted as equals in the kingdom.
Jesus is saying the kingdom of God works by small things making big changes. Small beginnings may work slowly but steadily until all is changed. If the yeast is working, every generation of Christians should be different in their total outlook on life, for they should be advancing in Christlike attitudes. Evil, of course, can and does work the same way, and so Jesus warned about the 11 of the Pharisees, for Christians can become legalistic. Jesus had just gained a victory over the false values of the ruler of the synagogue, and this was the beginning of new value system for the people of God.
Jesus is saying that the kingdom of God, or His coming into the world, is like a seed sown, or yeast put in bread. It will be just the beginning of changes that will grow until the church will think and act with the mind of Christ. No longer will people be subjected to burdens of religion. Christianity will establish proper priorities, and people will be superior to the system of religious laws and rituals. These parable reveal how the kingdom of God and His reign in history begin, and finally permeate the whole. What Jesus said has happened in history, and the church has a totally different attitude toward people than did the Judaism of that day. No longer is the sinner stoned, but he is dealt with in compassion. The goal is not to punish but to forgive and restore.
Many oppose the positive view of these parables, and say they refer to the growth of evil because of a misunderstanding. Many take these to mean the kingdom of God will start small and grow until the whole world is Christian. Others have reacted against this view and have imposed upon these parables a negative interpretation. Just because the liberal view perverts them is no justification for a different perversion in the opposite direction. If we see that Jesus is refering to the growth of right values and priorities within the body of God's people, we do not need to try and twist them into refering to evil. Jesus is comparing the kingdom to seed and yeast, and how they grow and permeate just as His love for people and their needs grew and permeated Christian thinking. Now we no longer think of days, traditions, and rituals as more important than people.
The idea of a great tree does not say the whole world will be converted, or that it would bear only good fruit, or that none of its branches would ever be cut off. All it is saying is that from small beginnings it shall become large. The birds making nests in it just stresses that it is large, and there is no need to try and find symbolic meaning behind the birds. An Eastern thought a great tree was symbolic of a great empire, and the birds on its branches are the subject peoples who come under its power. Jesus is saying the kingdom of God will become a vast kingdom with many people becoming a part of it. We see this image used so clearly by Ezekiel in 17:22-24 and 31:3f. We see it also in Daniel 4:10-12 and Psalm 80:8-13. Barclay writes, "Sometimes the fact that there are so many branches of the church is used as a condemnation. In point of fact, it is the church's great virtue and blessing. Not all people worship alike. Some find God in a bare simplicity; others in an elaborate form of worship. Some find Him in speech, some in music, some in silence. Amidst the multiplicity of churches a man can find that church in which he will find God."
J. C. Ryle writes, "Let us learn from this parable never to despair of any work for Christ, because its first beginnings are feeble and small." It is Christian thinking to believe that any small effort at what is good and right can eventually make a big difference. Zech. 4:10. The seed shows what the kingdom becomes in itself, and the yeast shows what influence it can have on the enviornment.
Some insist that leven, or yeast, must always be evil, but this is not consistent with the facts. The Bible uses the same symbol for both good and evil. You have the lion as a symbol of the devil in I Pet. 5:8, and of Jesus in Rev. 5:5. A symbol means what the author intends it to mean by the context. It is true that if you put a little error into your teaching it can grow and permeate the whole, but it is also true that a little truth can grow until it becomes dominant and changes your whole life for good. Satan can sow the field with tares just as Jesus can sow the field with wheat, and both grow so much alike. What is true for good is also true for evil, but Jesus is here illustrating the growth and influence of the kingdom.
Yeast is often used to refer to evil, but if an illustration for evil cannot be used for good then we have greatly limited the use of illustrations for good. Birds are used of Satan's forces snatching the seed of the word away, but it is foolish to think that birds only illustrate evil, for they are used more by Jesus to illustrate good than any other creature. Even the Holy Spirit is in the form of a dove. The serpent is the instrument of Satan, but the serpent lifted up in the wilderness is a symbol of Jesus, and he said we should be as wise as serpents but harmless as doves. He called the Pharisees serpents, but that does not mean it cannot be used with positive meaning. The context determines the meaning. Jesus is not saying the Gospel will convert the whole world, but that His truth and love will eventually be a dominant influence in the whole world.
Jesus does not refer here to the Pharisees or to some stranger in the night. He is dealing with two commonplace experiences of everyday life of ordinary people that are good and normal. Men sowing in the field and women making bread are good, and there is no basis for reading evil intent into these parables. All that those who read evil into this context is true, but they should limit their teaching to the passages where the evil tares and level of the Pharisees is being dealt with, and not bring them into a setting where they are out of place. Straton writes, of the originally of Jesus and says, "In the thinking of his hearers, leven had always stood for the infective power of evil; yet here Jesus applies it to the transforming power of God, making what was in all probability an entirely new use of it." Jesus is saying good also can pentetrate, so don't only think that evil can do so.
A.B. Bruce sees leven as so positive he says there are three symbols of Christians in the parables: Salt, light, and leven. All three of them when they get into something spread over the hole, and influenced the totality of the context. Alexander Maclaren writes, "Now, of course, leven is generally taken as a symbol of evil or corruption...But firmentation works enabling as well as corrupting, and our Lord lays hold upon the other possible use of the metaphor." It is folly to read evil into this text and identify this woman making bread as the great whore of revelation sowing corruption in the church.
Leven is a disturbing element. C. H. Dodd writes, "We should observe that the working of the leven in the dough is not a slow imperceptible process. At first it is true the leven is hidden and nothing appears to happen; but soon the whole mass swells and bubbles as firmentation rapidly advances." So the influence of Christianity has also been disturbing. Acts 17:6 and 16:20.
It teaches that the source of the power for change is both external and internal. The dough has no power to change itself. The woman must add yeast to the dough. Some external agent must act, but once it is added the change takes place from within. Lightfoot writes, "Christianity is like leven. It is not on the outside trying to get in, but it is on the inside trying to get out." Leven is agressive. It does not cease to work until the whole lump is affected. So Christianity is to spread into all the world until all people's hear the Gospel.
LUKE 15:8-10
8 "Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it?
9 And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost.'
10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
This whole chapter 15 is a parable in three parts. There is the lost sheep, the lost silver, and the lost son. It is a triune parable. It is like a pyramid with a different picture on each of the three sides. It is a progressive parable with one out of hundred sheep that is lost; one out of ten coins that is lost, and one son out of two that is lost.
Each parable deals with a higher value.
Men and women have the same inner desire to find what is lost and preserve what is valuable. Women are just as concerned about the evangelistic outreach of the Gospel as men are. If women do not feel the pull to go after a lost sheep, they could grasp the need to search for a lost coin. Jesus used illustrations to appeal to both sexes. We see that the man was the bread winner and controlled the source of income into the family, but we see the woman did have control of the first strings to some degree once the money was earned. She had the ten silver coins, and was apparently in charge of them. This was her spending money and so she did have some economic responsibility just as women always have.
The woman loses what is lifeless, but because it has value it motivates a concern to search and to rejoice in its recovery. Finding what is lost is so enjoyable because of the value of what is lost. If you lose a rock in your shoe, you don't go try to find it, for it has no value. The whole point of Jesus is that the worst of people; the tax collectors and sinners have value. Even lost people are precious, and we are to seek to restore them to God because of their worth. It is never a Christian attitude to despise any for whom Christ died.
Many Christians misunderstand separation. It does not mean we are to have no love for, or relationship to, the worldly people, but rather, we are not to be partakers with them in their godless values, pleasures, and sins. To withdraw from any relationship, however, is to let the lost sheep stay lost, and not try to find it. It is to say, let the lost coin stay lost, we will do without it. Even if one could do this to a sheep or coin, it can never be rightly done with an infinitely valuable soul of a sinner.
This second parable adds nothing to the first as far as the lesson of the lost being of value. The real value of the parable is that it allows us to see that a woman can be
symbolic of God's love and the evangelistic search for the lost equally with men. Both the man and the woman are representing God's love for the lost and his efforts to restore them, and the joy of seeing it succeed. One can ask in the light of this parable; is there any aspect of the nature of God that a woman cannot illustrate as well as a man?
In the case of the sheep and the coin, the lost will not come back as in the case of the Prodigal Son. They must be sought out and brought back, and so two out of three lost people probably need to be found where they are lost, for they will not likely wander back to the fold. Most evangelism must be done outside the church walls. We see three kinds of lostness in this larger context. The sheep just wanders away;
the coin is lost by the carelessness of someone; the son chooses to go his own way.
The woman did not just sit and cry about her loss, but she got busy searching for it. God did not sit back in heaven and cry about the fall of man; nor did he take the opposite view that there is no sense in crying over spilt milk. He got busy doing something about overcoming the negative state of affairs. It was action that counted.The Pharisees had their philosophy of how to relate or not relate to people, but Jesus had His plan of action to find and save people. She looked everywhere, and so the Lord will look everywhere to find sinners ready to return to God. Go into all the world He said. What kind of search would it be if she just looked under one chair and quit? It is diligent search until the object is found that is needed. So Jesus wants His body to look into every nation and tribe on the planet until every possible sinner is confronted with the Gospel.
The coin represents the total helpless state of the sinner if a Savior does not seek to find them. It was for me that Jesus died! For me, and a world of men,Just as sinful, and just as slow to give back His love again;And He didn't wait till I came to Him, but He loved me at my worst;He needn't ever have died for me if I could have loved Him first.
Many have tried to see all kinds of symbolism here. The three stories representing the three persons of the Godhead is one example. The first represents the Son who, as a shepherd, went after the sheep; the last one represents the father of the Prodigal as being God the Father. This one of the woman is seen as a picture of God the Holy Spirit. Outstanding scholars like Bengel, Alford, Stier, and Habershon held that the woman represents the Holy Spirit. So also does Spurgeon and S.M. Brown, a Baptist author and editor who says the woman's sweeping fits the work of the Holy Spirit in removing rubbish and revealing lost truth and values to the church. He says, like the woman, the Spirit is the Comforter. One parable in three parts representing the three persons of the trinity. The woman is said to best symbolize the Holy Spirit because women were veiled and so also the Holy Spirit is the most hidden of the Persons of the Godhead. Trench suggests that the shepherd is Jesus going after the lost sheep, whereas the woman is the church filled with the Holy Spirit seeking those who are lost right in the very house of God.
If we see the whole picture, we see the lost who are not able to find their way back, but we see also the lost who by their free will respond and chose to come back. We need to see the whole picture for part of it is not the whole truth. Whole denominations develop by taking one parable and making it the whole truth. The lost are both dead in sin as a coin, and yet also as responsible as a son to repent and return home.
Matthew Henry has a fascinating idea here. In the first parable only one out of 99 is lost, and in this one only one out of ten is lost. And so only a small proportion of people are lost with the rest still in the fold, or in the purse. He says this could mean there are many in the universe who never fell, but remained faithful to God. Why should we assume that the freedom God gave Adam must always lead to failure? He writes, "O the numberless beings, for ought we know, numberless worlds of beings, that never were lost, or stepped aside from the laws of their Creator!" This is not a far fetched idea. It is based first of all on the infinite nature of God, and the nature of the universe. Then there are other hints in Scripture.
Joy is an emotion of heaven. Angels can experience it, and do when the purpose of Christ's death if fullfilled. They see the fruits of His cross and rejoice, for they stood ready to come and deliver Him, but He would not call for them. They must have longed to come at His command and wipe out the cruel men who crucified Him. But now they understand and see the fruit of His death and rejoice. What is the murmuring of the Pharisees on earth compared to the rejoicing of the angels in heaven. Note, the angels could do nothing for the recovery which was purely a human matter, but they can rejoice when human efforts are successful. St. Bernard said, "The tears of penitence are the wine of angels."
What happens on earth does have an effect in heaven. Angels are emotional beings, and they can be gladdened or saddened by what happens among men. The Pharisees were not in touch with the spirit of heaven, for they did not rejoice, but complained. We need to see all events on earth from the perspective of heaven. Jesus emphasized the infinite worth of every eternal soul. Every sinner is a potential citizen of heaven which the angels will one day meet, and they rejoice for every repentent sinner is an addition to their eternal family of friends. Angels are spectators and it is like watching a football game to them. Every time a soul is saved it is like a touchdown for the team of Christ against the team of Satan. There can be great emotion connected with being a spectator, and the angels have that pleasure.
LUKE 17:32-35
32 Remember Lot's wife.
33 Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it.
34 I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other left.
35 There will be two women grinding together; one will be taken and the other left."
LUKE 18:1-8
1 And he told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.
2 He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor regarded man;
3 and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, 'Vindicate me against my adversary.'
4 For a while he refused; but afterward he said to himself, 'Though I neither fear God nor regard man,
5 yet because this widow bothers me, I will vindicate her, or she will wear me out by her continual coming.'"
6 And the Lord said, "Hear what the unrighteous judge says.
7 And will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them?
8 I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?"
LUKE 18:15-17
Who could they be but mothers, and so we see another picture of women in the life of Jesus. Women loved their children and wanted the best for them, and so they brought them to Jesus. The men thought women and kids were best kept out of the picture. They were something of a nuisence, but Jesus gives His view of the values involved here, and He comes on strong in favor of the mothers, which was a rebuke to His disciples. Dr. Luke, of course, was delighted to record this event, for his life's work involved a procession of mothers with their children. Who brings children to the doctor more than mothers?
In Mark 10:13-16 we see Jesus is quite angry at this point. Jesus took the children in His arms and blessed them, and laid hands on them. This could be an imparting of gifts to these little ones. Jesus was motherly in His relation to babies and little children. We see Jesus not only as the friend of sinners, but as the friend of children and mothers.
A child knows how to receive freely without feeling an obligation. To try and work for the gift and to be worthy of it is not in a child's mind. The Pharisees were so concerned about legalistic obedience to the law that they could not be childlike and receive the gifts of God by grace.
LUKE 21:1-4
1 He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury;
2 and he saw a poor widow put in two copper coins.
3 And he said, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them;
4 for they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all the living that she had."
LUKE 22:54-57
54 Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house. Peter followed at a distance;
55 and when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them.
56 Then a maid, seeing him as he sat in the light and gazing at him, said, "This man also was with him."
57 But he denied it, saying, "Woman, I do not know him."
LUKE 23:27-31
27 And there followed him a great multitude of the people, and of women who bewailed and lamented him.
28 But Jesus turning to them said, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.
29 For behold, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never gave suck!'
30 Then they will begin to say to the mountains, 'Fall on us'; and to the hills, 'Cover us.'
31 For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?"
Here was a good crowd of weeping women. This reveals the impact of the ministry of Christ upon women. The women were more sympathetic to the life and teaching of Jesus than were the men. They may have know little of the theological debates of the men, but they knew Jesus was good, loving, and He met their needs. Sadler writes, "He seems to have removed the curse from the sex, so that they are now more ready to receive His truth than men." Many feel they were not disciples, but people who were very emotional about seeing this man suffering. Even tender hearted pagans could be moved to tears by the cross, but tears are not proof of committment. Pilot's wife was a pagan woman, but she pleaded with her husband to spare Jesus.
Spurgeon writes, "As for the words themselves, they are especially noteworthy, because they constitute the last connected discourse of the Savior before He died. All that He said afterwards was fragmentary and mainly of the nature of prayer. A sentence to John, and to his mother, and to the dying thief: Just a word or two looking downward, but for the most part he uttered broken sentences, which flew upwards on the wings of strong desire. This was his last address, a farewell sermonette; delivered amid surroundings most sad and solemn, restraining tears and yet at the same time causing them to flow. We reckon the words to be all the more weighty and full of solemnity because of the occasion, but even apart from this, the truths delivered were in themselves of the utmost importance and solemnity. This last discourse of our Lord before His death was terribly prophetic to a world rejecting Him, portentous with a thousand woes to a people whom He loved, woes which even He could not avert, because they had rejected His interposition and refused the mercy which He came to bring. "Daughters of Jerusalem,"said He, "weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children." Not many hours before He had himself set them the example by weeping over the doomed city, and crying, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!"
Spurgeon goes on, "He said to the weeping women, "WEEP NOT." There are some cold, calculating expositors who make it out that our Lord reproved these women for weeping, and that there was something wrong, or if not all together wrong, yet something very far from commendable in their sorrow-I think they call it "the sentimental sympathy" of these kind souls. There is no being much more unnatural than a cold-blooded commentator, who bites at every letter, and nibbles at the grammatical meaning of every syllable, translating with his lexicon, but never excerising common sense, or allowing even the least play to his heart. Blame these women? No, bless them again and again. It was the one redeeming trait in the dread march along the Via Dolorosa; let it not be dreamed that Jesus could have censured those who wept for Him. No, no, no, a thousand times No! These gentle women appear in a happy contrast to the chief priests, with their savage malice, and to the thuoughtless multitude with their fierce cry of "crucify Him, crucify Him!" They seem to me to have shown a noble courage in daring to express their sympathy with one whom everybody else hunted to death with such ferocity. To espouse his cause amid those hoarse cries of "crucify Him, crucify Him," was courage more than manly; those women were heroines more valiant than those who rush upon the spoil. Those lamentations in sympathy with him who was being led to die are worthy of our praise and not of our criticism. Our Lord accepted the sympathy they evinced, and was only His great disinterested unselfishness which made Him say, "Spare your griefs for other sorrows." It was not because they were wrong, but because there were something still more necessary to be done than even to weep for Him."
Jesus is giving a warning. He is not rejecting their sympathy, but redirecting it. He is saying, "I can handle this ladies, but you are facing a trial even tougher to handle." His agnoy would be short and quickly turned to victory. Their's would be long. Jesus was not self-centered as He marched to the cross, focusing on self-pity. He was thinking of the terrible consequence upon them for what they were doing. The wrath of God would fall upon Israel. Jesus was sad for them, and for Himself. He was weeping over Jerusalem, and said don't weep for me for the real tragedy is the price you will have to pay for what you do to me. There is no escape from judgment, for they must reap what they sow. Spurgeon wrote, "Jesus points and says, "Weep for the national sin, weep for the national curse, which will surely come upon you, because you are putting the just One to death."
The agnoies of the future would be such that the most blessed state of womanhood for Israel would be curse-motherhood. Mothers will so suffer and see their children parish so that it would be a blessing never to have had any. This is not what Jesus says, but what men will then say. You have heard people say the world is so terrible they don't want to bring children into it. That was the case in 70A.D. when Jerusalem fell.
Here is a picture of people hiding in caves and so fearful of facing the enemy that they pray for the mountain to cave in and cover them. The fall of Jerusalem is a smybolic event of the final judgment of the world. What happened to Israel then will happen to the whole world for its rejection of Jesus. Jesus quotes a proverbial expression. If the fire consumes greenwood what will it do to dry wood? If judgment even falls upon that which has some life and possibility of fruit, what kind of judgment will fall on dry dead fruitless branches. In other words, the heat is going to be so intense that the best will burn. If the Son of God had to go through the fire of persecution, what about the body with its dry and fruitless branches? Jesus is the greenwood, and Jerusalem is the dry wood. Sadler writes, "If the Roman practices such cruelties on me, who am a green tree, and the very source of life, what will they do one day to your nation, which is like a barren, whithered trunk...."
LUKE 23:49,55-56
55 The women who had come with him from Galilee followed, and saw the tomb, and how his body was laid;
56 then they returned, and prepared spices and ointments. On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment.
The idea that women cannot take the pressure like men will not fit the facts. The men had all fled, but the women were there to see the worst; to see their Lord crucified. They no doubt wept but they were there. Fulton Sheen asked, "Which stands up better in a crisis-men or women?" He answers, "One can discuss this in a series of historial crises, but without arriving at any decision. The best way to arrive at a conclusion is to go to the greatest crisis the world ever faced, namely, Crucifixion of our Divine Lord. When we come to the great drama of Calvary, there is one fact that stands out very clearly. Men failed; on the other hand, there is not one single instance of a woman's failing Him."
LUKE 24:1-12
1 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices which they had prepared.
2 And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb,
3 but when they went in they did not find the body.
4 While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel;
5 and as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living among the dead?
6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee,
7 that the Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise."
8 And they remembered his words,
9 and returning from the tomb they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.
10 Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told this to the apostles;
11 but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.
12
Charles Jefferson in The Character Of Jesus says of the chivalry of Jesus, "It is word taken from the world of knighthood. The very sound of the word has magic in it and calls up before the eyes splendid troups of heroic men who went forth in the mediaeval times to protect the weak, maintain the right, and live a stainless life." Women were especially an object of his concern because they were weak and oppressed. "By defending her and all others who like her were at the mercy of brute powers of a barbaric world the knight won for himself a shining place in history and gave to chivalry a splendor which will never fade."
"Of all the knights who have risked their lives for the protection and honor of womanhood, not one is worthy to unloose the latchet of the shoes of this gracious and gallant Man of Galilee."
Charles Seltman in Women In Antiquity writes, "Jesus was a feminist to a degree far beyond that of His fellows and followers....No other Western prophet, seer, or would -be redeemer of humanity was so devoted to the femine half of mankind."
Jesus had female disciples as well as male. He did not expect them to play only a homemaker role-Luke 10:38-42. Martha was doing a femine job, and Mary was just being a disciple. Being a disciple is the better role. While other Rabbi's refuse to teach women, Jesus did so in Luke 21:1-4 and John 4 and John 11.
Eaton Barrett wrote,
Not she with trait'rous kiss her Savior stung,
Not she denied Him with unholy tongue:
She, while Apostles shrank, could dangers brave,
Last at the cross and earliest at the grave.
The family life of Jesus
It must be seen that Jesus grew up in a fiamily setting and had brothers and sisters-Matt.13:55-56; Mark 6:3. Jesus was the eldest and no doubt took care of the younger children and came to understand their needs. He referred to their hunger in Matt. 7:9-10. He recalled their moods in playing games in Matt. 11:16-17. He knew how a family bed could be packed in Luke 11:7. He saw the delightful qualities of children in Matt. 18:1-4. He identified himself with children in Matt. 18:5-6 and 21:15-16.
Jesus rejected the double standard of Judaism
See Sirach 26:21-24. Jesus treated all alike. Jesus defended women in situations where the usual treatment would be stoning, or last least rebuke. The Samaritan woman in John 4 is an example, and also the woman in John 8 who was taken in adultry, as well as his defense in John 12:1-8 where she was being called stupid etc. And see Mark 14:3-9. No woman ever hurt Jesus, they only showed Him kindness and honor.
Back in 1949 Harry Emerson Fosdick said of the treatment of women by Jesus in Luke, "..they are noblable facts, suggesting Jesus' break with Oriental ideas of women's subborination, and revealing his companionship with women on an equal basis with men."
Dr. Montefiore in Rabinnic Literature and Gospel Teaching says of Jesus, "He is a great champion of womanhood." "The relation of Jesus to women seem unlike what would have been usual for a Rabbi. He seems to have definitely broken with orientalizm in this particular."
God does not shrink from being seen in a female role just as Jesus did not when He compared His compassion to a hen's love for her chicks. See Isa. 42:14, 46:3-4,
66:13.
F.W. Boreham writes, "I do not hesitate to affirm that no man can succeed in the Christian ministry unless he makes a serious and earnest attempt to understand women. For, in every church, women occupy a singlularly conspicuous and honorable place. Some of the most successful ministers that I have known spent some months or years, prior to their entry into college, behind a draper's counter. It was an excellent apprenticeship. It brought them into touch with women; it enabled them to study the pecularities of women; and to look upon the world through a woman's eyes. The things that appeal to men do not appeal to women, or do not appeal to them in the same way. I have heard certain ministers pluming themselves on being men's men; they struggle to make an essentially masculine appeal; I have never known such a ministry succeed for very long."
Boreham also said, "From every point of view, the New Testament is an amazing document; but, considered in relation to its attitude towards women, it is amazing in a truly superlative degree. In what other manuscript of the period could you find stories like the story of Mary the Mother of Jesus, the story of the sisters at Bethney, the story of the woman which was a sinner, the story of the woman who touched the hem of Christ's garment, the story of the woman of Syro-Phoenicia, and all the others? At this point the New Testament is absolutely unique: It is like a lily in the midst of thorns.
"Jesus was the discoverer of womanhood: He revealed its dignity and elicited its charm: And the history of all subsequent religious activities is the history of the way in which the women of the ages, responding to His divine discernment and generous appreciation, have washed his feet with their tears and wiped them with the hairs of their heads."
Boreham points out an interesting fact about the dramas of Shakespeare. In them there are no heroes, but only heroines. The men frequently approximate to the heroic, but they never attain it. But there is hardly a play without a woman in it. Shakespeare was following a pattern we see in the New Testament.
We often think that the battle of women is to become equal with men, when the fact is, the real goal is for both sexes to become equal with the child, for Jesus said,"Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." It is, therefore, neither the male nor the female that is greatest, but the child of either sex that in humble trust represents the best there can be. If childlikeness is the key to Christlikeness, then it follows that women do have a natural advantage over men. Generally speaking the female is closer to the childlike nature. She is more easily submissive because smaller and weaker, and she is also more related to the child in that she is often the primary raiser of the child.
Jesus gave women the equality of doing the will of God which is the only equality that really matters in the long run. In Mark 3:31-35 Jesus says those who do the will of God are His mother and sister as well as brother. Here are two female relationships-the older and younger women, and all men are His brothers who obey. On one occasion when a woman sought to raise his mother to a superior position, Jesus by this same teaching made it clear that a woman is not superior, but all male and female are equally blessed if they do the will of God-Luke 11:27-28. Sex has nothing to do with your status in the kingdom of God. In this kingdom there is male or female, and all that matters is your obedience to God. A woman who obeys is superior to a man who does not, and vice versa, and a child who obeys is superior to both a man and a woman who does not. Status is not based on sex, but on submission.
PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE AS A MEMBER OR VISITOR
This article has been read 782 times < Previous | Next >
Free Reprints
Main Site Articles
Most Read Articles
Highly Acclaimed Challenge Articles.
New Release Christian Books for Free for a Simple Review.
NEW - Surprise Me With an Article - Click here for a random URL
God is Not Against You - He Came on an All Out Rescue Mission to Save You
...in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them... 2 Cor 5:19
Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Acts 13:38
LEARN & TRUST JESUS HERE
FaithWriters offers Christian reading material for Christian readers. We offer Christian articles, Christian fiction, Christian non-fiction, Christian Bible studies, Christian poems, Christian articles for sale, free use Christian articles, Christian living articles, New Covenant Christian Bible Studies, Christian magazine articles and new Christian articles. We write for Jesus about God, the Bible, salvation, prayer and the word of God.