Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How Did Jesus Empower Women?

Starting point is 00:00:05 Welcome to 10 minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Right now, we're learning how to follow Jesus by working our way through the Gospel of Luke. Before the episode starts, I want to invite you to a special online-only event with Keith and I. We are going to be doing a lunch Bible study on Friday, April 3rd from 12 to 1230. We're going to do this for four weeks, actually. and we're going to be asking the question, are we living in the end times?

Starting point is 00:00:37 Right now I'm getting so many questions from people who are actually literally asking the question. You know is coronavirus a sign of the times? Or they're just wondering, what does the Bible say about these kinds of things? There's a lot of questions, a lot of misconceptions. We're going to address those. Again, we're going to put a link to that online event right at the top of our show notes. Pause it right now. Click that link, sign up today.

Starting point is 00:00:59 And you can join us on April 3rd from 12 to 1230 and a few weeks. afterwards. Here are two statements that I think most people would agree with. First, even in the most modern countries, women still experience gender inequality in different ways. Here's the second statement, though. Things are also much better for many, not all, but for many women in modern countries, than they were 2,000 years ago. I think the second point is basically indisputable. You see, from the time of birth, at least in the Roman world, infanticide was a everyday practice and everyday reality. And in the Roman world, the two most common victims of infanticide were babies with deformities and babies who were women. And as if that wasn't terrible enough, many of these abandoned babies were retrieved

Starting point is 00:01:48 by slavers and they were sold into sex slavery. Being a woman from birth in Rome wasn't great. In the land of Israel, thankfully it was an exception to some of these. practices. But that didn't mean that women were respected or honored in that culture. For example, a woman's testimony wasn't trusted in court. One rabbi who lived just after the time of Jesus said, I thank God that I was not born a Gentile, a slave, or a woman. It's an awful statement. It's not just that. Women weren't allowed to be students of rabbis. And just like in the rest of Rome, husbands were allowed to physically abuse their wives. Women's lives, women's lives, women's properties were not their own. They were in the hands of a patriarch. So to be born in the ancient world

Starting point is 00:02:35 was to be born as a second-class human being. I'm not saying things are close to perfect today, and that there aren't women who experience many similar things in modern countries, but I think we have made steps forward. Now, the sad thing looking back at the ancient world is that the ancient Hebrew scriptures, they actually militated against this. Right on page one, the Bible makes a radical claim, at least radical for its own time, that, all women, right alongside men, are made equally in God's image. Before we ever meet Adam and Eve, the author of Scripture wants to make one thing clear. We cannot rank genders. We can't prefer genders. We can't demean one gender over the other. Jesus expressed this deep truth by living it out.

Starting point is 00:03:18 He broke social norms by allowing women to be his students, to be his disciples. And one famous story, Martha looks down on her sister Mary. Why? Well, because Mary, Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus, which is the place that a student would take to learn. Mary wasn't being a good hostess like Martha was. In Jesus, she ends up commending Mary instead of Martha. Now, this isn't just a story about busyness. That's what we often turn it into. It's actually a story about gender.

Starting point is 00:03:49 Mary was doing what a man was supposed to do in that world, and Martha was doing what a woman was supposed to do. And Jesus said, enough of that. Now, in today's world, we have to be careful because in many ways, modern culture, we want to wipe out any and all differences between men and women. Jesus never did that. Jesus wiped out gender stratification. He wiped out the elevation of men over women. He wiped out the claims that men were superior to women. This is one of Luke's major themes. Throughout his gospel, Jesus is commending women. He's caring for women. He's teaching women. He's elevating women. and do you want to know who footed the bill for most of Jesus' ministry? By and large, wealthy women. One of the most culturally subversive verses in Luke's gospel comes right at the top of Chapter 8.

Starting point is 00:04:38 You can read along with me. After this, Jesus traveled from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The 12 were with him, and then catch this, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases. Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had come out, Joanna, the wife of Chusa, a manager of Herod's household, Susanna, and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means. If you get Luke's point, he's saying, look, among Jesus' closest followers, right there among the 12, are three women, Mary, Joanna, and Susanna. And these women are doing something that apparently the men are failing to do. They are the ones supporting the ministry financially.

Starting point is 00:05:21 Now, anybody's been around the church knows that this pattern really hasn't stopped. I can personally attest to the fact that in the church, in our church, women are often the most prodigal in their generosity. They're the most thirsty for learning. They're among the most committed to service. And I don't say this to diminish men, but simply to state a fact, the church does not grow and does not exist apart from women. Now, I'm not trying to give a history lesson or make a political point.

Starting point is 00:05:50 My point in saying all this is simply to affirm what Jesus and Luke were both careful to affirm, the incredible value of women in the life and mission of the church. I'm also saying this because I want to encourage women to continue to learn and use their spiritual gifts to teach, to give, to lead, to help, to pray, to serve, and to do whatever God's spirit has equipped you to do. And if you've got women in your life, and we all do, whether it's a woman that we're married to or a daughter or a mother, as men, it's our calling to encourage those exact things. but I also say all this for a different reason. There is always the temptation in culture and in the

Starting point is 00:06:26 church to separate the world into people who are insiders and outsiders. People who, maybe it's by virtue of their skin color or their gender or their nationality or whatever, are not allowed to participate in the body of Christ. And I don't care who you are. You have this temptation. And they obviously have this temptation in the past. Men wanted to make women into outsiders. But again, it can be different things at different times in different places. And again, we're all tempted to do it. And if you don't see that you're tempted, you're almost guaranteeably giving in to the temptation yourself. Jesus was willing to shock his peers by refusing to honor their insider outsider lines. We need to shock the world by refusing to honor its insider outsider

Starting point is 00:07:09 lines. And our churches, Democrats and Republicans should sit side by side, poor and rich, Europeans and Africans and Asians, and the list goes on. You see, by dying on the cross, Jesus didn't just defeat sin and death and the devil. He also tore down the boundary walls that separated us from each other so that he can invite us all as equals into his new family, a forgiven family, a family that's the beginning of a new creation, which is no longer characterized by disdain for outsiders, by dividing the world into people who are on the inside and people who are on the outside. No, his family is going to be. to be defined by familial love for all. What are the boundary walls that you're tempted to build today

Starting point is 00:07:52 right inside of your own community? Where are we tempted to build boundary walls inside of the church? What are the boundary lines that you're afraid to go across? Who is Jesus calling you to love to invite into your life in a way that might shock and even appall the world? But then in the end, bring glory to Jesus and to his church. Also, don't forget to sign up. up for our online Zoom Bible study, Friday, April 3rd from 12 to 1230. Are we living in the end times? We're going to talk about questions people are asking right now and a lot of the misconceptions that come along with those things. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily.

Starting point is 00:08:36 Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, Check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How Did Jesus Empower Women?

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