Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Was Jesus a Feminist? | The Gospels | Luke 8:1–15

Episode Date: April 6, 2026

Why did women flock to Jesus? What made His movement so different from the world around Him? And what does that say about the heart of Christianity today? In today’s episode, Keith shares how Luke 8:1–15 shows that Jesus elevated women, gave them equal standing in His kingdom, and invited them into His mission. Read the Bible with us in 2026! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passage: Luke 8:1–15

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. Was Jesus a feminist? What do you think? Well, it's a hard question to answer because people have different definitions of feminism. Words mean different things to different people. So when someone asks, was Jesus a feminist, I guess it all depends on how you define feminism. If you mean by feminism, the advocacy of women's rights based on the equality of sexes, then

100%. Yes, I think Jesus was a feminist. Now, maybe calling Jesus a feminist strikes you as odd because you've heard that Christianity oppresses or controls women or generally thinks less of women than men. But that doesn't square with the Bible or church history. No person has been better for women than Jesus. No religion has been better for women than Christianity. It's undeniable that women are treated better, have more opportunities, more rights, more freedom in countries with Christian roots than in countries without them. That's not a coincidence. Christianity has always elevated the status of women. In the ancient world, there were no feminists. If you asserted that women were equals of men, you would have received looks of confusion and disbelief. They would have asked you on what basis did you make that claim? Because women were believed to be inferior in every way. The ancient Greeks observed that women were on average, physically weaker, and concluded that they were therefore mentally and emotionally weaker. Plato said that men were created by God. gods and cowardly and unjust men would come back in the next life as women. Plato's disciple Aristotle

was even worse, if that's possible. He claimed that women were deformed males. Did you catch that? Women were irrational, he said, weak, passive, incapable of abstract reasoning, and therefore bound to the domestic sphere. At the heart of Christianity is the countercultural belief that every human being, regardless of sex or nationality or religion or race or ability or age, is of inestimable worth because they are created in the image of God. Genesis 126, then God said, let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness. So they may rule over the fish and the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, over all the creatures that move along the ground.

So God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God he created them, male and feet. female, he created them. God created men and women in his image, and he gave both of them the responsibility to govern the world under his authority. In most cultures, that would have been deemed crazy. See, it wasn't just the Greeks who devalued women. The Romans didn't value women either. This is an excerpt from a letter that a Roman soldier on the front wrote back to his wife who was at home. He says, I am asking you and begging you to take care of the little child, and when we are paid, I will send it to you right away.

If you happen to be pregnant again, if it is a boy, leave it. If it is a girl, throw it out. See, this man had the common view that women were expendable, that little girls were undesirable. So the idea that every woman had rights or was the equal of a man would have been laughable in ancient Greek or Roman culture. It was a male-dominated world in which people believed that might makes right. It was survival of the fittest at the expense of the vulnerable. And into this world steps a man named Jesus, and he changes everything.

Jesus asked a powerful religious figure a question. He said, do you see this woman? The man that Jesus asked that question to had been around a woman and talked about the woman and judged the woman and condemned the woman, but he did not see the woman. He did not see her as a person created in the image of God, a person who had dignity. and a person who is worthy of being treated with respect. He didn't see someone of equal value to himself. He didn't see her as someone with skills and talents and intellect and a calling to use in this world.

He didn't see her the way Jesus did. And Jesus launched a movement that revolutionized how society thinks about women and how the society treats women. And it started with Jesus treating every woman that he encountered with dignity and respect and insisting that his followers do the same. The longest private conversation Jesus had was with a woman. You can find that story in John chapter 4. It was a conversation he had with a Samaritan woman, and they didn't talk about domestic responsibilities,

but about deep theological truths. Jesus wasn't afraid to correct the first century belief that men could be promiscuous while women had to be chased. He didn't uphold double standards. He called both husbands and wives to sexual faithfulness. Christianity didn't stop there, but insisted that inside the marriage, husbands and wife's sexual relationship must be mutual. Jesus gave women equal standing with men.

So was Jesus a feminist? Well, if you mean the advocacy of women's rights based on the equality of sexes, I don't know how you could read the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament and come to any other conclusion than that he was. Here's Luke chapter 8, verse 1. 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 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, the manager of Herod's household, Susanna, and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means. There is so much in those verses. I mean, many have pointed out that the 12 disciples are all men,

so doesn't that mean that Jesus favored and prioritized men and that Christianity is supposed to be male-dominated? Well, not exactly. Why were there 12 disciples? Why not 10 or 13 disciples? It wasn't a random choice. You might remember there were 12 tribes of Israel, and each tribe began with one of Jacob's sons. These 12 tribes made up the people of God, so when Jesus chose 12 Jewish men, he was signaling a new start for God's people. Since Jacob's 12 sons made up the 12 tribes, it was important to have 12 male disciples. But the 12 weren't the only disciples. I mean, in Luke 8, we learned that there's a larger group of disciples that included many women. Jesus mentions three women by name.

One of them is Susanna, and we don't know much about her. But we do know quite a bit about Mary Magdalene. Other than Mary Jesus' mother, Mary Magdalene is the most well-known woman in the New Testament. Now, Magdalene wasn't her last name. Magdalene was her hometown. She was called Mary Magdalene to distinguish her from the other Mary's. But Mary Magdalene is often betrayed as a prostitute. The Bible never says that, though. All we know is that Jesus cast seven demons out of her, that she witnessed the crucifixion and that she was the first person to see the resurrected Jesus, not the first woman, the first person. Jesus completely changed her life. Luke also mentions this

woman named Joanna. She's married, we're told to Chousa, who was Herod's household manager. Now, that was a very important position inside of Herod's court. It's likely that both Joanna and Chusa were Christians. Given that Herod wanted to kill Jesus, it took a lot of courage for Joanna to publicly follow Jesus. She's following the one that her husband's boss wants to kill. Also in Luke chapter 8, we find that there were some women who were helping to support Jesus out of their own means. In other words, there are some women who are Jesus' disciples who are using their own financial wealth to fund his ministry. We find women playing all kinds of important roles, just like that one. For example, as you keep reading the Gospels, you find that women were the last to leave Jesus when

he was crucified, that it was women who watched as he was buried, that women were the first ones to find the empty tomb, that there was a woman, Mary Magdalene, who was the first to see the resurrected Jesus. It was women who told the 12 disciples. that Jesus was alive. See, these women set a pattern that other women followed. Scholars estimate that in the first few centuries, women comprised two-thirds of the church. Read many of the early Christian sources, and you find women participating in all kinds of roles. They're everywhere inside the church. They're persecuted by the Roman government. They're hosting churches in their home. They're caring for the poor and those in prison. They're traveling as missionaries. They're wealthy patrons supporting the

church financially and more. And of course, it's not just church history. It's today's church. Today, women make up over half the churchgoers in America. Why do women flock to Jesus? Well, he sees them. He respects them. He empowers them. He values them. Unfortunately, in a lot of churches, there's a rivalry between men and women. There's tension between the sexes. That's incredibly unfortunate because it's not at all what God wants for the church. He wants men and women to work together for the cause of Christ. Father, I pray that you would unite our churches. We wouldn't just be united across race or economics, but also across sex and gender.

May we as men and women, your image bearers, work together for the cause of Christ. So in your name we pray, amen.