Women: A Biblical Perspective
11/09/1997 - Jesus and Women
This morning we continue our series on Women: A Biblical Perspective. Two weeks ago we looked at Woman in the Beginning . And we concluded from our study of the first two chapters of Genesis that God created the woman to be equal to the man. Together the man and the woman were created in God's image. Together they were given the responsibility to rule over God's creation. Co-regency was God's intent for male and female.
In Genesis 2:24, God revealed his dream for marriage, one man and one woman together becoming one flesh. And in the community of two becoming one God painted a picture of himself, the God who exists as a community of three in one. Equality, mutuality, community were all part of God's original intent for men and women. The only hierarchy we see in Genesis 1-2 is God over the man and the woman and the man and woman together over God's creation.
But all that changed dramatically with one bite of the atomic apple. Sin exploded into God's ideal creation with devastating fallout. And as a result man, Adam in Hebrew, became subject to the ground, Adamah, from which he was taken. And the female, Ishshah in Hebrew, became subject to the male, Ish, from which she was taken. And the hierarchy changed. God was now over creation. Creation was now over the man. The man was now over the woman, all because of sin.
Last week we looked at Women in the Old Testament and we observed how women suffered in a male dominated, patriarchal society. God's original design of one man as partner to one woman became one man as ruler of one woman. Became one man as ruler of many women in polygamy. Became one man as owner of many women with harems of wives and concubines until King Solomon set the record with 1,000. And God wasn't happy about it! So he laid down the Mosaic Law to curb some of the inevitable abuses of women.
And not only that, in an effort to show that God didn't devalue women he raised them up to some significant positions of leadership. Women like Miriam and Deborah and Huldah were world-class leaders who helped to guide the nation of Israel. And they did it with God's blessing. They were prophets and judges, military and civil leaders. The only position women couldn't fill was that of priest. Yet in Huldah's case she advised the high priest! Women enjoyed careers in business, as well as being mothers at home. The culture may have put down women, but God certainly didn't. Because he made the woman in his image!
And that brings us to the time of Jesus. I'd like to begin our study of Jesus and Women by looking at two video clips taken from the Jesus video that show how Jesus related to women. Show video clips. By the time Jesus stepped on to the stage of history the condition of women had degenerated to such a degree that there was almost no resemblance to the position of dignity, equality and mutuality that God had given women at creation. In fact, women were treated as sub-human!
The nation of Israel had grown more loyal to the oral traditions of the rabbi's than to the written Word of God. And according to their traditions women were considered the property of their husband. He owned them like he owned his sheep and his goats. Rabbis debated over whether women really had souls or not. The man was the absolute ruler over his family. He had the right to send his wife away with no explanation, but she could never leave him.
The oral tradition of the rabbi's, not the Bible, gave the man the right to divorce his wife if she spoiled the cooking, talked too loud or found someone else that he thought was prettier than she. All he had to do was take her to a witness and say three times, "I divorce you. I divorce you. I divorce you." And with that the marriage would be over and she would be out on the street destitute. You think divorce is easy in our culture?!
A wife in Jesus' day addressed her husband as "lord" or "master." When they traveled he rode, she walked. When they both walked, she walked behind her husband. A woman's place was so low at the time of Jesus that Israelite men were taught to thank God every day "that he had not made me a woman."
Women worked hard under these conditions. The average Jewish woman devoted her entire life to serving her family and derived her only status from her role as a mother--particularly the mother of sons. A woman who couldn't bare children was considered a disgrace to her husband and cursed by God. The rabbis gave her a place among the dead.
The woman cleaned the house, hauled the water, milled the grain, prepared the food, and sewed the clothes. Women spent most of the day preparing the main meal, which was eaten at sunset. She kept the fire burning, baked the bread, milked the goats, made the cheese, gathered, cleaned, and cooked the veggies, and on special occasions, stewed the meat. No microwave cooking or fast food restaurants in Jesus' day!
The birth of a baby barely made a dent in a woman's routine. She would nurse her children for two or three years while running her household and training the younger kids. Once a son reached the age of three he was placed under his father's care to learn how to work the fields, study the Torah, and be taught the traditions of the rabbis that perpetuated this inequality.
Women couldn't get a formal education in Jesus' day. It was strictly forbidden. One rabbi said, "A woman has no learning except in the use of the spindle." Again you need to understand, the rabbi's, not the Bible, limited women in this way. Fathers who dared to teach their daughters the Word of God were condemned. One rabbi said, "Whoever teaches his daughter Torah is as though he taught her obscenity." Another said, "Let the words of Torah rather be destroyed by fire than imparted to women."
Because of this, mothers only taught their daughters what was necessary to make them good wives when they were old enough to marry, usually at the ripe old age of twelve and a half! A good wife was one that relieved her husband of all domestic responsibility so that he could devote himself to his work and the study of the Torah. If his wife didn't do that, then she was considered a bad wife. And one rabbi said that it was a man's religious duty to divorce a bad wife.
To sum it all up, in Jesus day women were more like things than people. They had no rights. They had no opportunities. They could express no opinions. They could make no choices. And they weren't even talked to in public. That is, until Jesus came.
Jesus dealt with women as people not as things, as human beings created in the image of God. And that was radical. And it didn't pad his position in the polls, especially among the rabbis and the other religious leaders of his day. They hated him for it. Yet Jesus liberated women by treating them as persons. And that cut dramatically against the grain of a culture that was dominated by the oppressive teaching of the rabbis who treated women as things.
I like the way James Hurley puts it in his book Man and Woman in Biblical Perspective (p.83). He says, "The foundation-stone of Jesus' attitude toward women was his vision of them as persons to whom and for whom he had come. He didn't perceive them primarily in terms of their sex, age or marital status. He considered them in terms of their relationship or lack of relationship to God." (From Women in the Church, Stanley J. Grenz, p. 74).
Jesus saw women as human beings in need of a relationship with God every bit as much as men and dealt with them that way. While the rabbi's argued over whether women had souls or not, Jesus was inviting them, as he invited men, to enter into a personal relationship with God.
In the time remaining I'd like to look at three striking encounters that Jesus had with women. All three of these encounters were revolutionary in his day only because Israel had drifted so far from the Word of God on this issue.
Turn with me to John 4 where we find Jesus talking with a woman in public, something that was anathema in his culture. Look at verses 4-10, Now he (Jesus) had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour (12 noon). 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?" 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
Not only does Jesus speak to woman in public. But Jesus being a Jew speaks to a Samaritan woman. Which was even more remarkable because the Jews hated the Samaritans. Later in the dialogue we also learn that she was a despised Samaritan woman because she had not been a good wife and had five divorces to prove it and was now living with a man who wasn't her husband. Yet to this despised Samaritan woman Jesus reveals something about himself that he hadn't even told his own disciples yet!
Look at verse 25-26, The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." 26 Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."
Jesus tells her, "I am the Messiah! I am he!" At high noon sitting on a well in hostile Samaria Jesus gives the most illuminating revelation of himself to whom? To a woman, a despised Samaritan woman. This is the only time, before his trial, that Jesus specifically says that he is the Messiah.
To show where his disciples were at on this issue look at verse 27, Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, "What do you want?" or "Why are you talking with her?" His disciples knew that Jesus had just stepped over another line, a big line. But they were learning to trust him. And they had a long way to grow in this issue of women.
In a male dominated society that gave men the upper hand in virtually every arena, Jesus frequently came to the defense of women. In this second example we find Jesus doing just that. Turn to John 8. There's some question among scholars as to whether John 7:53-8:11 should be included in the gospel of John. Personally, I believe that it should. It's the story of the woman taken in adultery.
Look at verses John 8:2-11, At dawn he (Jesus) appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" 11 "No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."
To show how male dominated Israel was at the time, the officials only brought the woman to Jesus. She wasn't a person to them, just a tool to bait Jesus into some kind of trap. But adultery takes two! And the Law said in Leviticus 20 and Deuteronomy 22 that both the man and the woman were to be punished for an adulterous affair.
Jesus rescues the woman by showing compassion on her as a person. He doesn't excuse her actions. But he graciously gives her a second chance. Go now and leave your life of sin.
Let's look at one more encounter that shows how revolutionary Jesus was in his attitude toward women. Turn to Luke 10:38-42. In this passage we see Jesus teaching women. As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" 41 "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
Mary was welcome to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn from him. And Jesus invited her sister, Martha, to do the same. In a culture that thought it was better to burn the Torah than to teach it to a woman that was radical. But God never said women couldn't be educated. In Joshua 8:35 and Nehemiah 8:2-3 we see women being taught the Word of God in the Old Testament. God never intended the Scriptures to be withheld from women.
In addition to these encounters its interesting to me that women were the first to be told of Jesus' birth and the last to witness his death on the cross, when all the male disciples, except John, forsook Jesus and fled. Women traveled with Jesus and financed his ministry. Women were the first ones at his tomb and the first to witness his resurrection. In fact, Mary Magdalene was given the awesome responsibility to testify to others the truth of his resurrection, which is remarkable in a culture that prevented women from being witnesses in a court of law!
To sum up this discussion of Jesus and Women , its no wonder that women were so attracted to Jesus. They felt so free around him. They felt so safe and secure simply because he treated them with respect as people. He treated them like co-equals as God intended them to be treated when he created them.
In her book Are Women Human? (p. 47) Dorothy Sayers writes, "Women had never known a man like this Man--there has never been such another . A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them nor patronized them. Who never made jokes about them and who took their questions seriously. Who took them as he found them. Nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything 'funny' about woman's nature."
The dignity, respect and equality with which Jesus treated women was his model for the church that he founded. In the church he wants women to be treated with that same dignity, respect and equality. But those who would choose to limit a woman's role in the church would say, "All that's true. But it's also true that Jesus only chose men to be his twelve apostles. Therefore, he only ever intended men to serve as leaders in the church he founded."
I'm very familiar with that argument. I used to make that argument. I don't anymore. We need to be careful how much to make of that. Choosing only men to be his apostles could have been a very wise and sensitive accommodation to the culture of his day. It's also difficult to know how far to press the apostles as a model for future leadership. All of them were Jewish. Does that mean that church leadership is limited to Jewish males? I haven't read anyone who would say that.
And we know from the New Testament that the gift of leadership, like all the gifts, is genderless. It's available to males and females alike. But we're getting ahead of ourselves again. Next week we'll continue this series by looking at Women in the New Testament .