I grew up with the niggling feeling that God valued men more highly than women. And to be honest, what I heard in church only seemed to confirm my suspicions. Finally, I asked God to show me what He really thinks about women. 

So, I listened.

In my mind’s eye, I watched how Jesus interacted with women in the gospels. But, rather than looking from a twenty-first century point of view, I looked through the lens of Jesus’ culture when He walked the earth.

When Jesus made His first cry in Bethlehem, Jewish women were not allowed to talk to men in public—even their husbands. They were not allowed to eat in the same room with a gathering of men, to be educated on the Torah (the Scripture) with men, or enter the inner court of the temple to worship with men.

They sat behind partitions and could listen, but were not expected to learn.

A woman was considered the property of her father. That ownership was passed to her husband when she married and to her son when she was widowed. Women were not counted as people, thus the feeding of the 5,000 and 4,000 men with women not included in the number. They were seen as unreliable witnesses and not allowed to testify in court.

But then Jesus stepped into the story. And Jesus, God-made-man, broke a man-made rule every single time he interacted with a woman in the New Testament.

• He encouraged the woman healed from the twelve-year flow to testify to the crowd about what had happened rather than letting her slip away unnoticed.
• He welcomed Mary of Bethany into the classroom full of men to sit under His teaching.
• He talked publicly with the Samaritan woman by the well, and for the first time, Jesus announced to her that he was the Messiah.
• His longest recorded conversation was with a woman.
• He welcomed both the sinful woman’s worship of tears and Mary’s anointing with oil—each was at a men’s only gathering.
• He called the woman with the crippled back from the shadows of the women’s section of the synagogue to come up front for healing.
• He invited Mary Magdalene and other women to join his ministry team.
• He commissioned Mary Magdalene to go and tell the disciples of his resurrection.

Yes, Jesus entrusted the most important message in all human history to a woman and then instructed her to “go and tell.”

Jesus took the fearful and forgotten and transformed them into the faithful, forever remembered.

Oh, sweet sister, on this International Women’s Day, never doubt how your Heavenly Father values and esteems you—the grand finale of all creation and a co-heir with Christ.

*For further reflection, listen to Mark 5.

Listen here  to our conversation to learn more from Sharon Jaynes on each Biblical woman’s story in our encouraging conversation!