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The Jesus Revolution

When Jesus came to earth, He redefined how culture understood every woman’s potential, and He modeled it in His community. He didn’t treat women as emotionally, intellectually, or theologically deficient. He saw them.  

We often use the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10 to contemplate our need for rest, but there is much more meaning behind Mary sitting at Jesus’s feet. To listen to the rabbi for theological instruction reflected a desire to become and live like the rabbi. As such, it was seen as a job for men. Yet Jesus says to Martha in the presence of His accompanying disciples that “Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42). 

Jesus included other women in His mission as well. In Luke 8, we meet Joanna, Susanna, and Mary—all women who traveled with Jesus and the twelve disciples and supported them out of their own means (see Luke 8:1–3). 

Then there’s the Resurrection itself. Despite knowing that a woman’s words were not even accepted in a court of law, Jesus chose women to make the proclamation of this amazing news. 

Jesus had a vision for women that was radically different from the world they’d grown up in. A little girl would rise to new life (Mark 5:21–24, 35–43), and an outcast seen as unclean would be healed, publicly affirmed, and restored to her community (Luke 8:43–48). A Samaritan woman would have something to say that could change her community for the better (John 4:1–30). Lydia (Acts 16:11–15), Eunice and Lois (2 Timothy 1:5), Priscilla (Acts 18:24–28), and Phoebe (see Romans 16:1–2) would be influential in the early church.

Two thousand years later, Jesus is still moving. He transforms the most broken and bloodied parts of our stories with His resurrective power. He is a savior, friend, king, and liberator—a man like no other before or since. 

Jesus’s final words to His followers on earth were a commission, a command to play our part in His Great Commission and make disciples of all peoples. 

He’s inviting you.

He’s calling you.

He has already commissioned you.

And he’s waiting for your response. 

Which women in the Bible inspire you and why? How does reading about the roles of women in Jesus’s time change your perspective on His calling to you?