Advocating for Women's Equality in the Church and Home
It is Friday afternoon and my 14-year old folds her tall frame into the passenger seat. “Mom, I am so angry.” Uh-oh. My mother’s heart braces for teen-age trouble.
“Today in class, Mr. X. said that women cannot be pastors because they are inferior to men. And Mom, when I told him that I think that God has equipped women to be or to do anything that God calls them to, including pastor, he told me I was wrong and that my perspective was unbiblical.”
This week we are pleased to bring you three Easter reflections on women disciples who were an integral part of Jesus’ live and ministry. Like them, may we follow close despite the cost.
The symbolism of his anointing by Mary of Bethany just days before his death was not lost on Jesus. He understood and said her act “will be told in memory of her.” She poured the oil to memorialize him, but he says to remember her. It is significant that a woman serves as the anointing agent. In this moving account of the anointing of Jesus by Mary of Bethany we have the chance to reflect in new ways on this prophetic act.
Recently, I heard it said in a sermon that the early church was led by “unschooled, ordinary men”. This idea that Jesus chose poor, uneducated fishermen as his disciples is entrenched in evangelistic teaching, and was something I heard often growing up in the church. But is it really true?
