Oppressive. Abusive. Controlling. Demeaning. Patriarchal. These were the most frequent words I heard that day. Enrolled in my first doctoral counseling class on ‘Special Populations’ at William and Mary, we were discussing, somehow, the Church’s view of women. Not too eager to get engaged in the discussion, and before I could gulp and clear my throat, the professor turned to me and asked, “Well Tim, with your background in Christianity, maybe you could enlighten us on just how Jesus viewed women?”
Sweating profusely, I asked the class a couple of questions, mostly designed to help me get control of my pounding heart. I asked, “How many of you believe the Church has been oppressive to women?” Many hands went up without hesitation. “How many of you believe Jesus was oppressive to women?” This caused some thought, but eventually a few hands did rise. In that difference is an important truth. Among the disciples of Jesus Christ were many women. No, not among the core 12, but women were numbered among the 70 who were with Him throughout His earthly ministry. And it was revolutionary—a scandal of the first order in first century Hebraic culture, but a truth that has elevated and dignified women for 20 centuries since. Consider the many ways that Jesus loved and dignified women while He walked in ministry throughout Palestine and in Jerusalem—and the ways that women loved Him for being the Christ who loved and gave His life for them.
Women were the last to leave at His crucifixion, and the first to see Him resurrected. In Luke 23:27-31, Jesus responds to the many women in the macabre procession of death who were crying and mourning Him. Addressing them as the “daughters of Jerusalem,” He warned them of the coming destruction of the city, a time when the “barren womb” and “breasts that never nursed” would be considered blessed. Then in verse 49, after Jesus had died, the “women who had followed Him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.” In this audience, of course, was His mother, whose heart was pierced with sorrow that only a mother can know.
In Luke 24:1-11, an exclusive group of devoted women arose early to dress the dead body of Christ in the tomb. Instead, they were met and spoken to by the risen Christ. What an amazing experience it must have been. And what a heavy responsibility they were given to report this back to the shattered disciples, who did not believe their reports, considering them to sound like nonsense (I can hear women reacting and thinking, “Isn’t that just like a man?!?”). Because Eve succumbed first to the wiles and allure of the devil in the Garden, women have been branded throughout history as gullible and untrustworthy. Yet God entrusted women with the first proclamation of the gospel in all of history, “He is risen!”
Jesus lifted up and dignified women who the men of that day, especially the religious leaders, tended to dismiss and put down. The biggest incidents, of course, involved the women at the well (John 4:1-26), and the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-12). Both are great examples for counselors of how Jesus reveals the perfect balance of speaking truth and showing gracious love in His interactions with sinful women. And He did all of this under great stress—under the scandalized eye of the religious leaders of the day who were beginning to plot the death of Jesus as a dangerous radical. Yet Jesus was not cowered by this; in fact, He would seemingly play right into it by using the faithfulness of lowly women to shamefully compare it to the lack of faith of the male religious leaders of the day (Luke 21:1-4).
In Luke 13:10-17, Jesus healed a crippled woman on the Sabbath to show everyone that people are more important than the law and customs of the day. He dignified a broken, probably old, and not-easy-to-look-at woman—someone at the bottom of the social scale on almost every criteria. The scriptures noted that His opponents were humiliated, the common-folk were delighted, and a woman bound-up by Satan and ignored by the people for 18 years was set free.
Jesus lifted up and dignified women that even His chosen disciples, as did all men of that day, tended to dismiss and put down. Remember the Canaanite women who obviously annoyed the disciples by her constant wailing after Jesus to heal her demon-possessed daughter (Matthew 15:21-28)? They counseled Jesus to send her away. Instead, Jesus interacted and tested her faith, which He found to be great. He granted her plea and healed her daughter.
Then there was the woman in Bethany who anointed Jesus with expensive oil just days before His crucifixion. His disciples were indignant, arguing over how that oil could have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor. Jesus dismissed this rant and honored the woman, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me” (Matthew 26:10).
Jesus dignified women like never before in the ancient world by restating the true intent of the law with respect to adultery and divorce. Legally and socially, women were considered inferior to men, and this inferiority was institutionalized in the laws and customs of the day. Jesus cut right through these sexist rules to state God’s true intent. It was not simply the act of adultery, but the lust in the heart that made it wrong (Matthew 5:27-28). A man could divorce his wife simply by pronouncing it so three times in public. But Jesus said that marital unfaithfulness was the only true justification for divorce (Matthew 5:31-32). These were radical pronouncements, with radical implications for both law and religion—for women especially.Take help from internet counseing .
I have been blessed by a godly mother, five sisters, and by the love of my life, Julie. And two hours after I finished writing my dissertation, I rushed Julie to the hospital where God opened a new chapter in my life with the birth of my first-born, my daughter, Megan. I have often wondered, “How could God love her more than I do?” Yet, He does. And He wants to honor her through a special man she calls “dad”—and, I have to admit, someday through another she will marry and call her lover and friend. Is this not the way that God calls us to honor women—just like Jesus did?
