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“With” is Emmanuel’s middle name.
—TERI HYRKAS 49
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Through the Twelve, Jesus was restoring Israel’s vocation as the light of the world, the salt of the earth, a city set on a hill to be a blessing to all the nations. Not by war, not by violence, but by radical love. The very nature of the King Himself. God was going to take down the earthly temple with its corrupt political and religious system and establish a new Temple, the One the old temple had foreshadowed. Jesus was reconstituting the people of God—Israel—around Himself.
LIVING WITH GOD IN HUMAN FORM
Jesus called the Twelve to be with Him—that is, the Twelve lived with Jesus. Day in and day out, they observed the peerless life of Christ. They lived with God in human form and observed Him from morning till evening. But more than that, they watched a man living by divine life—something that they would experience themselves after Jesus rose again from the dead and became “a life-giving spirit.”50
The Jesus they saw with their eyes, touched with their hands, and heard with their ears would one day take up residence inside of them. And they would learn to live by His indwelling life just as He lived by His Father’s indwelling life.51 But for now, the Twelve would get to know Jesus at close range as He “went in and out among” them.52
After His resurrection, Jesus would send them out, and their calling as apostles (“sent ones”) would be fulfilled. The time they spent living with Jesus was their preparation for missional living. It’s no wonder that when they began to preach, teach, and heal, their message was Jesus Himself.53 Elsewhere, one of us has written in some detail about how Jesus specifically trained the Twelve.54
It should be noted that in choosing the Twelve, Jesus again replayed the life of David. At the cave of Adullam, a group of unpolished men joined David in his mission.55 They recognized David to be the anointed king, even though he was being hunted by Saul. These men would later become David’s “mighty men of valor.”56 David would later found the city of Jerusalem and seat the tabernacle of God on Mount Zion in Jerusalem—something the new David will eventually do also—though it will be the heavenly Jerusalem.57
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In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.
—PETER 60
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Jesus will also end up putting the Twelve in charge.58 His method of leadership, which He modeled and passed on to the Twelve, was very different from any form of leadership yet modeled in both the Jewish and Gentile worlds, not just in style, but in its very substance and structure.59 In fact, Jesus warned against even using the word leader: “Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. But the greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.”61
When Jesus’ disciples got into an argument among themselves about “who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”62 and asked Him to referee the dispute, almost every word of their question was wrong. The same thing could be said of the request of history’s first recorded helicopter mom, when Mrs. Zebedee got down on her knees and asked Jesus to make her boys His right-and left-hand men: “Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on the left, in Your kingdom.”63 It is a constant comfort that the disciples were most often the “duh-ciples”! Their “confessions of faith” were as much “confusions of faith.”
While all other rabbis called their disciples to follow the Torah, Jesus called His disciples to follow Him. He was the personification of the Torah. In addition, first-century rabbis wanted their students to equal or surpass them. But Jesus told His disciples that they should strive to be servants of all, not the master.64
THE WOMEN65
Before we look at the Lord’s female disciples, let’s go back a few steps and get the broader context. Generally speaking, the Jews of Jesus’ day had a dim view of women.66 Jewish women were not allowed to receive an education. Hence, they were largely uneducated. Their only training was in how to raise children and keep house.
Women were also largely excluded from worshipping God. In Herod’s temple in Jerusalem, there was a special court that stood on the very outside. It was called the court of the Gentiles. The Gentiles could go into that court, but they were limited to that area alone. Five steps above the Gentiles’ court was the women’s court. The women were limited to that one area. Fifteen steps above that was the Jewish men’s court. Men were given far more privileges to worship God than were women.
A woman had no voice in her marriage. Her father decided whom she would marry, when she would marry, and why she would marry. A woman couldn’t divorce her husband under any condition. Only a man could initiate a divorce.
Jewish women were to be seen as little as possible in public. In fact, young men were warned about talking to women in public, so much so that it was a shame in ancient Israel for a man to talk to a woman in public. Consequently, most women stayed out of the streets.
Women were regarded as inferior to men. In the Talmud, one hundred women equal two men.67 Women were regarded as property, just like cattle and slaves. Jewish males prayed a daily prayer of thanksgiving, which ended:
Praise be to God who has not made me a non-Jew.
Praise be to God who has not made me an ignorant person.
Praise be to God who has not made me a woman. 68
This was man’s view of a woman in first-century Israel. It was not much better in other cultures. In fact, ever since the fall of humanity, women have been regarded as second-class citizens, inferior to men. But something happened that changed all that.
Jesus came.
In Jesus Christ we find God’s view of a woman. Not man’s view.
Jesus Christ is God made flesh. As such, He embodies all of God’s opinions. In His earthly life, Jesus was the visible expression of God Himself. By His actions and His words, we discover God’s view of a woman. And that view was utterly contrary to the prevailing view of His day. It was not goddess worship that issued equality for women. It was Jesus.
Consider this: When God decided to make His entrance upon this planet, He visited a woman. He chose a woman to bring forth the Eternal Son, the Messiah—the Anointed One for whom Israel had waited thousands of years. The life of God was first placed in the womb of a woman before He got to you and me. And God was not ashamed.
As Jesus ministered, He ripped down all social conventions that were pitted against women. On one occasion, He rose to the defense of a woman caught in adultery. He became her attorney and saved her life. And He was not ashamed.
Jesus was noted for befriending sinners. He ate with prostitutes and tax collectors. We are told in one gospel that He made a point of meeting one particular woman and then did something that shocked everyone, including the disciples: He talked to her in public. And He was not ashamed.
Not only was she a woman; she was a divorcée. Not only was she a divorcée; she was actively living in immorality. But not only was she a woman, a divorcée, and an adulteress living in sin; she was worse than a Gentile. She was a Samaritan—a half-breed. (Samaritans were people with whom Jews were never to talk.) Jesus talked unashamedly to this divorced, adulterous Samaritan woman in public, and He forgave her of her sins.
Jesus Christ had a custom of using women in His parables and making them heroes. He talked about the woman who searched and found her lost coin. He spoke of the woman who was relentless in the presence of the unjust judge who honored her for her persistence. He told of the widow who dropped all the money she had into the temple treasury and praised her for doing so.
Once, Jesus was dining with a self-righteous Pharisee.69 In walked a woman. But this was not just any woman. She was a woman of the streets—a prostitute. Upon seeing the Lord, she dropped to her knees and did something unsettling. In the presence of Pharisees, this woman unbound her hair and poured costly perfume upon the feet of our Lord. This unclean woman touched Jesus Christ in public. She wept, washed His feet with her tears, and dried them with her hair. This scandalous and improper act mortified the self-righteous Pharisees. At that moment, these religious leaders lost all respect for Jesus and doubted that He was a true prophet. But He was not ashamed.
Without shame Jesus allowed an unclean woman to touch the hem of His garment. In fact, He praised her for it. He even paid a Canaanite woman, who was viewed as a dog in the eyes of Israel, one of the highest compliments He ever gave anyone. He also traded barbs with her as an equal and healed her daughter—and he felt no shame about it.
A RADICAL VIEW OF WOMEN
In the Lord’s last hours on this earth, He stayed in a small village called Bethany. It was there that He would spend His last days before giving His life on Calvary. In Bethany lived two women whom Jesus loved: Mary and Martha. They were His friends, and they received Him. And He was not ashamed. One well-known occasion that occurred in Bethany gives us a lot of insight into just how radical our Lord’s relationship was with His female disciples:
Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me.”
And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”70
This story is usually interpreted as an example of the tension that exists between those who are given to outward service and those who are given to inward worship. Maybe this way of looking at the story has some merit. But there is something even greater going on.
Let’s consider some historical background that throws fresh light on our story. In Jesus’ day, homes were divided into the male space and the female space. The kitchen was the women’s domain. (This is still the case in some countries, like Ethiopia.) Men did not enter it.
The public room was for the men. For a woman to settle down in the public room with the men was considered very inappropriate. Scandalous, even. The only two places men and women shared was the marital bedroom and outside the house, where the children played.
Martha escorted Jesus and the Twelve into the public room—the space for the men. Jesus didn’t request a meal. Instead, He wished to teach. So He began speaking. The Twelve were all gathered around Him, sitting at His feet. But there was something strange about this picture. A woman was also present. And she, too, was seated at His feet.
Mary had breached two social boundaries. First, she was sitting in the men’s space. Second, she was sitting in the posture of a disciple. Now, why is that significant? Because every rabbi in that day had only male disciples. Jesus was the exception. He welcomed women to be His disciples also.
Let’s go over to the kitchen and look in on Martha. She had one thing in mind: she wanted to give the Lord a proper welcome. She was preparing a large meal for Jesus and His disciples. She was slaving in the kitchen, preparing the food, getting the plates out, taking out the best silverware, and so forth.
But as the minutes went by, Martha began to fume. Her sister wasn’t helping her at all. Instead, she was in the public room, seated at Jesus’ feet, like one of His male disciples. In other words, Mary was acting like a man!
Martha continued to work in the kitchen, hoping that Mary would get up and help her. She broke a sweat. Finally, she just couldn’t take it any longer. She stormed into the public room and protested to Jesus, “Mary isn’t helping me! Don’t You care? Tell her to help me!”
Martha was in effect saying, “My sister is in the public room, acting like a man, when she should be in the kitchen—helping me!”
Notice that in the midst of Martha’s protest, Mary was silent. She didn’t defend herself. She let the Lord defend her. And He did.
The Lord’s response to Martha was tender. “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. Mary is concerned with only one thing. And it is the only necessary thing. It is the better thing, and I won’t take it away from her—being My disciple.”71
Martha became an important figure for the early church. Her comment to Jesus after the death of her brother, Lazarus—“You are the Christ, the Son of God”72—almost exactly matches Peter’s confession in Matthew 16:16.
JESUS’ FEMALE DISCIPLES
When Luke wrote his gospel, he referred to the twelve disciples with the shorthand phrase “the twelve.” But he also used another shorthand phrase: “the women” or “some women”:
The Twelve were with him, as well as some women: Mary called Magdalene; Joanna, the wife of King Herod’s cupbearer; Susanna; and many others. They provided for them out of their resources.73
And the women who had come with Him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb and how His body was laid.74
These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.75
Jesus and His disciples were not beggars; discipleship did not equal destitution. Jesus and the Twelve had financial backers who supported the ministry, many of whom were women. In fact, they had sufficient funding not only to warrant a treasurer but to elicit Jesus’ insistence that His and the disciples’ taxes be paid to Rome.
The Twelve lived with Jesus for three and a half years. They followed Him everywhere. But Jesus also had a group of female disciples. Luke used his shorthand phrase for them, “the women,”76 the same way he used “the twelve.” They were the Lord’s disciples also—the female counterpart to the Twelve. The women followed the Lord wherever He went, and they tended to His needs. And He was not ashamed.
There is no question: the greatest disciples of Jesus Christ were not the Twelve. They were the women. The reason? Because they were more faithful.
When Jesus Christ was taken to die, the Twelve fled. They checked out. All the disciples except John said, “See ya!” But the women stayed with Him. They didn’t leave. They followed Him up to Calvary to do what they had been doing all along—comforting Him, taking care of Him, tending to His needs. And they watched Him undergo a bloody, gory crucifixion that lasted six long hours.
To watch a man die a hideous death is something that goes against every fiber of a woman. But these women would not leave Him. They stayed the entire time, close enough to Jesus to experience the full impact of the blood, sweat, tears, and other bodily fluids that rained down from the crosses of those being tortured. Yet He was not ashamed of their presence.
Following His death, it was the women who first visited His grave. Even after His death, they were still following Him. They were still taking care of Him.
And when Jesus rose from the dead, the first faces He met—the first eyes that were laid upon Him—belonged to women. And it was to the women He gave the privilege of announcing His resurrection, even though according to Jewish law their testimony wouldn’t hold up in court. Later, on the day of Pentecost, these women were also present in the Upper Room along with the Twelve, waiting for Him to return.
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Though Mark says that Jesus had four brothers and several sisters, Jesus’ family plays a remarkably negligible role in his story.
—WILLIAM WILL IMON 77
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Unlike Jesus’ male disciples, the women never left Him. They followed Him to the end. Their pa
ssion for and dedication to Jesus outshined that of the men. And God was not ashamed.
Throughout the Lord’s life, it was the women who tended to His physical needs. It was the women who looked after Him and funded Him.78 It was the women who cared for Him up until the bitter end, as well as at the glorious climax. Not the men. The women were indispensable to Him. And He was not ashamed.
While the Twelve and the women were part of the Lord’s inner circle of interns, Jesus also had a wider band of followers. In Luke 10, for instance, He commissioned seventy disciples on a trial mission.79
Why seventy? The ancient Jews believed that there were seventy nations on the earth.80 Perhaps the seventy disciples represented the fact that the message of Jesus would eventually go out to all nations, not just to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”81 In addition, Moses appointed seventy elders to help lead Israel to their complete exodus.82 Consequently the Lord’s act of sending seventy disciples seems to symbolize the new exodus that Jesus (the new Moses) was leading—an exodus that would bring deliverance, salvation, and healing to the people of God and eventually to the whole world.
A NEW FAMILY
It is hard for us to hear how Jesus repeatedly overturned traditional family roles and values.83 Why? Because Jesus was creating a new kind of family, in which relationships were not based on blood, clan, or patriarchy but on participation in the kingdom of God. Jesus Himself said that those who did His will are His family and friends.84
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