WWUTT 2346 The Women Who Ministered With Jesus (Luke 8:1-3)

Of course, Jesus had the twelve disciples who followed him and the earthly ministry that he did, but there were also many women who followed him from one place to the next and ministered to the needs of Jesus and his disciples, when we understand the text.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the gospel according to Luke, we're in chapter 8 this week.

And I'll explain here in a moment how this chapter lays out, but let me begin by reading the first three verses.

Hear the word of the Lord. Soon afterward, Jesus went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.

And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities.

Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chusa, Herod's household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.

And that's it. That's just kind of a parenthetical here that's given at the start of chapter 8 for Luke to mention that there were several women who followed

Jesus and his disciples around as they journeyed throughout Galilee. We'll come back to that section here in a moment, understand who these women are, who they were, and dispelling with certain myths concerning these women as well, especially

Mary Magdalene. You've probably heard some of those myths about her, the most famous of which is that she was

Jesus' wife, which of course wasn't true. But we'll get to that here in a bit. Now with every chapter that we've looked at here in Luke, they all seem to follow a particular theme and are easy to outline.

Chapter 8 seems a little more complicated, but it's easy when you understand the very first line that we read here in chapter 8.

Soon afterward, Jesus went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.

Now you have the mention of his disciples and the women who were with them, but the rest of chapter 8 is showing

Jesus doing that very thing, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.

We have a proclamation of the kingdom through the teaching of parables, and that's coming up in verses 4 through 15.

We've got the parable of the sower. You're familiar with that parable. We read it in Matthew and in Mark.

We have it according to Luke here as well. Then there's a short parable, verses 16 to 18, the parable of a lamp under a jar.

And then there's a brief mention of Jesus' mother and brothers attempting to see him.

We've seen that narrative also in Matthew and Mark, and that comes up in verses 19 to 21.

But this shows Jesus' dedication to the work, the ministry that he has been called to do. After this, we have a series of miracles, and now here's

Jesus bringing the kingdom of God, even through the power that he demonstrates in healing and casting out evil spirits and other things.

It begins with Jesus calming a storm, then he casts out evil spirits, and then he even raises a man's daughter from the dead, and that's what we're going to see throughout chapter 8 here.

We'll see how much of this we get through this week. I'm hoping to do all of this chapter this week, but we're just looking at a small section today with this mention at the very start of Jesus' disciples and the women who accompanied them.

So let me come back to verse 1 again. Soon afterward, Jesus went on through cities and villages.

Okay, soon after what? Well, remember what we just read. Now, this is important because this is going to tie into understanding something about these women who were mentioned.

The last thing we read about in chapter 7, which is the only lesson that I did last week because we had that brief little hiatus there, but on Wednesday when

I taught and finished up Luke 7, we read of the sinful woman who came to Jesus while he was reclining at table at a

Pharisee's house. A Pharisee had invited Jesus to come and eat with him, and while Jesus was there, this sinful woman, which likely means that she was a prostitute, came in with a very expensive ointment and she opened the alabaster flask of ointment and she wet his feet with her tears, wiped them with the hair of her head, kissed his feet and anointed them, anointed his feet with the ointment.

So you have this wonderful fragrance that's filling the house, but the Pharisee was not amused by this at all.

And he thought if Jesus was truly a prophet, then he would know what kind of woman this was who was doing this to him.

But Jesus rebukes Simon and he said to him, I entered your house and you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.

You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my face.

You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you her sins, which are many are forgiven for she loved much, but he who is forgiven little loves little.

And he proclaims to this woman, your faith has saved you. Go in peace.

Now, like I said, that's important for us to keep in mind here as we come into chapter eight, because as I said, this has to do with a particular false teaching concerning Mary Magdalene, going from this story into the mention of these women here at the start of chapter eight.

So soon after this, after everything that we had read about in chapter eight, the miracles that Jesus did, or sorry, the things that we read in chapter seven, the miracles that Jesus did, the teaching that he gave about John the

Baptist, this sinful woman coming and anointing him with the ointment and her tears.

After all of this, Jesus continues on teaching through cities and villages.

He's proclaiming, so he's teaching. This is announcement with words and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.

Bringing appears to be regarding the works that he did, the supernatural miracles that he performed, which of course we have in the last half of the chapter.

So it mentions that the 12 are with him. So the disciples are going along with Jesus. But then we have this brief mention of these women, and this is the only place in all four gospels where it is mentioned about women accompanying

Jesus and the disciples in some of the journeys that they did throughout Galilee. Now it wasn't everywhere they went.

You know, the women weren't in the upper room at the last supper or anything like that, but there was several women who ministered to Jesus and to the disciples.

Now, they would, of course, themselves be disciples, because as we've said about that word disciple, it means a learner.

Anybody who's going to sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to him teach and learn from him would therefore be his disciple. We are disciples of Jesus today.

We listen to his teaching and not just the teaching that he gave in the gospels, but even the teaching that he gave through his apostles.

Therefore, in the book of Acts all the way through Revelation. So everything else that came from the teaching of Jesus and even our understanding of the

Old Testament, as Jesus has opened our minds, given his Holy Spirit, that we may read and understand how the

Old Testament points to Christ as well. That's mentioned at the end of Luke, Luke 24, where Jesus opens the minds of the disciples that they're able to understand the scriptures and what the scriptures have said about Jesus.

So we receive that same blessing through the giving of the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

And we are disciples of Jesus in this way. But that word disciple really seems to be reserved for the men that follow

Jesus. The women aren't called disciples here, even though they would be as well in the in the less formal sense.

They are also learners and as followers of Jesus are therefore also his disciples.

But what their purpose is, at least according to what Luke says about them here in these couple of verses, is to provide for Jesus and the 12 out of their means.

So these women had, it seems, quite a bit of money or at least enough that had been given to them that they could minister to Jesus and his disciples as they did their ministry throughout the region.

They're even following them around and providing for them in these ways. Now, when you when you watch the

Jesus shows or movies, you don't see that. And especially the more modern depictions of Jesus and his disciples of Jesus earthly ministry, the more modern depictions will put

Mary Magdalene as a disciple, even his first disciple. And there are several that do this now.

It's a very egalitarian thing. They want to make it seem like Mary was just as important as the rest of the disciples.

Some will even go as far as calling her an apostle. So she was just as much an apostle as, you know,

Matthew or John or Peter or James. It is this heightened thing of a women can do everything that the men can do.

And while the women played a very important role and God intends for women to play an important role, even in his church, these women were not among the twelve.

Mary Magdalene is not among the twelve. The Chosen, which is the most popular serial that's out there right now about Jesus and his disciples, that show proclaims in the first season that Mary is the first disciple.

It shows that in the first episode. And then it's a couple of episodes after that where Jesus is talking to some children and he mentions to them that there's a woman who has started following him and she's his first disciple and he's going to have many others.

But again, in these cinematic depictions or in the TV show depictions, you don't see the women following Jesus around and ministering to him and to the disciples what they did.

I'm not sure exactly baking bread for them, maybe taking care of their garments, laundry, uh, feeding them, doing some errands for them.

We know that they carried around a money bag. Remember that Judas was the one who was the keeper of the money bag, and it could even be that the women would take the money that was given to Jesus for his ministry and they would make sure that it got distributed and handed out to the poor.

There are a few different things that the women could have been doing. Couldn't have been a whole lot beyond what you would expect a woman to do for a man.

Honestly, because they were women and women were not considered to be higher in society.

They could not enter into the synagogues. They couldn't sit inside and listen to the teaching with the rest of the men.

Their testimonies were not admissible in court, so socially they were considered to be less than the men.

So there was only so much they could do as far as, as like, you know, when they entered into cities and villages, it's not like that the women are standing up and gathering people's attention so that they would come listen to Jesus or anything like that, but they could certainly wait on them and cook for them.

And we see it explicitly said that they provided for them out of their means.

So either in the services that they did, their actions for them, or even money that they spent on their behalf.

This was what the women were there for Jesus and the disciples. This is how they provided for this ministry by adding this service.

So it says in verse two that some of the women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities were accompanying

Jesus and his disciples. Now, the only one that it mentions being healed of evil spirits is

Mary Magdalene. So Mary Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out. Then you have a mention of Joanna and Susanna.

Only three names are given here, but then it says that there are many others.

So there are other women that are a part of this as well. Names that aren't given, but these are the three main ones, at least that John names.

And remember that John said at the very beginning of the gospel in Luke chapter one, that he was writing an orderly account based on eyewitnesses, what eyewitness testimony had said.

So the fact that he names these women, he provides names that people could go to and ask questions about.

This was written during the time of these eyewitnesses still being alive.

So if you want to verify any of the things that I write about in this account, you can go talk to any of these people that are named.

That's why Luke provides those names in this way. Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna are key figures in this.

Even though there were many other women who were accompanying Jesus, those three in particular would have been the closest and had done the most.

That Luke says you can go and talk to and find out all kinds of things. Mary, of course, we know was at the tomb of Jesus when he was resurrected.

So was Joanna. They discovered the empty tomb. Mary was the first one to see

Jesus and speak with him face to face after his resurrection. And so she is a valuable eyewitness, not just to the ministry, but even to some of the most miraculous things that Jesus did.

Now, note that it says here that Mary called Magdalene had seven spirits that were cast out of her.

Now, as I said in the beginning, there was there's been a lot of different myths surrounding

Mary Magdalene. You know, one of those myths I just happened to catch on social media recently is that the

Roman Catholic Church actually has Mary's head. I know that's disgusting, but they claim to have

Mary's skull and they've created this idol around the skull so that you can go see this, you know, gold statue and then a glass,

I don't know, container in the head, in the head portion of this gold statue.

And there's the skull right there. And I think it's in water even or so. I can't remember. Maybe it's just sitting in the glass.

I don't know. But this will tour around, of course, because Roman Catholics, they're going to get everything out of you that they can.

So you can go on a pilgrimage to see all of these different relics and artifacts and whatnot. Mary Magdalene's head being one of them.

That's really disturbing, but it's just part of the idolatrous nature of Roman Catholicism.

And of course, people go up to it and kiss it and pray to it and make offerings to it and things like that.

So, yeah, that's one myth that exists out there regarding Mary Magdalene. I highly doubt that's really her skull, but that's what the

Roman Catholics are going to claim. And then there's the understanding that Mary was a prostitute.

This is probably the most popular thing that's said about Mary Magdalene. And surely you've heard it said, and maybe you even thought it.

Mary Magdalene was a former prostitute. Jesus cast seven demons out of her. And now she is a woman of God and a follower of Christ.

There's actually nothing in the Gospels that says Mary Magdalene was formerly a prostitute.

The amazing thing that was done for her was that she was demon possessed and Jesus cast the demons out.

But it never says anywhere in the Gospels that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute.

So where does that idea come from? Well, remember, and this is why I recalled that sinful woman account at the end of chapter seven again.

Remember, we just read about this woman who was a prostitute who anointed Jesus and she wept over him and wiped his feet with her hair.

And it's really a beautiful account there that we have at the end of chapter seven. We go from that right into Luke talking about these women who had accompanied

Jesus, Mary Magdalene being the first that is mentioned. And so what's happened over the years, over the centuries is there have been certain teachers that made a connection between the sinful woman at the end of chapter seven and Mary Magdalene mentioned at the start of chapter eight.

And they've connected the two as being the same. The sinful woman's actually Mary Magdalene, especially when you look at John 12, right?

Because we have in John 12, Mary anointing Jesus at Bethany.

It's not Mary Magdalene, though. Six days before the Passover, Jesus, therefore, came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom

Jesus had raised from the dead. So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served and Lazarus was one at reclining at table.

This is right after Lazarus was raised from the dead previously in chapter 11. Mary, therefore, took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair.

And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. Now, that's Mary, who's

Martha's sister and Martha and Lazarus's sister. That's not Mary Magdalene.

But it sounds the same as the sinful woman who had anointed Jesus feet at the end of chapters at the end of Luke seven.

So because you have similar accounts in John 12 concerning a Mary and then the sinful woman who anointed

Jesus feet at the end of chapter seven, and then the mention of Mary Magdalene at the start of chapter eight, that's where the connection comes in.

And there's some who have since made that claim that Mary Magdalene was a former prostitute. But like I said, there's actually nothing in the

Gospels that says that just that she was possessed by seven demons and that Jesus cast them out and she had been healed.

Now, if you've seen The Chosen, I don't recommend it. Heard me mention it before. But if you've seen The Chosen, it's in chapter one.

It's in season one that we're introduced to Mary. Even episode one is where we meet Mary.

And her name is Lilith because they want to do this big reveal at the end of the first episode of this actually being

Mary Magdalene and this man named Jesus healing her of the evil spirits that she has.

But she doesn't really come across as being possessed by evil spirits. She just comes across as being kind of out of sorts.

And there's a point later on. I guess it's in the second or third episode where Nicodemus, the man who plays

Nicodemus, comes to Mary and asks her about what had happened to her, because at one point he encountered her when she was still possessed, but he couldn't cast the evil spirits out of her.

So he asks her what what had happened to her, what changed. And she says this line.

It's a good line where she says something to the effect of I was one way and then

I was another. And the thing that happened in between was him making reference to Jesus.

Now, that's a great line. But with regard to Mary Magdalene, it wouldn't have been so nonchalant like that.

You're not talking about a lifestyle change like you and I might experience when it comes to following Jesus.

Before we were a Christian, we were this way. And now following Jesus, we were that way. You know, of course, there's going to be a transformation that's going to happen in our lives because Christ is going to come in.

His Holy Spirit is going to come in. He's going to make us a brand new person. The old man is dead. The new man has come, as the apostle

Paul talks about. So, of course, that's the testimony of everybody. But it wouldn't have been Mary Magdalene's testimony to say it.

So, you know, just casually that way, if this really had been an exchange between Mary Magdalene and Nicodemus, although, you know, the

Gospels doesn't say that Nicodemus tried to cast the evil spirits out of Mary Magdalene. But if that was really the case, if Nicodemus had gone to her and said, you know, what happened to you?

The last time I saw you, you were demon possessed. And Mary would have said something to the effect of like, yeah, did you see me?

I had seven demons in me. And this man healed me and cast them out. It would have been an incredible, miraculous declaration.

It wouldn't have been just some sort of casual, yeah, well, you know, I was this kind of person before I met

Jesus. And now I'm this kind of person. This was a miraculous transformation, not simply the kind of transformation that happens to a person when they become a

Christian, which may happen immediately or it may happen over time. But this is this is a person who was wicked and evil and possessed by demons.

And now she's not. Now she is a daughter of God. And so this is an incredible miracle that was done in the life of Mary Magdalene and surely would have been known to the people and talked about.

Now, the fact that she's called Mary Magdalene, it doesn't mean that's her first and last name. She was from Magdala, the town of Magdala, which was on the west side of the

Sea of Galilee. So then you have a couple of other women that are mentioned here. And we don't know as much about these women in the

Gospels as we know about Mary Magdalene. It's interesting to note that we know more about Mary Magdalene than we know about even some of the disciples.

What do we know about Matthew? We know he was a tax collector. We've even read about that in Luke.

We know that his other name is Levi, but he never has any dialogue.

There's never at any point in the Gospels, even in the Gospel of Matthew itself. You don't have a quote, a spoken quote from Matthew.

So we really don't know that much about Matthew. We probably know more about Mary Magdalene even than we know about Matthew.

Or Bartholomew. Did I mention Bartholomew? Or some of the other disciples whose names come up very seldom, and you have only the occasional quote that is made by them.

We have much more about Mary Magdalene. So she is a very important figure in the

Gospels, hence why Luke singles her out and mentions this about her backstory. But then you have these couple of other women.

Like I said, Joanna is also somebody who is there at the tomb to witness the empty tomb after Jesus is resurrected.

And it says here the most that we end up knowing about Joanna is that she is also the wife of Chusa, who is

Herod's household manager. That's a big deal. That's a really big deal. She's also a very important woman, and she would have been a wealthy woman.

And so when Luke mentions her, and again, mentioning eyewitnesses that anybody can go to and talk to, people would have been able to easily find

Joanna. And she would have shared this testimony of what she witnessed by following Jesus around.

And so what we're going to have in the rest of chapter eight, you're going to have his teaching about the kingdom through the parables, and then his demonstration of the power of the kingdom through the miracles that he performs.

And these women may have been right there for that and had seen Jesus do these things, maybe not calming the storm because he was just with the disciples in the boat for that.

But for other things, these women had accompanied Jesus to these towns and villages and heard him teach and saw him perform miraculous signs and wonders.

And last of all, you have the mention of Susanna, but this is the only place that Susanna is mentioned.

We don't see her name come up again in the gospels or anywhere in the New Testament. But this was nonetheless a woman that Luke singles out, and people would have recognized the name enough to know to find this woman and be able to talk with her about what she witnessed concerning the ministry of Jesus.

There were many others, Luke says, other women who followed them. And what did they do? They provided for them out of their means.

It indicates that although Jesus' ministry was primarily to the poor, of course, he would go to the poor, the sick, the infirmed.

But some of the wealthy and powerful people even supported him and welcomed him. When we read about the miracle that Jesus did for the centurion servant, the centurion would have been a wealthy man.

And we're going to read soon, too, toward the end of chapter eight about Jesus raising

Jairus' daughter from the dead, who was also an influential person. He was a ruler in the synagogue.

So even among the wealthy and the powerful and the influential, there were those who supported

Jesus' ministry and even welcomed his ministry, providing out of their own means, not looking for anything in return.

But this was their act. This was their giving of love to the ministry that Jesus did during his time on the earth.

So that's the beginning of Luke chapter eight here. And if there's any application that we can take from this, it's that we all, as disciples of Jesus, have an opportunity to minister to others as well in his name, bringing not only good works and acts of kindness, but especially the message of the gospel.

For it is only by faith in Jesus that we're forgiven our sins and we have everlasting life.

And not just men are called to do this, but even women. The church can't function without women.

Now, they can't be pastors. And we have it within our particular congregation that they cannot be deacons either.

But women still play a very important and vital role in the church. A church would be dysfunctional if it wasn't for the women that we had and the roles that they are able to play.

So whether you are a man or a woman, everybody has an important role to do in the building up of the church and the sharing of the ministry of Jesus Christ with others.

And let us do so to the praise of his glorious grace, extending the love of Christ to our family, friends, neighbor, church, those outside the church, as we have opportunity.

Let us do charity to everyone, as said in Galatians 610. Let's end here with prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunities that we have to be able to minister in your name.

And I pray that you give us those opportunities, and none of us think of it as anything inconvenient.

It is such a joy to be able to serve on behalf of the kingdom of Christ, to care for the needs of others, and even have those opportunities to share the gospel with somebody else.

It is the best thing that we can give another, the gift of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ, who died and rose again for us.

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the

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