Bill Perkins

Bringing Light to Life

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • About
  • Books
  • Speaking
  • Links
  • Updates
  • Topics
    • Issues of Faith
      • Evangelism
      • Faith
      • Tough Questions
    • Personal Growth
      • Anger
      • Family
      • Marriage
      • Personal Growth
      • Pornography
      • Prayer
      • Relationships
    • Spirituality
      • God
      • The Holy Spirit
      • Jesus
      • Leadership
      • Life and Death
      • Sin
      • Spiritual Warfare
    • Culture
      • America
      • Book Review
      • Current Events
  • Freedom Ministries
Home Jesus What Would You Do With This Woman?
What Would You Do With This Woman?

March 19, 2015 2 Comments

What Would You Do With This Woman?

Even though most women have been hurt by men at some time in their lives, efforts are made in our culture to protect the rights of women. Such wasn’t the case in ancient Israel. At the time of Jesus, women suffered under cultural, legal, and religious oppression. Indeed, men actually created laws that hurt women.

Josephus, the ancient Roman-Jewish historian, noted that the Jewish Law marks women as inferior to men in all things. A repeated rabbinical mantra, “women, slaves and minors”—demonstrated that women, like Gentiles slaves and minor children, were under the authority of a man and had limited participation in religious activity. Women weren’t allowed to testify in court or study the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible). In fact, Rabbis would rather burn the Pentateuch than have a woman read it. Another saying of the Jewish religious leaders referred to women as, “greedy at their food, eager to gossip, lazy and jealous.”

I’m sure you’d agree such thinking is misogynistic and oppressive. And yet, in the midst of a culture with such a low view of women, Jesus always treated them with compassion and respect. He repeatedly violated cultural mores to reach out and care for them.

I wonder what it was like for a woman to meet a man who always looked out for her best interest . . . a man who understood her hurts and needs . . . a man who sought her highest good. I can’t help but think it would take getting used to. I mean, wouldn’t the pain from past hurts restrict a woman’s ability to quickly trust a man? Wouldn’t the universal disrespect for women among men affect how a woman viewed Jesus? Seems that way to me. And yet, Jesus put women at ease.

He interacted so lovingly that a reputedly “sinful” woman showed him affection by washing his feet with her tears, wiping them with her hair, kissing them with her lips, and pouring perfume over them. All of this at a dinner party hosted by a Pharisee who quickly condemned Jesus for allowing her to touch him.

I have no idea how I’d respond if such a thing happened to me. What would you do? My imagination only lets me go so far:

I’m at a party sitting on a couch talking with a friend. A well-known erotic dancer enters through the front door, approaches me, kneels at my feet, takes off my shoes and socks and . . . it would stop there. Who am I kidding? It would stop when she knelled. No way would she pour perfume on my feet, wash them with her tears, kiss them with her lips and dry them with her hair.

And yet, that’s what happened to Jesus. And he wasn’t uncomfortable, even though everyone else may have been. He accepted her expression of love and harshly condemned the Pharisee who judged her. He saw her pure heart with pure eyes. Jesus then said, “Her sins—and they are many—are forgiven, for she loved me much; but one who is forgiven little, shows little love” (Luke 7:47). Not only did Jesus accept the woman, he defended and honored her.

Another woman, caught in adultery, found safety in his words and forgiveness in his love. A sick woman found someone who cared enough to heal her. Mary Magdalene, demonized by seven spirits, found freedom. Later, after his resurrection, Jesus appeared first to Mary.

It’s easy for women to get lost in the New Testament crowds. But if you read the gospel accounts with an eye on women, and how Jesus treated them, you’ll discover he always saw their greatest need and met it.

More than that, he changed their lives for the better.

Photo by Lex McKee, CC

Filed Under: Jesus

Comments

  1. Jerry Sinclair says

    March 19, 2015 at 1:40 pm

    Bill,

    Awesome insight. I have often shared my belief that barbaric treatment of women was common throughout the Jewish and Gentile nations before during and after Jesus’ time. Yet God has used that divisive culture to draw eternal comparisons of how it could have been viewed by God and His Son…but instead, God reached down through eternity to save poor wretched sinners, like me.

    Bill, great stuff! I am sharing it with my men.

    Jerry

    Reply
    • Bill Perkins says

      July 9, 2015 at 12:24 pm

      Sorry I’m so late getting back, Jerry. It is amazing how God uses us with all of our flaws.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Get my articles emailed to you — and a free copy of my book, Why Naked Women Look So Good!

Recent Posts

  • Ride Out Your Pain
  • A Lesson Learned From Billows of Black Smoke
  • Jesus is The God of the Gap
  • Raise Your Spiritual Expectation for 2023
  • (no title)
  • Why Me? Why Now? Why This?
  • Do This Before Every Decision
  • When You Don’t Know What To Do
  • “I Never Saw It That Way Before”
  • To Serve Others Best, Do This First

Copyright © 2023 Bill Perkins