Women's Month: Jesus Affirms Women

Jesus Celebrated Women

Opening: This month we are celebrating women here at New Birth.

I’m requesting that men celebrate the women in your life. Children celebrate the women in your life (mothers, aunts, teachers, etc). And lastly, women need to celebrate other women.

Do not allow trivial things to divide you. Self-induced inferiority can cause jealousy inside you against another women. Figure out where you have the inner problem instead of thinking someone else is against you. Fighting against another woman is fighting against yourself. Until you can celebrate another woman, you’ll never be fully celebrated. Let everyone stand and let’s celebrate women!

Let everyone stand and let’s celebrate women!

(Show Video with narration honoring women)

The most important person in history celebrated women. I want to open up this month of celebration of women by giving some examples of How the most important figure in history, as far as I’m concerned, honored women.

Today’s topic is, “Celebrate Woman, Jesus Did”

Jesus celebrated women by affirming them in many ways, I want to teach on three ways Jesus celebrated, affirmed, honored, recognized, and elevated women.

1. With His Actions.

The Manner of Jesus

People say, “Actions speak louder than words.”

Jesus didn’t just speak words, He just didn’t teach the WORD, The Bible tells us that he was the Embodiment of the WORD of God, but his actions were some of his signature moments!

Jesus included women where Jewish piety largely excluded them. Women were excluded from participation in synagogue worship, restricted to a spectator role, and forbidden to enter the Temple beyond the Court of the Women. A woman was not to touch the Scriptures, lest she defile them. A man was not to talk much with a woman, even his wife. Talk with a woman in public was yet more restrictive.

a. Jesus brushed aside all such discrimination. He astonished His disciples by talking openly with “a woman” at Jacob’s well ().

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Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

b. His dearest friends included Mary, Martha and Mary Magdalene. There were many women who ministered to (or with) Him, following Him from Galilee to Golgotha ().

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1In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there.

c. Having already affirmed Martha by accepting her invitation to dinner, He affirmed Mary’s choice of sitting at His feet to hear Him teach ().

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She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.

He did not question her right or competence to hear His word, He commended her for choosing “the good part,” declaring that “it will not be taken away from her” (v. 42). Many have sought to take from women like Mary precisely what Jesus affirmed as rightfully theirs.

d. The story of the anointing of Jesus by “a sinful woman” is amazing ().

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37) “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

38) Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

She showered her love and gratitude upon Jesus, and He affirmed her and her act. Without a hint of impropriety, Jesus let this woman thus touch Him and express her feelings toward Him. The pious Pharisees were scandalized that Jesus let her do this, and would have forbidden it even if the woman had been “good” and not “a sinner.”

e. Equally amazing is the story of the woman with an issue of blood who touched Jesus ().

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27) When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,

28) because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”

29) Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

According to the code in Leviticus, a woman with an issue of blood was “unclean,” defiling everyone and everything she touched (15:19–33). Had Jesus followed this code, He would have denounced the woman for touching Him and demanded her punishment. Instead, Jesus had her stand up and openly identify herself; and then He publicly affirmed her: “Daughter, your faith has saved you; go in peace, and be healed from your scourge” (v. 34). Jesus thus rejected the cruel stigma imposed upon women. He rejected the fallacy that “an issue of blood” is defiling.

2. With his Teachings.

a. Jesus also rejected the double standard for marriage, divorce and adultery. He put marriage and divorce in new perspective in answering the question, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” ().

PP- (NIV)

Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

It would never have occurred to His questioners to ask, “Is it lawful for a wife to divorce her husband?” Under Jewish law, a wife could not divorce her husband.

Jesus traced divorce to the hardness of human hearts, not to the intention of God. But Jesus did more! He recognized husband and wife as equally free and responsible in marriage and divorce.

Whie Jesus was teaching this concept, a revolutionary one, Jesus built upon the story in the first chapter of Genesis (, and then supplemented this with ),

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27) So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

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24) That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

Men when you get married, you are leaving your house to be united with her. You have no business in another house. Stay out of Shenana’s apartment!

Marriage thus is a partnership, with no double standard in marriage or divorce.

b. Jesus corrected current understanding of adultery at two points:

PP- 1) adultery begins as lust in one’s heart, not just when overt; and

PP- 2) adultery can be committed against a woman ().

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27) “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’

28) But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Why was this important… because Jewish law saw adultery as a sin against a husband, not against a wife. For a husband to visit a prostitute or an unmarried woman was not seen as adultery. Rape of a single girl was a crime, but not adultery. It was considered adultery only if the rights of a husband were violated.

Jesus declared two things in saying in , “… anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Although the main point may be that lust itself is adultery, the charge “against her” is innovative. Jesus rejected the fallacy that adultery is a sin against a husband only; adultery can be committed against a woman.

3. With His appointment of them. Jesus appointed (selected, chose, delegated, ordained) women.

According to the Gospels,

a. women were last at the cross

b. first at the empty tomb,

c. They were the first and only ones to hear the Angels say, “He is Risen”.

c. They were also the first to see the risen Christ.

d. At the most important juncture for the Christian movement, the resurrected Christ trusted and commissioned women to proclaim to men the basic tenet of the Christian faith—He is not dead but alive! Peter and the other male disciples first heard of the resurrection of Jesus from women. The church for the most part has sought to deny to women an equal role in the ministry of proclamation. Jesus had no such reservation before His death or after His resurrection.

Peter and the other male disciples first heard of the resurrection of Jesus from women.

The church for the most part has sought to deny to women an equal role in the ministry of proclamation. Jesus had no such reservation before His death or after His resurrection.

“Oh How I love Jesus”

The Martyrd