Bible Fact · John 20:17 — 'Jesus said to her, Do not cling to me... Go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father.'
Women in the Ministry of Jesus
The Fact
In first-century Jewish culture, women were largely excluded from formal religious education and public religious life. They sat in separate sections of the synagogue, could not testify in legal proceedings, and were not expected to study Torah. Against this backdrop, Jesus's engagement with women was revolutionary. He taught Mary of Bethany as a student (Luke 10:38–42 — 'Mary sat at the Lord's feet' — a technical phrase for being a disciple). He spoke publicly and at length with the Samaritan woman (John 4) — crossing two barriers (gender and ethnicity). He healed the woman with the issue of blood who touched him (Luke 8:43–48) — restoring her to social and religious community. Luke 8:1–3 records that a group of women traveled with Jesus and the twelve, 'providing for them out of their means.' After the crucifixion, it was women who stayed at the cross (Matthew 27:55–56), women who observed the burial, and women who were first at the empty tomb. Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection (John 20:14–18) and commissioned her to tell the disciples — making her, in Augustine's phrase, 'the apostle to the apostles.'
Context
Jewish courts of the time did not accept women's testimony. Yet the Gospels record women as the primary witnesses of both the crucifixion and the resurrection — details no first-century Jewish author fabricating these stories would have invented.
Significance
The earliest witnesses to the resurrection were women — testimony that was inadmissible in courts. If the Gospel writers were fabricating a resurrection story, they would never have used women as witnesses. The historicity argument actually supports the Gospel accounts.
Reflection
Jesus chose women as the first witnesses of his resurrection in a culture that discredited women's testimony. What does that choice say about who God chooses to carry his most important messages?