By Kathy Sinclair
At my church here in W.A., we have a large Women’s Bible study group that meets weekly. This first term of 2024, we have studied the topic of “Women of the Bible”. As the series comes to a close, I have been reflecting how encouraging the studies have been, particularly the theme that comes out time and time again, that the God of the Bible, rather than viewing women as being risks, liabilities or burdens – invites women to draw near.
We have studied women in the Old and New Testaments. Jesus, far from dismissing and devaluing women, as the culture around him did, was totally counter-cultural in the way he interacted with them. The Gospel accounts tell of him relating to rich women, poor women, sick women, grieving women, notorious women, old women, young girls and Jewish and Gentile women. We encounter a man who valued women of all ages and backgrounds, who was compassionate to women doing it tough and vilified by others, thinking especially of the woman caught in adultery. He tore up the pervasive belief in the ancient world, that women were innately inferior to men. So perhaps it is no surprise that throughout history, right up to contemporary times, churches have always been and still are populated by more women than men. Women have always flocked to Jesus in greater numbers than men.
The New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman writes of the era in which Jesus lived:
If one word could encapsulate the common social, political and personal ethic of the time, it would be dominance. In a culture of dominance, those with power are expected to assert their will over those who are weak. Rulers are to dominate their subjects, patrons their clients, masters their slaves and men their women.
But Jesus upended this thinking. This ethical reversal, based on Jesus’s teaching and actions made Christianity especially attractive to women in the ancient world and forms the basis of our modern belief that women are fundamentally equal to men (although this is not always evident, sadly even in some churches).
In Jesus himself, we find a man who scandalized the Jewish leaders by caring for women known for sexual sin. We find a man who cared for women so well, they would be prepared to risk abuse and stigma to follow him. How very interesting that his longest recorded conversation with the woman at the well, was with a woman religiously despised by the powerful men of the day.
As I think of Jesus, beautiful Jesus, I am personally encouraged that in the very significant moments of his troubled life – his birth and all the unusual events surrounding that, Mary’s obedience and the risks she took, the women who financially supported his ministry – through to his death on the cross, when it was the women who stayed – and then onto his resurrection when he appeared to Mary Magdalene - of all people. It was women who were there for him.
As Reverend Florence Li Tim-Oi, the first ordained Anglican Priest who gave great service to the people of occupied Hong Kong during WWII said at the end of her long and fruitful life:
Women have the responsibility of being messengers of Christianity and social development and they constitute a rich human resource. They can truly hold up “half the earth”.
Be encouraged – we serve a Master who sees and loves women.
Kathy Sinclair is the BWAA Church Relationship Manager in Western Australia. Kathy joined Baptist World Aid in January 2019. She comes to the role having spent 11-years on staff at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, Western Australia, as the Children and Families Pastor. In more recent years, she also held responsibility for overseeing the church’s mission ministry. Kathy has been a speaker for Christian Women Communicating Internationally (CWCI) for several years, where she enjoys the privilege of travelling around Western Australia to teach God’s word. She enjoys visiting church communities to share about the work of Baptist World Aid and how individuals and congregations can respond effectively to God’s heart for the poor and needy. Kathy is married to Mark and has two children and a daughter-in-law.