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If we want to talk about sexual freedom in regards to bearing children, that’s a topic for another time. Jesus’s longest recorded private conversation with anyone in the Gospels is with a woman Jewish men would have avoided at all costs. This woman is the first person in John’s Gospel to whom Jesus explicitly reveals himself as the Christ, and she is the last person with whom a respectable rabbi should have been spending time alone. (84) Yet, when one turns to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, a radical, revolutionary view of women shines forth through the grace-filled words and loving actions of Jesus toward the females in his life. Jesus broke through both Jewish and Gentile forms of oppression against women and offered a fresh view of the female gender which has provided the undergirding for true women’s freedom and rights up through the present day.
She reminds us that, in that culture, the only reason to say that women witnessed all this is that they really did. Bringing Christ into focus Besides John, women are largely the consistent witnesses of Jesus’ excruciating death, burial, and resurrection as well. In a chapter on life, McLaughlin focuses on these women’s accounts to winsomely argue for, not against, biblical soundness at several points, anticipating opposing views. She even quotes a resurrection skeptic and politely refutes his claims. Anna is the first person in the Bible officially called a prophet since the death of the last Old Testament prophet, Malachi, some four centuries before. “ Strikingly, this woman is the only individual in all the Gospels whom Jesus calls “daughter” (Matt. 9:22; Mark 5:34; Luke 8:48). The woman who dared not come to him directly, but touched his clothing secretly, is recognized by Jesus intimately. She’s his daughter. Of course she has the right to touch him. (116)
Faithful Endurance
Rather than view women as risks, liabilities, or burdens, Jesus invites them to draw near. With her characteristic and refreshing blend of scholarship and empathy, Rebecca McLaughlin invites us to examine the stories of women woven throughout the ministry of Jesus, searching for the common threads of good news. And a clear, unhesitating message emerges: ‘Suffer the women to come unto me.’ Herein is instruction and encouragement for women and men alike seeking to live as brothers and sisters in God’s family.” grabs ordinary folk to be his chosen agents in this world." He uses women like Mary who have humble roots and sure faith to do big things in his kingdom. We deny the manipulative and coercive uses of data and AI in ways that are inconsistent with the love of common good. While God knows all things, it is neither wise nor obligatory to have every detail of one’s McLaughlin’s even-handed approach would make the book a viable suggestion even for a secular book club, and questions written by TGC’s Joanna Kimbrel at the end of each chapter make such discussions even easier. Have a few academics or self-declared feminists in the group? All the better. These are the types of readers McLaughlin seems eager to bring along, graciously refuting some of the false claims they may have heard about Christianity—that it is, at best, dismissive of the female experience and, at worst, harmful to women—while introducing them to the one who “valued women of all kinds—especially those vilified by others.”
To look at Jesus through the eyes of women may seem at first like an innately modern project. But when it comes to Jesus‘s death and resurrection, it’s precisely what the gospel authors invite us to do. What we see through their eyes is not an alternative Jesus, but rather the authentic Jesus, who welcomes both men and women as his disciples, and who is best seen from below.” God and love of neighbor. Data collection practices should conform to ethical guidelines that uphold the In fact, it seems that Jesus let Lazarus die partly so that he could have this conversation with Martha—whom he loved (John 11:5)—in which he uttered world-changing words: “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25–26). While Roman families often married off their prepubescent daughters, Christian women could marry later. A woman whose husband had died was affirmed in remaining single, but also free to marry any man she wished, so long as he belonged to the Lord (1 Cor. 7:39–40).Perhaps one weakness should be noted and that is that McLaughlin adds one point that shows she confuses Israel and the church. Other than this, her book is a very encouraging read). If we worked through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and cut out all the scenes that were not witnessed by women, we’d only lose a small proportion of the texts. But even if we limited our scope still further and only kept the parts of Jesus’s life that were witnessed by women named Mary, we’d lose very little! Indeed, we could legitimately call the Bible’s four accounts of Jesus’s life the Gospels of the Marys, as they’ve preserved for us the testimony of at least five—Jesus’s mother, Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph—whose knowledge of Jesus stretched from his conception to his resurrection. The Gospels in our Bibles are the Gospels of the women Jesus loved. (173–74)
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