Tag Archives: dignity

God’s Girls!

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GOD’S GIRLS!

 “He continued according to plan, travelling to town after town, village after village, preaching God’s kingdom, spreading the Message. The Twelve were with Him. There were also some women in their company who had been healed of various afflictions and illnesses: Mary, the one called Magdalene, from whom seven devils had gone out; Joanna, wife of Chuza, Herod’s manager; and Susanna — along with many others who used their considerable means to provide for the company.” Luke 8:1-3 (The Message).

Luke gives us an interesting little interlude that is not included in the other gospels — some titbits of information about Jesus’ travelling companions, a group of women who accompanied Him and His disciples. This must have been quite unusual. Jewish women were normally in the background and would certainly not have travelled around the country with a roving rabbi.

Luke’s inclusion of this bit of information about the women is in keeping with the theme of his gospel. He had a special focus on the humanity of Jesus, on His dependence on the Holy Spirit, on His prayer life and on the way He treated people, and especially women.

Unlike Roman society — and Theophilus, the recipient of Luke’s story, was a Roman — where women enjoyed elevated positions, women were nothing in Jewish society. Luke takes time to point out to Theophilus that Jesus had a different attitude to women from other Jewish men. He treated them with dignity and respect as equal to men rather than as subordinates or possessions.

These women who followed Jesus all had very personal reasons for loving Him. Mary Magdalene, for example, had been demon possessed until Jesus rescued her, probably from a life of prostitution, and gave her back her dignity. From that moment on she became a loyal disciple, following Him and ministering to Him and His disciples wherever they went.

She was there at the cross, unashamedly to let him know that she cared, even though she could do nothing for Him at that moment. She was at the tomb in the pre-dawn darkness to anoint His body. She was the first one to see Him alive and to tell the glad news to His disciples.

Why did Jesus choose Mary to be the first person to whom He revealed Himself? Was it to show His disciples and the world that women should be given the honour due to them as the crown of His creation?

There has been much speculation and even stories written about the relationship between Jesus and Mary. Was there a romantic connection which the Bible carefully kept hidden? I believe it is safe to say that we can trust the Bible to reveal the truth about something as important as this.

Right from Genesis, the writers of the books of the Bible, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, were brutally honest about their characters. Nothing was put under wraps, not even the lapses into sin of its most revered characters, Moses and David. The gospel writers would certainly not have ignored or neglected to write about any romantic connection Mary Magdalene had with Jesus.

They loved Him and served Him out of gratitude for who He was and for His gracious treatment of them as people of worth who deserved the dignity and respect given to them by their Creator. That’s who Jesus is.

No matter who you are, you can be sure that the Master sees you as He saw those women, beautiful, treasured and worthy of honour because He created you in His image to worship Him and to be one with Him.

 

Same Old Story

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SAME OLD STORY

“The next day, determined to get to the root of the trouble and to know for sure what was behind the Jewish accusation, the captain released Paul and ordered a meeting of the high priests and the High Council to see what they could make of it. Paul was led in and took his place before them.

“Paul surveyed the members of the council with a steady gaze, and then said his piece. ‘Friends, I have lived with a clear conscience before God all my life, up to this very moment.’ That set the chief priest Ananias off. He ordered the aides to slap Paul in the face. Paul shot back, ‘God will slap you down! What a fake you are! You sit there and judge me by the Law and then break the Law by ordering me slapped around!'” Acts 22:30-23:3 (The Message).

Paul was in the same position as his Master had been some three decades before, standing before the Jewish Sanhedrin to answer for his life. Unlike Jesus, he at least had the protection of the Roman government as a Roman citizen.

It was obvious that the men of the Sanhedrin were tarred with the same brush as the religious zealots they represented. He had hardly opened his mouth to speak before the high priest, as the highest religious authority in the country, began his physical abuse of Paul. It seems that he was exactly the same as his predecessor, Caiaphas, unreasonable and a bully. He was not prepared to give Paul a fair hearing to satisfy the captain. He was using his position to vent his own spleen on him.

The church had begun in Jerusalem and flourished for more than thirty years in spite of the Sanhedrin’s efforts to stamp it out. Caiaphas had led the charge against Jesus, fully believing that His death would put an end to the movement that was growing up around Him, but instead showing up the character of the men to whom the people looked for spiritual guidance.

Paul had been their most successful partner in this enterprise. He was a Pharisee like many of them, fanatically zealous for the Law they were supposedly upholding. Unfortunately for them, he had turned traitor and was just as zealously proclaiming the very One he had been opposing. It was a golden opportunity to get rid of him and Ananias lost no time in demonstrating his intention. Humiliate him first and then kill him!

Jesus had taught His disciples not to be doormats to anyone. It’s one thing to have an attitude of meekness, choosing to submit to authority even if you don’t like it, but it’s another thing to submit to bullying just because you are a Christian. ‘Turn the other cheek’, Jesus said. What does that mean?

We think it means, ‘Accept abuse because you are a believer,’ but in the culture of Jesus’ day, to be slapped on the right cheek was an insult because the hitter would have to use his left hand which was considered “unclean” because the left had was used for toilet purposes. To offer the other cheek meant that you were insisting that you were an equal and should be treated with dignity.

Was Paul being rude or disrespectful? I don’t think so. Jesus protested when He was slapped in the face during His trial. If the trial was intended to find out what lay behind Paul’s arrest, then the way to find out was to give him an opportunity to speak for himself, not to use him as an object of contempt to be abused at will.

What does this incident say to us? It clearly teaches us that everyone has the right to be treated with human dignity no matter who they are. Colour, culture, social standing, financial position, language or even accent does not disqualify anyone from being treated fairly because everyone has been created in the image of God.