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We see in Luke 8 that there was a group of women who followed and supported Jesus and his disciples as they travelled. Unusual women—breaking out of traditional roles to follow Jesus. What can we learn from their example?
I have to believe that the disciples had some difficulty getting used to having women following them. But notice that Jesus allowed them to come along. We see no indication that he urged them to return or refused to accept their support.
No, in fact he had cured many of these women of evil spirits and diseases. And I believe he was delighted to have them come along and testify to what he had done for them. I can just see Mary Magdalene, as they enter a town, standing in the midst of a group of strangers who are listening with intensity as she tells them how Jesus delivered her from seven evil spirits. What a testimony she must have had, and I can imagine that many others were delivered by Jesus because of her witness.
We see another woman, Joanna, who had been healed by Jesus. She was the wife of a prominent man in Herod’s government. It had to be most unusual for a woman in her position to decide to follow this itinerant preacher around, to support him and his team. I wonder if that was even a consideration with Joanna. Don’t you imagine she was so grateful to Jesus for what he had done in her life, that she simply was compelled to follow him? She was married, and she must have had her husband’s consent to leave her home in order to follow Jesus. But she didn’t let anything stop her, not even traditions of her day.
Evidently these were women of means, because they supported Jesus and the disciples out of their own pockets. Imagine that; these women picked up the tab. That had to be more unusual then than it is even now.
It might have been a little hard at first for the disciples to take money from the women. But they learned the wonderful lesson that we are one in Christ and we share the ministry of the gospel equally.
I’m reminded of Paul’s words which tell us that in Christ “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). These women and men did not allow tradition to keep them from working together as one body, with one mission, to tell the world about Jesus Christ. We need to rethink our roles and traditions and see if they are inhibiting us and keeping us from being everything God wants us to be.