Jesus’ Female Disciples: Their Faith in Action and Our Missional Legacy

My research paper

For those of you who were interested in reading my research paper, here it is. I am passionate about this subject and I had a great time learning and discovering new ways to hear familiar stories. I will have a lot to write about in the future! For those of you who have a paid subscription, you will have access to the full paper. In the interest of full discloser, it’s quite long so be prepared for a 30+ minute read. For those of you that would like to sign up, please click the link below.

I invite you to do a quick thought experiment. How many women are in the bible? Think about it for a minute and try to come up with a ballpark number. Would it surprise you to know that there are 205 named women and over 600 unnamed women in the bible? This of course does not include the countless women and girls who stood uncounted in the crowds of the Old and New Testament. It seems to me that more than 800 women in the bible might have a few things to teach us, all of us.

In my research I have looked deeply into a plethora of stories that I believe bear a heavy weight in the gospel accounts. I trust that the study and teaching of these stories will lead us to the restoration of women as full participants in the Mission of God. For far too long, we have pushed women, whose calling and gifting does not fit the status quo, to the sidelines of the Mission. We ask them to be supporters rather than leaders.^¹ But if a woman demonstrates gifting in leadership, preaching, and ministry, they must submit their gifting to the teachings of the church fathers, in which the first qualification is to be male. I believe this is what has led to masculinity being held up as an idol and justified as the first qualification for leadership in the Christian church. Why is this the case, when from the earliest days of the Christian faith Jesus trusted women to be leaders, disciples, and apostles?² Therefore, it will be my task to lay out what I consider to be some of the most compelling stories of Jesus’ female disciples. When it comes to who has the most authority in all of scripture to decide what women can and cannot do, I would like us all to be on the side of God with skin on.

It is not my intention to be one sided or to “leave out” the way the church has thought about women in the past. That perspective has been properly articulated and I assume extremely familiar to anyone reading this. Therefore, it is not necessary for this particular project. I am not making an argument, I am sharing the Story from a particular perspective, while less well known, because I believe it is necessary for the church to thrive. It is, therefore, my intention to help those of us who have been swimming in the water of complementarian tradition to come to the surface and breathe in a different perspective.