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A Woman Jesus Can Teach: New Testament Women Help You Make Today's Choices
160Overview
Discipleship is more than learning a routine—it’s an invitation to a relationship of love and trust. A Woman Jesus Can Teach studies the lives of several women in the Gospels who were changed by an encounter with the Lord. These biblical accounts will show you how Jesus “defied convention and took enormous risks to offer hope, new life, or a second chance to women.”
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781627078641 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Our Daily Bread Publishing |
| Publication date: | 04/02/2018 |
| Pages: | 160 |
| Sales rank: | 1,037,082 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.50(d) |
| Age Range: | 3 Months to 18 Years |
About the Author
Alice Mathews is Lois W. Bennett Distinguished Professor Emerita in Women’s Ministries and Educational Ministries at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. She has traveled the world as a Bible teacher and cohosted the Our Daily Bread Ministries Bible-teaching radio program Discover the Word for 23 years. Now retired, she continues to work with doctoral students and continues to write, especially about the intersection of women and the church. Alice resides in Lake Zurich, Illinois.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Getting Started
How to Be a Disciple of the Master Teacher
In 1980 my husband and I moved back to the United States after nearly two decades of overseas missionary service. One of the first things that struck me as we settled into the American version of the Christian community was the strong emphasis on discipling. It seemed that every Christian we met was either discipling a newer Christian or was being discipled by an older Christian.
Younger women approached me and asked me to disciple them. Their requests had the feel of something programmed, cut-and-dried. I hated to admit it, but I didn't have a clue what I was supposed to do. So I listened, asked questions, and read books. I discovered an explosion of literature on how to disciple or be discipled.
Much that I found, however, was formula-driven: do these five things in this order and you'll automatically be the growing Christian God wants you to be. These looked neat and efficient, and we Americans like things that way. If we can reduce a process to a formula (preferably one that either alliterates or forms an acronym!), we can convince ourselves that we have the process under control.
In many areas of life that works. Formulas do get some processes under control. Every recipe is a formula: take these ingredients in these proportions and combine them in this way and voilà ! — cornbread or pot roast or chocolate mousse. Any woman who walks into her kitchen to prepare a meal works with formulas. She either already knows them in her head or knows where to find the ones she will use. If we've been at the business of cooking very long, we don't need to reach for a recipe book every time we make a cream sauce or pie crust.
To learn to cook well, we start out following the formulas (recipes) carefully. As we become more skilled, we may alter the formulas to our own taste. But whether we have five well-used recipe books open on the counter every time we prepare a meal or we work out of cooking experiences accumulated over the years, we are combining certain ingredients in certain proportions in a certain way. We're using formulas. Good cooks and bad cooks alike use formulas. They merely differ in the formulas they use or in the ways they use them.
Is discipleship the same as cooking? Can I be guaranteed that if I combine certain ingredients (joining a Bible study group, spending a specified amount of time each day in prayer, attending three church services a week, witnessing to non-Christians on schedule) in certain proportions and in a certain way, I will become a mature Christian?
To find that answer I decided to follow Jesus Christ through the four Gospels and look at what the master disciple-maker said to those who followed Him as disciples. What I found was that His contacts with men and women didn't seem to fit any particular formula. He is, in C. S. Lewis's words, "not a tame lion." He never seemed to approach people in the same way twice. He suited His method to each person's unique need.
Jesus went out of His way to encounter a preoccupied Samaritan woman and engage her in a conversation that brought her and many in her village to faith. Yet He distanced himself from His own mother to move her to a different relationship to himself. He tested a Syrophoenician woman by refusing her request as a way of leading her on to great faith, but He lavished unsolicited grace on a widow whose son had died. Sometimes He talked in riddles to those who wanted answers; other times He gave answers to questions people had not asked. He refused to endorse Martha's notion of what Mary should be doing, just as He refused to answer Peter's question about the task He would give John.
I thought of the scores of women I had worked with in Europe. Whether singly or in small and large groups, these women were individuals. Each one brought her own unique life experience, her own fears and dreams, her own baggage to the Christian life. I can buy a dozen eggs and assume that all twelve eggs are pretty much alike and will act the same way in an angel food cake. I cannot assume that a dozen women stirred together in a Bible study group will act the same way.
Cookie-cutter discipleship programs reminded me of the near-impossibility of two women — one a size 8 and the other a size 18 — sharing the same size 13 dress pattern. Without a great many major adjustments to the pattern, neither woman will end up with a wearable dress.
No two of us are the same. Not only do we vary in height, weight, and hair color, we vary in interests, gifts, and skills. Just as Jesus molded His response to individuals around their specific needs, so we learn to follow Jesus as His disciples out of our own individuality.
When I was growing up, people had to know their sock size. Today we can buy one size that fits all. We don't have to remember sock sizes any more. But following Jesus isn't like buying a pair of socks. One size doesn't fit all.
Instead, it is more like a rug I hooked many years ago. I had seen the picture of that rug in a magazine and could imagine it under our coffee table in the living room. Six feet in diameter, it was a single round flower with scores of oval petals in every shade of blue and green. What struck me was that while the general contours of the petals were similar, no two petals were alike. If they were close in size, they were completely different in color or shade. It was that variety that gave the rug its vibrancy.
As I watched Jesus reach out and touch individual women and men in the Gospels, I discovered that God always works with originals, not with copies. Who could doubt the originality of Mary of Magdala or of Martha and her sister Mary? Like the petals of my hooked rug, there are no two alike.
This is not to say that Jesus does not have specific goals for those who follow Him. He made six statements that help us recognize His disciples when we see them. Luke records three conditions Jesus laid down for His followers: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters — yes, even his own life — he cannot be my disciple" (14:26); "Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple" (14:27); "Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple" (14:33). John then gives us three proofs of a disciple: "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples" (8:31); everyone "will know that you are my disciples if you love one another" (13:35); "bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples" (15:8).
That's a daunting list of requirements for disciples. It appears that Jesus set the bar higher than any of us can jump on our own. We not only must hold to His teachings, love one another, and bear much fruit; we also must give up everything, carry our cross, and make all human relationships secondary to following Jesus. No wonder "many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him" (John 6:66).
Meeting the requirements of such a list would be nearly impossible if being a disciple were nothing more than a formula, an abstract concept. It's tough to give up everything for an abstraction. But Jesus doesn't ask us to give up anything for an abstraction. He invites us into a relationship that so changes our priorities that what was once important matters much less to us.
The word disciple comes from the Greek word mathetes, which means "learner." That's what we are, learners. But we are a special kind of learner. I can study French in school without having a special relationship to the French teacher. But I can't study the Christian life as a disciple without having a special relationship to its founder. This is why discipleship as an abstraction slips and slides out of formulas designed to contain it. Life-changing relationships are dynamic, not static. They are alive.
When Jesus steps out of the pages of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and walks into my living room, I have to deal with Him, a person. He's not some misty figure in history. Nor is He just a set of teachings found in the Sermon on the Mount. He's alive, and He's dynamically involved in building a relationship with me. I must know who He is and what He wants from me. More than factual information about Him, I must also get acquainted with Him and get some feel for what to expect from Him. Because He is alive, not dead, and because He is relating to me, I can't put this relationship in a box or expect it to develop according to some formula.
What does a relationship do for us that facts or a formula fail to do? Well, great relationships have several characteristics in common. The first is that we take an interest in what interests our friend. What matters to her suddenly matters very much to us. We discover that we have a curiosity about things our friend likes that we hadn't given any thought to in the past.
Another characteristic of a great relationship is strong affection. We take such delight in our friend that we want to spend as much time as possible with her. Our hearts are knit together in love. That is a bond more powerful than any demands either of us may put on the relationship.
A third characteristic of a great relationship is trust. We go out of our way to be worthy of our friend's trust, and we give trust in return. This is, of all the characteristics of a great relationship, the most fragile. Trust is slow to build and quick to be shattered. But when it is present, it forms a sturdy bridge over which we can haul anything.
When we get to know Jesus and find Him completely trustworthy, we discover that we can hold to His teachings. When we have accepted that we are loved by Him without any strings attached, it is easier to love others. When what matters to Him matters to us, we won't even notice when other relationships and all that we possess take a secondary place in our lives. Then, what looked like a bar set impossibly high turns out to be not a bar at all. It is a gateway to joyful service for our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ.
There is no such thing as discipleship in the abstract. There are only disciples, individual men and women whom Jesus has found and whose lives He is changing. Jesus works with people, not concepts.
This book is not about six principles of discipleship. It's about women whom Jesus encountered. He found them on a well curb, in a temple court, in the marketplace, outside a city gate. These women met someone who changed their lives by His interest in them, His unconditional love, His trustworthiness. His love enabled a sinful woman to show great love. His interest prompted a woman of Samaria to bear much fruit. His trustworthiness stimulated Mary of Magdala to give up everything and follow her deliverer. These were ordinary women meeting an extraordinary person. They followed Him, and life was never the same for them again.
What looks difficult, even impossible in the abstract becomes spontaneously possible, even easy when we move into a relationship of love and trust with God the Son. This book is for and about women who want to love and serve Jesus Christ, who want to be His disciples.
Questions for Personal Reflection or Group Discussion
1. How do you feel about the characteristics of a disciple as Jesus stated them?
2. Which one do you think would be most difficult for you?
3. In what ways does a relationship change the way you might look at these characteristics?
4. How do you feel about your own originality or uniqueness as a follower of Jesus Christ?
CHAPTER 2Mary
How to Relate to the Family of Faith
With our children now with families of their own, Randall and I have gone through the tough transitions of learning to relate to our kids as adults. We can no longer be responsible for them. We don't choose their toys, their diets, their clothes, or their friends. Whatever influence we may have over them now, it cannot be coercive. They may choose to listen to us because they honor us or because we have an expertise they want to learn. But listening to us is their choice, not our right. This calls for an interesting shift in the way we talk to each other and in the expectations we have.
These relationship shifts in the family can create tension for all of us. As parents we know in our heads we need to let go and encourage our children's independence. Doing it consistently is another thing. We feel responsible, and our protective instincts get in the way of what we know in our heads we must do.
During such times we may feel as if we're tiptoeing through a minefield. But the transitions we make as our children mature into adulthood are insignificant compared to the transition made by a woman we meet in the Gospels. Her name is Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We're familiar with the dramatic story of Mary's terrifying encounter with an angel, Gabriel, in which she agreed to become the mother of the Messiah. We know the story of Jesus' inconvenient birth in a Bethlehem stable. We've heard about the adoring shepherds and a sky full of angels announcing Jesus' birth. In light of all this, we somehow assume that a woman bringing such a special baby into the world would be spared some of the anguish we ordinary parents face. Yet Mary faced an even tougher transition than you and I face as our children mature. She had to learn to relate in a new way to her son, Jesus, not just as an adult, but as God. Her role as mother had to give way to a new role as disciple or follower of Jesus Christ.
The things that happened to shift Mary to discipleship were so important that all four gospel writers give us bits and pieces of the story. One particularly painful incident is reported by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Here is Mark's version:
Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind" (3:20–21).
It started with the rumors the folks in Nazareth kept hearing about Jesus. Some people were saying He was out of His mind. Others said He did His work through the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons. Still others simply said He wasn't getting enough rest or even time to eat. Mary and her sons agreed that Jesus would kill himself if someone didn't take charge of Him. They talked it over in the family and decided to bring Him back to Nazareth. They would keep Him out of the public eye for a while and make sure He got enough sleep and ate at the proper times. So they set out for the village where He was teaching.
Their concern for Jesus' health was not misplaced. Needy people seeking His touch on their lives crowded Him wherever He went. Men and women in their desperation and pain pressed Him on every side. He and His disciples tried to retreat from the pushing throngs, but even in a private home they were so mobbed that they were not able to eat. Mark's account resumes in verses 31 through 35:
Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you."
"Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother."
"Who are my mother and brothers?" What a question to ask! What must Mary have felt in that moment — after all those years of loving and caring for her son, through childhood and into young adulthood, to be rejected in this way? She had risked her reputation to bring Him into the world. She had worked tirelessly during His boyhood to train Him responsibly. Now as she heard Him ask, "Who is my mother?" she was forced to recognize that for Him, the physical ties of family were not as strong as she had thought.
Of all human relationships, few reach deeper than the tie of a mother to her child. When we become mothers, we become partners with God in creation, in bringing a new life into the world. Could any other bond be stronger than that?
Mary was fully human. She must have struggled with the humiliation of this rejection. If we had walked back to Nazareth with her after that painful encounter, we might have seen her close her eyes and shake her head as if to blot out this new reality. It couldn't be true. This special son, the one the angel had said would be great and would be called the Son of the Most High, who would occupy the throne of His father David — surely this son wouldn't turn His back on His own mother!
But what had that old man Simeon said to her that day in the Jerusalem temple when she and Joseph had taken the baby Jesus for His dedication? Hadn't he told her that because of this child a sword would pierce her own soul? Was this what he was talking about? Could anything hurt more than being publicly rejected by her oldest son?
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "A Woman Jesus Can Teach"
by .
Copyright © 2012 Alice Mathews.
Excerpted by permission of Discovery House.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Preface,
1. GETTING STARTED How to Be a Disciple of the Master Teacher,
2. MARY How to Relate to the Family of Faith,
3. THE WOMAN AT THE WELL How to Face Yourself "As Is",
4. MARY AND MARTHA How to Live Successfully in Two Worlds,
5. MARTHA AND MARY How to Nourish Hope in Times of Loss,
6. THE CANAANITE WOMAN How to Pursue Faith in Life's Crises,
7. THE HEMORRHAGING WOMAN How to Find Jesus in Your Pain,
8. TWO WIDOWS How to Give and Receive Graciously,
9. A SINFUL WOMAN How to Cultivate an Attitude of Gratitude,
10. THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY How to Respond to the God of the Second Chance,
11. MARY OF BETHANY How to Make Jesus Your Priority,
12. MARY MAGDALENE How to Walk by Faith and Not by Sight,
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