Isaacology

Romans 16:15

Doubtless there were other godly women among “all the saints” whom Paul includes in his greeting to Nereus and his sister. The Apostle must have known the name of this woman as well as that of her brother, yet for some reason he left her nameless. We have glimpses of information about some in this roll of names, but total ignorance regarding others, save that they were in Christ. Seeing that Nereus and his sister are grouped together would seem to suggest that they were unmarried and remained as the only members of the family and that they cared for each other, Nereus experiencing, in the words of Christina G. Rossetti that—

There is not friend like a sister

In calm or stormy weather;

To cheer one on the tedious way,

To fetch or if one goes astray,

To lift one if one totters down,

To strengthen whilst one stands.

We have thus reached the end of the list of the actual, yet anonymous women of the Bible, thick-set in chronicles of saints and sinners. Although unknown, they live on in their deeds whether good or bad.

The Woman Christ Saved From Death by Stoning
John 8:1-11; Deuteronomy 17:5, 6

Having come to seek and save the lost, Jesus never shrank from close association with sinners. He ate and drank with them, in order to win them to Himself. In His journeys He conversed with at least three women who had been guilty of adultery—the Woman of Samaria, the Woman who came to Him in the house of Simon, and now the woman of the narrative before us, and His loving-kindness and tender mercy characterized His dealings with each of them. It is interesting to observe the circumstances leading up the exposure of the woman taken in adultery. After spending a night on the Mount of Olives, Jesus, rising early the next morning made His way to the Temple where a large company of people soon gathered to hear about His Messianic work. But as He fearlessly witnessed, danger hovered around Him, for members of the Sanhedrin were seeking to kill Him, and the Scribes and Pharisees were in sympathy with such a wicked design. While He was seated in the Temple instructing the people, a number of the Scribes and Pharisees arrived bringing with them a woman who had been caught committing a most degrading and serious offense.

The Accusers
The religious leaders who brought the woman to Christ, preferring a charge against her, and trying to trap Him by asking what should be done to her, belonged to a class most eager to deal with harlots. They regarded themselves as custodians of public morality and woe be to those who came under the observation of these self-appointed inspectors of moral nuisances. Knowing all about the requirements and punishment of the Mosaic Law, and their own traditions surrounding it, they treated sinners with sanctimonious contempt. To them, it was sinful to be touched by a woman like the one they brought to Jesus, but as we shall see, their zeal against the sins of others was only a cloak to cover their own vileness.

How partial those accusers were! They brought the woman taken in the very act of adultery, but where was the man, the chief offender? Why was he not brought? Was he a Pharisee belonging to our Lord’s enemies, and one whom policy demanded should be allowed to escape? The law and justice demanded that the adulterer and the adulteress should be brought together and be put to death (Leviticus 20:10), but true to the way of the world those foes of Christ made the woman bear the severity of her offense. Divine justice, however, is “without partiality” (James 3:17).

The Adulteress
The woman presented to Christ by her accusers was without doubt guilty of the sinful conduct with which she was charged, and He in no way condoned her serious offense. Doubtless He pitied the woman’s weakness and made full allowance for the force of temptation compelling her to sin. But He regarded her conduct as being a manifestation of wickedness evidenced by His command that she sin no more. Adultery takes its place in the front rank of “the works of the flesh” (Galatians 5:19), and is ever against the Creator’s just and holy law regarding the welfare of the race (Exodus 20:14). But could anything have been more cruel or harsh than that of setting this sinful woman “in the midst” of the Temple, exposing her to the gaze of the multitude? The conduct of those Scribes and Pharisees “showed on their parts a cold, hard cynicism, a graceless, pitiless, barbarous brutality of heart and conscience.” It was bad enough for the woman to be conscious of the guilt of her sin, but to parade her before others was a cruel act and destitute of the love eager to hide a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8). While Jesus never excused sin in those who came His way, He was ever tender and gracious in His treatment of them.

The Advocate
As a Jew, and as the Messiah, Jesus was under solemn obligation of respecting the law of Moses (Deuteronomy 31:9; Matthew 5:17), and in His life on earth fulfilled the law (Matthew 5:18). Therefore when the Pharisees quoted the law about an adulteress being stoned to death, they appealed to a standard which He regarded and honored (Psalm 40:8), even though the great prevalence of adultery had made punishment of being stoned to death obsolete. Our Lord told the Pharisees that Moses was their accuser (John 5:40), and is it not strange that in their accusation of the woman they should appeal to Moses? Their question, “What sayest thou?” did not imply that they respected His teaching about the law. All they hoped to do was to snare Jesus into making an answer contrary to the law. If He had said, “Let her be stoned,” His tenderness and kindness in dealing with the sinful and degraded would have been shown as being false. Had He said, “Let her go,” there might have been a revolt among those who, although they were favorable to Him were yet staunch defenders of what Moses taught.

The cunning of the old serpent, the devil, was behind the effort of the Pharisees to tempt and accuse Christ and He needed wisdom to deal with such a situation. But able to read the hearts of men He knew how to answer their question, which He successfully did—by silence. He stooped and wrote in the dust around His feet, “as though he heard them not.” We pause here to ask two questions, namely, Why did He look down? What did He write with His finger on the ground?

Why did He look down?

It may have been out of consideration for the feelings of the guilty woman, that Jesus fixed His gaze on the ground and not on her. Men of corrupt hearts Peter speaks of as “having eyes full of adultery” (2 Peter 2:14), might stare at the exposed woman, but as the Holy One having a compassionate heart He looked away from the frightened female dragged into His presence. She was humiliated by so many eyes fastened upon her, but here was the Friend of sinners, not guilty of any morbid curiosity, bowing His head and looking downward.

Another reason for His action might have indicated the lack of relish for what had been thrust upon Him. He always looked upward to heaven and spoke to His Father (Matthew 14:19), and directly at Peter and others whom He sought to restore to His favor (Luke 22:16), but when asked to pronounce judgment upon a guilty soul, more sinned against than sinning, His whole being shrinks from such a task (John 3:17; Luke 9:56; 12:14). As He came to fulfill the law, He cannot evade it now and thereby shield a manifest sinner from her sin which the law justly condemned.

What did He write on the ground?

It has been suggested that this was a common method of signifying intentional disregard. Jesus certainly acted as if He had not heard the woman’s accusers. What His finger actually wrote we are not told. It was the divine finger that wrote the law (Exodus 31:18), and perhaps Jesus reflected upon this fact as He wrote on the ground. As He stooped in the Temple that He might write, our Lord may have remembered how He had stooped from heaven that the broken law might be rewritten in the temple of man’s being. The woman had broken the law, but He would honor it. Incensed at the evident unconcern of Christ, the Pharisees, discerning the symbolism of His writing, kept up their demand for an answer to their question. That solemn silence was more than they could stand, for it spoke in a power greater than His words. He was slow to anger, even with the most obdurate.

When He did look up and speak, the judicial decision was not forthcoming, but what the Pharisees did hear stunned them. “He that is without sin among you—that is, the type of sin men engaged in with such a woman, the particular sin the Pharisees had condemned her with—let him cast the first stone.” The only One present that day without sin of any kind, was the sinless Lord Himself, but He would not cast a stone nor pass judgment as to what should be done with the woman in the role of a civil or ecclesiastical judge. Delaying any word for the woman, He again stooped down and wrote on the ground, the repeated action expressing His determination to avoid the office of a judge. What He wrote this second time must have been seen by His accusers, and they slunk away, lest He reveal their further guilt. One ancient translation adds to the repeated verse (John 8:8), the words, “Wrote on the ground the sin of each of them.”

Whatever that writing was, the Pharisees were convicted by their own conscience, and beginning with the eldest, all of them left Jesus and the woman alone. Says Matthew Henry, “They that are convicted by their conscience will be condemned by their Judge if they are not requited by their Redeemer.” How the hypocrisy of these accusers, both of Christ and of the woman, was exposed! Here they were condemned as being guilty of the very sin they cast against the woman. Not one of them was innocent of the sin of adultery they brought against the woman, even the eldest man among them.

The Acquittal
The second time Jesus looked up from the ground, He saw none but the woman. She might have fled as the convicted Pharisees left the Temple in shame, but somehow she was constrained to remain with the One who had become her Advocate and Deliverer. Now, facing her, Jesus asked, “Where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?” The woman simply answered, “No man, Lord.” She recognized that He was the only One who had the right to pass sentence on her. But there was no attempt at defense or excuse on her part, no plea for divine mercy and forgiveness. He knew all about her, and thus she reverently called Him “Lord.”

Then came the word her heart longed to hear, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” The accusers who had just left could not condemn her, neither would Jesus. “Go, sin no more,” or “Be no longer a sinner,” was an utterance in harmony with His purpose of saving sinners from their sin. While there was no expression of forgiveness or peace as in the case of others (Matthew 9:2; Luke 7:48), we believe that she went forth, and in obedience to Christ’s command, entered a new life of pardon, peace and purity. The old adulterous life passed away, and she became a new creation. It would be most interesting to have more history of this nameless female. Our obligation is to glean these lessons so patent from the episode, namely, be slow to condemn every human judgment of another’s sin; to condemn every sin in our own lives; to declare to every sinner God’s forgiveness.

The Woman Who Was Delivered From Divination
Acts 16:16-24

It was after the conversion of Lydia and her household that Paul and Silas after a period of gracious hospitality in Lydia’s spacious home, left for a season of prayer on the following Sabbath—not by the riverside (16:13), but in a sanctuary where prayer was wont to be made. On the way, people gathered about the apostles, whose mission produced friends—and foes—and excitement was evident as they continued their journey, especially when one like the demon-possessed girl cried after them, and sought from them the way of salvation.

Her Divination
What exactly was “the spirit of divination” which possessed this slave girl and made her soothsaying so lucrative to the masters who owned her? The margin gives us the rendering, “a spirit of Python,” or as some mss give it, “a Python spirit.” In Greek mythology Python was the name of a serpent which guarded an oracle on Mount Parnassus and was slain by Apollo, thence called Pythius, as being himself the god of divination. This girl was not a mere ventriloquist or sheer imposter, nor a somnambulist or lunatic as some have supposed. She was a demoniac who, when she was possessed by the evil spirit, was looked upon as having power to divine and predict. When caught up by the demon, the girl’s wild cries were received as oracles, and her masters or joint-owners who usually had partnership in valuable slaves, traded on her supposed inspiration and made her answer those who sought for oracular guidance in the problems and perplexities of their lives. Luke, who in his gospel describes “soothsaying” as coming from evil or unclean spirits, here, in his record of the demon-possessed girl, recognized in her phenomena that which was identical with those of the priestesses of Delphi—the wild distortions, the shrill cries, the madness of evil inspiration. How ignorant we seem to be of the reality of the power of Satan’s emissaries, especially in these last days when their influence is more apparent than ever!

Her Declaration
If the girl was under the spell of a demon, how can we account for the content of the continued cry, “These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew—declare or proclaim—unto us the way of salvation”? This was indeed a true description of Paul and his companions in their itinerant ministry. Was the demon using the girl to mock the apostolic witness to Christ in order to thwart their work? Were the expressions “servants of the most high God,” and “the way of salvation” among those the girl had heard Paul use beforehand? Did she now repeat them under demoniac influence not knowing what they meant, and which demons Jesus had dispossessed (Luke 4:34; 8:28) now used in scornful irony, or as an involuntary testimony to the truth that Paul declared? Did the declaration indicate any particular motive on her part to conciliate Paul, or to increase the profits of those who owned her by acting as a prophetess? Or can it be that the unfortunate girl was impelled by a desire for emancipation from her demoniac influence to cry forth the message she did? Had she listened to Paul and Silas at the riverside to which many had resorted, not only to pray, but also to hear the apostles preach, and felt that these men were able to deliver her, and were as unlike as possible to the masters who traded on her maddened misery? The fact remains that she came to experience that Paul was a servant of the most high God with power to make her whole.

Her Deliverance
We read that the girl followed Paul and his co-workers for many days and that Paul became worn out, wearied, impatient over her constant repetition of cries, which impeded the apostolic task of speaking to inquirers. Perhaps Paul was grieved or sorry by her constant cries, not in any sense of being offended, but because she was demon-possessed and therefore not responsible for her utterances and actions. It will be noted that Paul in no way reproved the girl herself, but, facing her, spoke to the evil spirit possessing her: “I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” As the authoritative representative of Christ, Paul ordered the demon to vacate his abode in the girl. Command means to order peremptorily, as an officer his soldiers, and at the name of Jesus the demon was subject unto Paul and withdrew his control of the girl.

Two aspects of her restoration to her true self are conspicuous. First, it was instantaneous, “he came out the same hour,” or “that instant.” Immediately, the miracle took place, and the girl was wonderfully emancipated from her degradation. Second, her deliverance was complete for “her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone.” All their present and future profit from the girl’s demoniac gift had gone. There she was silent and subdued, clothed in her right mind, no longer a slave, but a transformed girl. When “the spirit of divination” went, with it vanished the lucrative business of her owners. Angry at Paul and Silas over their obliteration of financial gain, they seized the apostles and brought them before the magistrates who found them guilty of the trumped-up charge of the slave owners, and cast them into prison. Rough treatment was given the apostles for the saving work God enabled them to accomplish, but triumph was also theirs, for they were able to pray and sing praises even at the midnight hour in their prison cell. Also, witness again God’s miraculous power both in the earthquake and the salvation of the jailer and his household.

What of the girl herself whose history ends with the expulsion of the demon and his evil influence? We cannot believe that she was left to drift back into ignorance, unbelief and demoniac possession. Lydia and the other noble women would know all about the girl, laboring with the Apostle as they did (Philippians 4:3), and likely afforded the transformed girl all necessary shelter, comfort and guidance. As for the girl herself, did she show her gratitude to Paul for the miracle performed in her life, by including her gift with the gifts sent to the Apostle to assist in his work of salvation? (Philippians 4:15). Now, saved herself, did she confess out of a delivered and cleansed heart, “Paul is indeed a servant of the Most High God, for he showed unto me the way of salvation”?

Acts 21:8, 9

Philip the evangelist was one of the seven disciples set apart as a distinct body for the exercise of a particular ministry in the church (Acts 6:3). While blessed with four commendable daughters, whose names, along with the name of their mother, are not given, nothing is said of any sons that Philip might have had. Absence of any mention of Philip’s wife may imply that he was a widower, and that his four daughters cared for him and the home. We are safe in assuming that his wife had been a devout wife and mother, and that she had had a formative influence over the lives of her four daughters who became a remarkable quartet of gospel women who lived out their lives among heathen neighbors.

The Four Daughters Are Nameless
It would have been interesting to have had their names, as we have those of Job’s three daughters, but they would have been non-existent in Bible history were it not for the one single verse telling us that they actually lived and occupied so important a place in the primitive fellowship of the church. Reticence as to their identity we accept as one of the wise silences of the Bible. Their names are inscribed upon the roll of the redeemed in heaven. “Not every flower that blooms on earth, and not every star that moves in Heaven has a name in human syllables; but all the same they smile and shine; and Philip’s four anonymous daughters represent countless numbers of the faithful, serving a generation who knows them not.”

They Were Virgins
We think of these four daughters as being beyond the period of youth, women in the full ripeness of godly experience and exercising rare spiritual gifts, who had chosen a celibate life deeming such preferable for women called or specially qualified to be God’s interpreters, like Miriam of old. Roman Catholic writers regard them as the first nuns of the Christian Church. J. D. Alexander suggests that their virginity is probably mentioned, “only as a reason for their still being at home, and not as having any necessary connection with their inspiration.” Paul sanctioned the unmarried life as presenting a higher standard of excellence than the duties of domestic life (1 Corinthians 7:8-34).

They Prophesied
Joel had prophesied extraordinary spiritual gifts to be bestowed upon both sexes, and to daughters as well as sons. At Pentecost Peter, inspired by this prediction said, “Your sons and daughters shall prophesy.” It may be that Philip and his four daughters were present on that historic day, shared in that marvelous outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and became by that divine unction, Christian exhorters. How those four handmaids of Christ “Who kept their maiden record white,” must have been blessed and used as they declared a God-given message, giving not only predictions of the future, but also expounding the Word for the enlightenment and edification of those who heard them. Because of the teaching of Paul regarding the silence of women as preachers in churches (1 Corinthians 14:34; 1 Timothy 2:12), it is possible that Philip’s daughters confined their ministry to their own sex. If, and when, they accompanied their father in his missionary journeys, opportunities would come their way of preaching to women, both among Jews and Gentiles, and of assisting in the baptism of female converts. Their utter devotion to the Lord must have constantly cheered the heart of their father whose faith they followed. The church will never know how much it owes to its unknown, consecrated women.

Romans 16:13

There may be those who dismiss the last chapter of Romans as being just a catalog of names. In many respects, however, it is a most impressive chapter seeing it contains twenty-six personalities, all of whom are named with some of their relatives who also are nameless as in the case of the mother of Rufus. About most of the personalities we know almost nothing. That they had their joys and sorrows, burdens and cares, hopes and disappointments, trials and triumphs, can be assumed, seeing we all drink of the cup of human experience. What is evident is the fact that all whom Paul mentions as being his friends in this most personal chapter were all followers of the Lamb, and had in some way served the Apostle, and who now receive his gratitude, greetings and salutations. A few of them may have been near relatives, his kinsmen. Handley G. Moule’s comment on the chapter is worth quoting—

We watch this unknown yet well-beloved company, with a sense of fellowship and expectation impossible out of Christ. This page is no mere relic of the past; it is a list of friendship to be made hereafter, and to be possessed for ever, in the endless life where personalities indeed shall be eternal, but where also the union of personalities, in Christ, shall be beyond our utmost thought.

Who, exactly, was Rufus, whose mother Paul wished to be remembered to? Mark speaks of Simon of Cyrene as “the father of Alexander and Rufus” (Mark 15:21), and there is a substantial tradition that the Rufus of whom Paul speaks was Simon’s son. As Mark wrote primarily for Roman readers the family was well-known to him, and so Paul, writing to the Romans, mentions the son of the cross-carrying Simon with whom he was so friendly. Paul speaks of Rufus as a chosen man in the Lord, “a saint of the élite” as Moule calls him, or “that choice Christian,” as Dr. James Denny wrote of him. Doubtless Rufus was conspicuous in the service of the church. As a youth he may have seen his father shouldering the Saviour’s cross to Calvary, and witnessed His death there, and from then on became His bond-slave.

Further, what are we to understand by the inclusion of the phrase in Paul’s greeting to Rufus—“and his mother and mine”? Did he have two mothers in mind, Rufus' and his own mother? Above all unknown mothers in the Bible, Paul’s mother is the one whose biography we wish we could have had. Brought up a Pharisee of the Pharisees, Paul’s parents must have been thoroughly Jewish and antagonistic to the claims of Christ when He appeared as the Messiah. Did a sword pierce the heart of Paul’s mother when she learned that her brilliant son had forsaken the Jews' religion and had become a Christian, or was she brought to experience His saving grace and power? Was she alive when Paul wrote his epistle to the Romans, as some writers seem to suggest, seeing that he mentions a few of his relatives in this epic chapter, who, with his mother, had found their way from Tarsus to Rome? The more general acceptance, however, of Paul’s salutation—his mother and mine—is that Rufus' mother had been so kind to him on different occasions, mothering him in days of sickness and strain, and is remembered by the Apostle for all her loving attention. Says Herbert F. Stevenson in his Galaxy of Saints—

Through an overflowing of “motherly” love and care for the Apostle, a tender relationship had been established. The most sturdy self-reliant and ruggedly resourceful still need occasional “mothering”; and in this gracious tribute, Paul pays the mother of Rufus the highest compliment which even an apostle could confer.

Although the nameless mother of Rufus had played a mother’s part to the probable motherless apostle in his hours of need, her name, along with her loving-kindness stands recorded now: “In either Book of Life, here and above.”

The Woman Who Gave Her All
Mark 12:41-44; Luke 21:1-4

Of all the nameless women in female biography, this most sacrificial widow is one whose name and background we would dearly love to know about. As we read the gospels her devotion always touches our hearts, and we are grateful that Jesus noticed her sacrifice and has preserved her story in the safekeeping of His praise and Word.

The Occasion
During Paschal Week women from all over poured into their court in the Temple with their offerings for its manifold services. Along the walls of the court there were receptacles into which the people dropped their gifts. Many who were rich cast in much and probably took no pains to conceal what they gave. The Scribes who devoured widows' houses, getting all they could, doubtless paraded their giving, but here was a widow intent on a far nobler purpose, namely, to give all she could. The Scribes were rich, but selfish—the widow, poor, but sacrificial (Mark 10:24; James 2:5). Among the crowds this poor anonymous widow was unnoticed by those around her as she dropped into one of the chests her two tiny copper coins. Making her offering, she passed along unaware that any one but herself knew the measure of her gift and what it cost. When we speak about “the widow’s mite” we have in mind a small offering, but to this nameless widow her mite represented all she had. If the rich had given proportionately that Holy Week, what a tremendous offering the Temple would have had. Among all the money gathered that day none had the stain of blood on it apart from those two mites. With true Israelite devotion she gave all she had earned, and then went on her way to earn a little more to care for her frugal needs, and for those of any children she might have had.

The Omniscience
As an Israelite the widow would have a knowledge of Hagar of old and of how she called Jehovah by the distinguished and comforting name, “Thou God seest me” (Genesis 16:13). She surrendered her all that day feeling that God’s eyes alone would know of her offering. Little did she know that the One sitting near the treasury was God manifest in flesh, and that because of His omniscience He knew all about her and also the amount of her sacrificial gift. Whether Jesus may have learned of this godly widow on one of His previous visits to Jerusalem, we do not know. The narrative seems to suggest His divine insight into the lives and characters of people as in the cases of Nathanael (John 1:47, 48) and of the woman of Samaria (John 4:18).

Because of her penury, the widow would come and go unobserved in the presence of the crowd for she had none of the ostentation of the Pharisees in dress and disposal of gifts. But an All-Seeing eye saw her and knew all about her secret and took an exact inventory of the comparatively small gift she had dropped into the treasury box. The Bible does not tell us whether Jesus spoke to her and thanked her for her offering. It is probable that she was not conscious of what omniscient eyes had seen, and how her minute offering among so many gifts that day had gladdened the sorrowful soul of Him who was on His way to give His all at Calvary and also provided Him with a text for an everlasting lesson on what sacrificial giving really is.

Her Offering
What a rebuke Jesus delivered to the rich Scribes and Pharisees who cast large gifts into the treasury-boxes! But what they gave was insignificant, proportionally, alongside what the widow gave, and her slender gift brought forth from the greatest Giver of all a message that lifted the poor to their rightful fraternity of service with the godly rich in the kingdom of God: “Of a truth ... this poor widow hath cast in more than they all: [With this sentence Jesus must have waved His hand in the direction of those who loved the praise of men and not of God.] For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.”

Over against the show of easy service, Jesus placed the piety of self-denial. The widow’s two mites represented her two hands that had earned the mites, and which would earn more for another sacred fraction for the God she worshiped. Paul commended the churches of Macedonia because their deep poverty had abounded unto the riches of their liberality (2 Corinthians 8:1, 2). As it is “by him actions are weighed” (1 Samuel 2:3), in His balances the loving act of the poor widow outweighed the munificence of the rich Pharisees. It is not what we give but how we give that counts with Him who gave Himself for a lost world. The widow gave all she had at the time, and surrendered it gladly. May we ever remember that our giving must be inspired by what we owe Him who redeemed us at such cost, and also placed over against what is left after we give! How apropos are the words of Solomon as we think of the poor, unnoticed widow whom Jesus rewarded with everlasting remembrance: “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good” (Proverbs 15:3).

The Woman Whose Dead Son Came Back From the Grave
Luke 7:11-18

Among the many widows who were in Israel (Luke 4:25), quite a few of them crossed the pathway of Jesus in the days of His flesh. He seemed to have a special, tender care for these women whom death had impoverished, and who often became the particular prey of the unscrupulous, and victims of the fraudulent. Already in this volume we have written of the significance of Bible widows, who were not to be afflicted, and whose cry heaven always heard (Exodus 22:22; Jeremiah 7:6; Matthew 23:14). The accounts of widows deserving of honor and care are both instructive and interesting for our guidance in church life today (1 Timothy 5:3; James 1:27). Before us is another widow whom Jesus helped in her affliction. Like other widows, this grief-stricken one of Nain received a special dispensation from heavenly hands, and is an example of “millions of bereaved mothers whose sorrows have been sweetened by some revelation of divine love and pity.”

The Mourner
Luke alone records the breaking up of the funeral procession Jesus met on the way to the cemetery. The city of Nain was approached by a steep ascent, with burial caves on each side of the road. The day after Jesus had healed the centurion’s servant, He set out with His disciples on a missionary tour around the Lake of Galilee, and as He journeyed, the size of His followers increased. As they reached the rockhewn tombs, they met a humble train made up of one weeping mourner and a few sympathizing neighbors. They learned quickly of the widow’s loss of her only son and child, and of the two facts enhancing the bitterness of her sorrow. She was a widow, bereft of her beloved partner for many years, and now was motherless seeing that the one prop of her life, her hope and stay in widowhood, had been taken from her. The young man doubtless worked and kept the home together. Now he is dead and the widow’s future must have seemed so bleak.

The Master
A peculiar feature of our Lord’s miracle on the widow’s behalf was the fact that this was the first manifestation of His power to raise the dead. The resurrection of Jairus' daughter and of Lazarus followed. Prophets of old, like Elijah and Elisha, had raised the dead, and when Jesus raised the dead youth, the people knew that He was a prophet of the same order. We further notice that the heartbroken widow did not seek Jesus, but that He came to where she was. The moment He saw her drooping figure alongside the hand-borne bier with its lifeless form, He had compassion on her. The miracle that followed was not only an unmistakable credential of His diety and mission, but also the spontaneous outflow of His infinite sympathy with human suffering.

Note His fourfold action—

“He said unto her, Weep not.” What authority and consolation were wrapped up in that tender exhortation! As God incarnate, He was able to dry the widow’s tears.

“He touched the bier.” On the open stretcher lay the corpse wrapped in a winding sheet with a handkerchief over the face, and as Jesus touched the bier, its bearers stood still. All around knew that He was a Teacher and that most rabbis would not touch the dead for fear of pollution. But here was One who came into contact with the dead, and that cortége, stopped in its progress, came to experience that His touch had still its ancient power.

“He said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise! And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak.” How awe-stricken the on-lookers must have been as in a moment of time, at the mighty command of Jesus reaching the abode of the dead, the spirit of the widow’s only child returned! As the mother had no idea of what would happen as she left her humble home for the grave, what a shock of joy must have been hers when her son sat up, and tearing away the cerement of death around his face, “began to speak.” How fascinating it would have been if Luke had set on record what the youth’s first words were when brought back from the dead by Jesus!

“He delivered him to his mother.” What a lovely touch this is! It literally means, “He gave him to his mother.” At birth he came as God’s gift to the home; now that he is risen from the dead, he was God-given in a higher sense. As the Lord of life came to die He manifested the same care of His own widowed mother, Mary. Thinking of her uncertain future, Jesus said to John, the disciple whom He loved, “Behold thy mother,” and from that hour the Apostle took her home and protected and provided for her through the rest of her days.

The Multitude
The fame of this miracle quickly spread. The people of the city of Nain who accompanied the widow, and those who had followed Christ were overwhelmed at His first resurrection miracle, and great fear came upon them all. They glorified God, for in the One who had brought life and immortality to light God had visited His people. The grateful company saw in Jesus the Great Prophet raised up by God and was indeed—

Creator from the wreck of things;

Death is but hope with folded wings.

When light from His strong spirit streams

And stirs cold dust to breathing dreams.

What was the reaction of that widowed mother as she returned home with her restored son? We can imagine how both of them expressed their thanks to Jesus, and set about knowing more of Him and the gracious truths He taught. Blessing Him for His ineffable goodness in giving back her boy, the attitude of this poor Galilean Jewess must have been—

Her eyes are homes of silent prayer;

No other thought her mind admits,

But “he was dead”—and there he sits.

The Woman Who Sinned Yet Loved Much
Luke 7:36-50

All women since Eve, the world’s first sinner, were born in sin and sinners by birth became more or less sinners by practice. But this woman whom Jesus met in the house of Simon has the distinguishable labels, “Which was a sinner,” “She is a sinner,” “Her sins which were many.” Her doom seemed to be sealed in that word “sinner.” The simple but moving record of this disreputable woman that Luke alone gives us, compells us to say that no human imagination invented it. As Mackintosh Mackay says, “The story bears stamped on its very face the impress of Him who spake as never man spake.”

A striking aspect of the episode before us is the willingness of Jesus to fellowship with the sinful or the sole purpose of reaching their hearts with the truth. While He never sought such feasts, as the one to which Simon the Pharisee invited Jesus, He never refused them but deemed them openings for doing His Father’s work. While He never ate with sinners for any personal gratification, He was careful not to adopt a holier-than-thou attitude toward them. Separate from sinners, in respect to their original and practiced sin, He yet was willing to contact them in order to transform their lives. Thus, when invited by Simon to a dinner, Jesus graciously accepted in order to instruct him, as He did. And when a notorious female sinner tried to reach Him at the dinner, He did not refuse her admission to His presence, but graciously received tokens of her penitence and love, and commended her for her faith. If we would rescue the perishing we must be willing to go where they are.

Her Past
The word used for “sinner” in connection with this city woman suggests the special sin of unchastity and that she was known among the people in her community for her sensual and hateful calling—a woman of the streets. Jesus evidently knew that “her sins were many,” implying that her prostitution was habitual, and that her illicit practices were continuous. All in Nain knew her as a woman who had rejected her virtues and her honor. She had sacrificed the white flower of a blameless life for monetary gain. Harold Begbie, in one of his volumes describing miracles of grace experienced in Salvation Army activities, tells of a prostitute who was saved from her life of sin by the gift of a flower from a female Salvationist on a London street. As the biographer puts it—

The flower was white. The idea of this whiteness pervaded her consciousness. She made a contrast of the whiteness of that flower and the spreading darkness of her own soul. She said to herself, “I was once white like this flower.” She looked at the white flower through a mist of pain and said to herself, “I wish I could be pure.” She covered her eyes with her hands, moved her face to the pillow, and wept.

As that white flower unlocked the cabinet of memory and began a spiritual process resulting in the transformation of her character, it was thus with the woman who was a sinner. She saw her degraded life in the white light of divine holiness personified in Jesus, and as she wept her tears brought her triumph over a shameful past. Coming to Simon’s house in all her guilt, afraid and ashamed to mingle with the invited guests, she flung herself at the foot of Him who said that Publicans and harlots would go into His kingdom before the self-righteous Pharisees.

There is no Biblical evidence whatever for identifying this sinful woman with Mary Magdalene or with Mary of Bethany as some commentators have done. While the first Mary is spoken of as having “seven devils,” there is no evidence that she was immoral when under demoniac influence. The conduct of the sinful woman in Simon’s house was totally different from the wild frenzy of a demoniac. As for Mary, sister of Martha, what is said of her devout spirit is strikingly adverse to that of a harlot of the streets. While “the woman which was a sinner” was probably known to the women Jesus healed of their infirmities (Luke 8:1-3), reticence as to her name both on their part and that of Luke was at once natural and considerate. That she was a woman deep-dyed in her particular kind of sin and yet found deliverance from her shameful past, confirms the truth that His blood can make the vilest clean.

Her Penitence
Those tears of hers, evidence of her sorrow for her many sins, cleansed her vision and gave her a sight of Him who came to save sinners. Guilt produced grief. Evidently she knew all about Jesus and followed His movements. It is most likely that she had heard of His compassion for the sorrowing widow of Nain, and had listened to His parable on the prodigal son. As a prodigal daughter of Israel, drawn by the ineffable pity and tenderness of His words and looks, she, like the prodigal son said, “I will arise and go to my Father.” Brought back to God and purity, she found her way to Simon’s house where her gift and her tears revealed how much she owed the Saviour and how greatly she loved Him.

The grateful woman brought with her an alabaster box of ointment and anointed the feet of Jesus, who did not refuse such a token of her love. While it does not say that the aromatic ointment was as costly as that with which Mary anointed Jesus, we can assume that it relatively was as precious. “The lavish and luxurious use of perfumes characterized the unhappy class to which the woman belonged.” Now she brings the store she had saved to seduce men, and with it anoints Him, the purest of men. He accepted the gift and transfigured it into the devotion of a saint, thereby making the instrument of sin a symbol of penitence and she surrendered to the claims of Jesus.

Further, this transformed sinner not only anointed the feet of Jesus with ointment, but also washed them with her tears and wiped them with the flowing locks of her hair. She could not manifest stronger tokens of her sorrow for sin and of her faith in Jesus. She was looking upon the compassionate face of Him who was about to be pierced and mourned for her sin (Zechariah 12:10). As Jesus reclined on a couch, the woman, modestly, and without attracting the notice of assembled guests, recognized by her tears and perfume the august character of the One who had raised her from the dunghill. Those sobs and the deed at Jesus' feet revealed the woman as having a sympathetic and fervent character. She was not too hardened in her sin as to be incapable of tears. In this she was so different from the cold, calculated attitude of the unsympathetic Simon who witnessed the woman’s expression of gratitude and devotion. The different emotions of shame, penitence, joy, praise, love, found natural relief in her tears, ointment and kiss.

Her Provoker
What a study of contrasts we have in the attitude of the sinful woman and Simon the Pharisee! How incensed Simon was over the way Jesus allowed such extravagant attention from such a woman of illrepute! Expressing his irritation and disapproval over the Saviour’s countenance of the woman’s gift of tears and perfume, he received his just rebuke for his lack of a sympathetic understanding of the situation. Because of the Pharisee’s cold, austere, love-less manner, the woman knew she could not approach him for he would despise and dismiss her. But with a revelation of the Saviour’s condescension and compassion, she believed He would mercifully receive her and so she cast herself upon His mercy.

We are told that what Simon had witnessed at the feet of Jesus had aroused thoughts of protest and provocation in his heart. He spake within himself about the action of one who professed to be a Prophet receiving homage of such a shameful woman. Was this not inconsistent with His character as the Prophet? He never voiced his irritation over the recognition on the part of Jesus of the woman’s approach, but He who could read the secrets of the heart, answered the unspoken thoughts of the Pharisee (1 Corinthians 15:24, 25). Then in masterly manner, without directly reproving Simon for his pharisaical thoughts, told the story of the two debtors which is similar to another parable of His (Matthew 18:25).

What a moving and thrilling climax Luke gives! In a quiet authoritative tone Jesus said, “Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee,” and recognizing Him as a Teacher come from God, Simon replied, “Master, say on.” Then came a question “in the form of a kind of ethical proposition sum of the debtors that owed, the one five hundred pence, and the other fifty pence—a question that needs no answer.”

Whatever hope either debtor had lay in the fact that pardon was offered to both as a matter of free gift and bounty, and driving home His point that the creditor had freely and frankly cancelled the sums owed him, Jesus asked Simon the pointed question, “Tell me which of them will love him most?” He answered somewhat indifferently, not fully understanding the drift of Christ’s parable, “I suppose that he to whom he forgave most.” This was the answer needed to rebuke Simon, and so with dramatic swiftness He turned to the half-concealed, worshiping woman, and in a tone vibrating with authority, indignation and condemnation said—

I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears ... Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment.

The contrasts which Christ used are impressive. Simon gave no oil—the woman anointed His feet with costly ointment. Simon gave nothing for the head of Jesus—the woman lavished her love upon His feet. How Simon reacted to Christ’s message on forgiveness and love we are not told! His cold, unloving, and unforgiving heart must have been smitten as Jesus revealed the depths of love in the woman’s contrite heart, in the words, “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much; but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.”

Her Pardon
Turning from Simon to the female sinner who must have been overawed by Christ’s parabolic defense of her tears and gift, He uttered the assuring word, “Thy sins have been forgiven.” Any lingering fear in her penitent heart as to divine acceptance was banished and assurance became hers. The guests at the feast, seeing and hearing all that had taken place, ask the question, “Who is this that forgiveth sins also?” This was an echo of the Scribes who said that Jesus was a blasphemer because He forgave the sins of the man sick of the palsy (Matthew 9:3). Who can forgive sins but God only, and in Simon’s house God was present in the person of His Son? Because He was God manifest in flesh He accepted the woman’s sobs and perfume as the pledge of a past forgiveness and the promise of a life to be lived for His glory.

Christ’s final word to the saved sinner was, “Thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace.” Twice He uttered the joyful tidings that her sins had been pardoned and her soul saved. What He emphasizes in His confirmation of deliverance from her sin was that it was by her faith that she had been saved. When He said to Simon, “Her sins are forgiven, for she loved much,” attention must be given to the single word “for.” The phrase does not mean that Christ forgave because of her overflowing love; that because she was a soft and loving woman Christ forgave her faults so natural to her past life. He did not mean, “Forgive her, she has a kind and tender heart, and was more sinned against than sinning.” It was not her love but her faith that brought about her forgiveness, for a sinful soul can only be saved by grace through faith in Christ. Forgiven on the basis of her penitence and faith, pardon expressed itself in the tokens of her love. “Go in peace” was the last word the transformed harlot heard. It actually means, “Go into peace.” Peace was to be the new home in which she was to live, even the perfect peace Paul wrote about in his letter to the Philippians—

God’s peace [be yours, that tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and content with its earthly lot of whatever sort that is, that peace] which transcends all understanding, shall garrison and mount guard over your heart and minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7, Amplified Bible).

The Woman Who Was Made Straight
Luke 13:11-13

The miracle of the infirm woman recorded by Luke the historian, is not only the report of a trained observer, but because of medical terms used, reveals Luke as the beloved, gifted physician, who alone cites the incident that took place on a Sabbath Day in a synagogue. Unbelievable as it may seem, it was on this day when religious leaders went the round of their prayers that they closely watched Christ in the hope of trapping Him in the breaking of some law concerning the Sabbath. Our Lord consecrated such a sacred day to the purposes of His Gospel, and performed many of His miracles on it. What blind leaders of the blind those leaders were! They failed to see Him as One greater than the Sabbath. They thought more of the day than its Designer. This Sabbath miracle can be summarized thus—

The Daughter Suffering the Malady
Christ spoke of this crippled woman as “a daughter of Abraham,” and was therefore more precious in His eyes than the ox or ass about which He chided the Pharisees. This title by which He called her suggests that she was one of the inner circle of pious Israelites like Simeon and Zacchaeus (Luke 2:25; 19:9). Being a descendant of Abraham, this female was possessed of his faith, and because of it, was in the Lord’s house on the Lord’s Day. As an inheritress of Abraham she was in the right place to be healed. Although a firm believer in Jehovah she yet was afflicted for a long time. However her painful malady did not keep her from attendance at the synagogue. Walking must have been difficult for her, but her seat was never vacant when the Sabbath came around. Think of what she would have missed if she had absented herself from God’s house that Sabbath when Jesus visited it! What encouragement this faithful daughter of Abraham brings to all godly women, who, in spite of bodily infirmities, household cares and chores, find their way to the sanctuary where the Lord is ever present to undertake for true worshipers.

The Description of Her Malady
The phrases Luke employs reveal his professional touch. First of all the woman had “a spirit of infirmity” which does not mean that she had a weak and infirm spirit, but a mysterious derangement of her nervous system. She was “bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself”—language implying a physical curvature of the back, a condition producing mental obliquity. She was “bowed together,” a phrase not found elsewhere in the Bible and indicating dislocation of the vertebrae. Jesus said that she had been bound by Satan—that her disorder had been inflicted on her by Satan, just as he had smitten Job with sore boils. Her deformity must have made her a pitiable sight and caused her a good deal of mental despair, but she was to experience the power of One who had come to destroy the works of the devil and was able to relieve both mind and body of affliction.

The Duration of Her Malady
For eighteen long years the woman suffered, and eighteen years is a large slice out of one’s life. Her trouble was long-standing and hopeless, and as the years dragged by we can imagine how she, as “a daughter of Abraham” resigned herself to the divine will although she did not understand why she had been afflicted thus through all those years. Many a saint is destined to suffer a lifetime, but he acquiesces in the will of God believing that as the Potter, He knows best how to shape the clay. Thus as Professor Laidlaw expresses it—

Her bent form and furrowed face were to Him as a book in which He read the story of her eighteen years' bondage and patient struggle to sustain her infirmity. Her faithful attendance at divine worship, and perhaps other features to which we have no clue, showed Him genuine religious and spiritual character.

It made no difference to the divine miracle-worker how long a person had suffered, or how deep-seated their disease or malady. A word from Him was sufficient to heal the worst.

The Deliverer of Her Malady
It is most profitable to study our Lord’s varied methods in healing the sick. He did not cure in the same way all who came to Him. No standard rule was followed in His miracles. In the display of His power before us, note these actions: He saw—He called—He laid His hands on her. Nobody and nothing escaped the look of Jesus. There in the synagogue, at her habitual devotion, His eye singled out her crippled form as a special object of His mercy. Then with that compassionate voice of His, He called the woman to His side and said to her, “Thou art loosed from thine infirmity.” There was no approach by the woman for relief. Christ took the initiative, and unsolicited, uttered the all-commanding authoritative word of healing. His eye saw her, His voice called her—now His hand touched her and conveyed an instantaneous cure. Neither length of time nor inveteracy of her disorder could in any way obstruct the combined action of His eye, lips and hands.

“Thou art loosed from thine infirmity.”

“Immediately she was made straight.”

These two phrases reveal the knowledge of Luke as a physician. “Thou art loosed,” the only passage where this phrase is used of a disease, is a term which medical writers use to describe release from disease, relaxing tensions, and taking off of bandages. Through Christ’s word and touch a current of new life entered the deformed body of the woman, and her bonds were loosened.

“She was made straight.” After eighteen years of such apparent physical deformity immediate erectness became hers. Contracted muscles were relaxed, the curvature of the spine vanished, and all at once she stood erect—a lovely specimen of a woman. What He did in the physical realm for this woman He is able to accomplish spiritually in our lives in which there are so many crooked things needing to be made straight (Isaiah 42:16). Such a miracle resulted in opposite effects—

The woman herself glorified God. The unasked-for, immediate manifestation of divine power was followed by immediate gratitude. Although she was so badly deformed, she was constant in her attendance at the synagogue to worship and praise God, but this momentous day resulted in the pouring forth of her thankfulness in a continuous strain of praise. Now, with the restored use of physical powers she would be able to serve the Lord, as she had not been able to through those long, hard and weary eighteen years of infirmity.

The people rejoiced. All her friends, fellow-worshipers in the house of God, who knew of her piety and sweet resignation under severe trial, likwise “rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by Him.” Surely this benediction must have gladdened the Healer’s heart. Alas, too often He looks in vain for gratitude from those He blesses! (Psalm 107:8).

The ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation. What an opposite effect the miracle had on this religious leader who should have been the first to lead the praises of the assembled congregation for the Master’s mercy in healing the needy woman! But no, while the crowd acclaimed Christ, His adversaries accused Him. At the back of the ruler’s adverse criticism of Christ’s miracle was not so much the performance of it on the Sabbath Day, but that his feelings were hurt over the popularity of the Master. His pride of position was hurt as he saw the crowds applauding Christ as He confirmed His divine mission by such displays of power. The ruler’s professed regard for strict Sabbath observance was a thin veil, hiding a heart destitute of any compassion for the suffering.

In His reply to the ruler’s indignant rebuke, Christ vindicated His act of mercy in a most unanswerable manner, by tacitly acknowledging the necessity of sanctifying the Sabbath, and that there was no better way of honoring it than by caring for the needy. His convincing argument was that if the rigid Sabbath-keepers considered themselves at liberty to loose an ox or an ass from the stall in order to meet its material needs, surely the effort to loose the grievous bonds of a rational being was more justifiable, particularly when the bound one was a daughter of Abraham. Was it not a true Sabbath deed to heal a woman who had suffered much through eighteen years? So apparent was our Lord’s argument, that His adversaries were put to shame and silenced, and His character as the Messiah rose in the estimation of the friends of the healed woman, for whom that Sabbath Day was a memorable one indeed.

What a comfort we can gather from this miracle! In all our troubles Jesus is at hand, and whether our disorders are spiritual or bodily, the word of His mouth and the touch of His hand are ours. If we are “bowed down greatly,” the Son of God with power is near to “heal that which is sick, and to raise up them that are bowed down” (Psalms 38:6; 146:8; Isaiah 61:1). All that concerns His own is of deep concern to Him.

The Woman Who Left Her Waterpot
John 4

The pregnant phrase to underline in the incident at Sychar’s well which is so rich in spiritual instruction, is the announcement John gives at the beginning of the chapter, namely, “He must needs go through Samaria.” Why the necessity? While this was the shortest and most usual road for a traveler going from Galilee to Jerusalem (Luke 9:52), the Pharisees avoided this customary route, and took a longer, round-about one through Peraea. They did this in order to avoid any contact with the Samaritans with whom, as Jews, they had no dealings. While the Jews and the Samaritans were physically alike in many ways, requiring the same food, following the same occupations, having the same hopes and ambitions, and suffering the same diseases, yet there was a racial hatred that kept them apart.

The origin of this hostility between these two peoples may be traced back to the Assyrian colonization of the land of Israel (2 Kings 17:21). From this followed the antagonism of the Samaritans to the Jews at the return from captivity (Ezra 4; Nehemiah 4), which led to the erection of rival temples on Mount Gerizim. This was in the mind of the woman at the well when she said, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain” (John 4:20). From that time the spirit of religious bitterness lingered, and this accounts for the Jewish reproach.

“He who eats the bread of a Samaritan is as he who eats swine’s flesh.”

“No Samaritan shall be made a proselyte.”

“They have no share in the resurrection of the dead.”

Jesus spoke of a Samaritan as an alien (Luke 10:33; 17:16, 18), and in turn was accused by the Jews of being a Samaritan Himself and possessed by a demon (John 8:48). While the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans, Jesus had. He spoke well of them, healed one of them of leprosy, and rebuked two of His disciples for wishing to destroy some of their number with fire from heaven (Luke 9:55, 56; 10:30-37). As the omniscient Lord, He knew all about the woman in Samaria and went there to show and teach that He was above all religious and racial prejudices and that true worship consisted of worshiping God in spirit and in truth.

Thus necessity brought Jesus to the place where the Samaritan woman lived, and reaching Jacob’s well, being wearied because of the long noontide journey, He sat by the well while His disciples went into the city to buy food. The reality of our Lord’s fatigue testifies to the reality of His humanity. As the Man, He was weary and required food and drink, but as the God He could tell the woman who met Him at the well all about her guilty past and her soul’s deepest need. Jesus was often weary in His work, but never weary of it. As Man, He knows all about our human and spiritual needs, and as God, He can meet every one of them. So about noon that day, Christ, a Jew, and the God-Man, met a Samaritan who was a woman, whose life was to be transformed as the result of that contact.

Her Individuality
Twice over this nameless female is referred to as “a woman of Samaria” (John 4:7, 9). Prominent in this phrase is her religious and national position. She was not only an alien as far as the Jews were concerned, but was also poor, for women of affluence did not draw water in those times. The Samaritan woman differs from many of the other women who came before Christ in His itinerant work. Some of them pressed into the kingdom or took it by violence with their earnest prayers. We think of Anna who spent her nights and days in fastings and prayers—of the sinful woman of Canaan who washed His feet with her tears—of the widow of Nain who moved His heart by her silent weeping in her great loss, but for the woman before us no petition was granted, no miracle was wrought except her spiritual transformation. Yet she was a privileged woman in that Christ confessed to her that He was indeed the Messiah which He did not usually confess even to His disciples, leaving them to discern for themselves the truth of His Godhead from His mighty works and miracles of mercy. Thus this woman has an individual prominence in that she was among the number who sought Him not (Isaiah 65:1). Further, He did not usually offer His gifts unasked, but waited until they were sought or importuned. Here He offered the woman the unspeakable gift of Himself. First of all, He asked relief of the woman, then He offered her relief, not common water to slake her thirst, but Himself, the Well of Everlasting Life.

Her Iniquity
What kind of a woman, morally, was this Samaritan water-carrier? When the disciples returned from their shopping errand they “marvelled that Jesus talked with the woman.” Perhaps they were surprised to see Him talking in public with a woman, which was directly contrary to the Rabbinic precepts affirming that a man should not speak in public to his own wife, and that the words of the Law should be burned rather than taught publicly to a woman. Probably there were three reasons why the disciples marveled at the sight of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in earnest conversation. First, they wondered that He, as a Rabbi or Teacher sent from God, talked with her because she was only a woman. Second, because she was a Samaritan woman with whom no Jew should have dealings. Third, because she was a sinner. Some versions speak of her as “the woman of Samaria,” and she was likely well-known because of her association with men.

As a Samaritan, this woman had and knew the Pentateuchal law against adultery. When Jesus found her she was living with a man who was not her husband, but He did not expose her sin to others. He wanted her to feel the sense of sin herself. So when she asked Jesus for the living water of which He spoke, He replied: “Go, call thy husband.” Her life had to be a clean receptacle to hold the living spring, so Jesus revealed the foulness that had to be destroyed, and His thrust left its mark. Her past and present life had been laid bare by the omniscient Lord who said, “Thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband.” If death had invaded her home upon five occasions, and the five men she had lived with in succession were actual husbands, she certainly did not gather praise for her five marriages. But to bury her fifth husband and go and live with a man who was not a husband, revealed how she had fallen into the depths of sin. We can imagine how the people of her locality avoided her because of her lack of feminine modesty and purity.

Behind the questions, “What seekest thou?” “Why talked thou with her?”—such a woman—is the thought that whatever His talk with such a woman, whose reputation the disciples may have heard about in the city, it must have been of the highest nature and was related to her spiritual welfare. Because those disciples believed that Jesus was perfect, and knew no sin, ulterior motives could not be ascribed to such a Holy One, as He talked with one whose sin became apparent in the white light of His holiness.

Her Ignorance
It is inferred that the woman complied immediately with the thirsty Man’s request for a drink of refreshing water, even though she could see by His features and dress that He belonged to the nation who hated her people. As she drew water from the well she asked Him, “How is it that thou, being a Jew, asketh drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?” Little did she realize that in her willingness to give the Jew a drink she was fulfilling the Christian law toward Him, “If he thirst—even if he is thine enemy—give him drink,” and that cup of water she gave Him did not lose its reward (Matthew 10:42). Jesus answered the woman’s question by bringing home to her mind her ignorance of the greatness of the One sitting at the well.

If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.

What the Samaritan woman was so ignorant of was the fact that she had been coming daily to a deep well of water that had been God’s gift of refreshment to man and beast since Jacob’s time, yet there was a deeper well of spiritual truth so necessary for man’s hidden needs, of which she was unconscious. She was a traveler in the journey of life, travel-stained by her sins, but had not discovered as yet the fountain opened for uncleanness. Instead of Christ begging her for a refreshing draught of water, she should have been beseeching Him for the unfailing supply of spiritual water from the eternal well.

From her ungracious manner and slur at Christ’s people, she answered His comment in a tone of respect. There was something about His voice and manner that gripped her heart, and while she did not understand His message, she was conscious of its latent force, and felt that this traveler was no ordinary man. He seemed to speak with authority, and so passes in her address to Him from, “Thou, being a Jew”—the last word uttered in the tone of contempt—to the reverential, “Sir,” Having had five husbands she was not easily worsted in conversation and wanted to know where was the better well than Jacob’s from which the “living water” could be secured, and her ignorance begins to vanish as she asks Him, “Art thou greater than Jacob, our ancestor?”

Her Instruction
As the woman spoke of the deep well before her, and of Christ having no bucket to secure more vitalizing water from the depths of the well, Jesus, pointing to the ancient well, said, “Anyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but anyone who drinks of the water I shall give him will never thirst any more; the water I shall give him will turn into a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.”

What Jesus supplied was not external water to satisfy the recurring physical need, but an internal and eternal source of unfailing spiritual, life-giving water. Such living water was a divine gift (Isaiah 55:1), was Christ Himself (John 4:10), easily reached—the woman walked far to reach Jacob’s well, but the spiritual well is ever at hand—and a satisfying, unfailing gift for “whosoever drinketh” (Revelation 22:17). As light broke in upon her darkened mind, the woman replied to Christ’s teaching, “Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.”

But a full understanding of His words was not yet hers. Still thinking of them in their physical sense, she thinks of toilsome hours and weary journeys that could be saved if only she knew the marvelous well the Stranger was speaking about. Jesus answered her request, and cut short her argument with a command that went straight to her heart: “Go, call thy husband and come hither.” Our Lord wanted to turn her from a proud argumentative frame of mind to the humility of confession. Here was a sinful creature worth saving, but she must be made conscious of her sin, and when she humbly said, “I have no husband,” she became a different woman.

Proceeding gently, Jesus replied, and revealed His omniscience as He unmasked her secret: “Thou hast well said ... For thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband.”

The very wounds her shame would hide were seen by His all-searching eye, and her ignorance gives way to spiritual insight as she reverently confesses the prophetic gift of the One who knew all about her past and present life and asks Him to solve the problem of the right place of worship for both Jew and Samaritan. The woman was taken up with the place of worship, but Jesus sought to teach her that the spirit of worship is more important than the place. Alas, on any Lord’s Day there are thousands in the place of worship as they gather in churches, but they are strangers to the spirit of worship which is related to the worship of God in spirit and in truth—worship inspired by the Holy Spirit in conformity to the truth of the Word.

It was to this woman that Jesus revealed the only basis of acceptable worship, and also the truth of His Messiahship. Perceiving that Jesus was a Prophet, the woman felt He knew the nature of true worship, namely, the spiritual worship of a spiritual Being not only at Jerusalem or Gerizim, but wherever there is a heart seeking Him. With her mind opening to Christ’s instruction about spiritual worship, the Samaritan woman confessed the power of the coming Messiah to reveal all things, and perhaps now sensed that because the Jew before her had told her all things about her life, He must be the Messiah. Then came the dramatic word of Christ’s claim, “I that speak unto thee am the Messiah.” How privileged this sinful woman was to hear from the lips of Jesus Himself the divine secret of His Messiahship!

Her Influence
By the Spirit, the woman acknowledged the truth of Christ’s Messiahship and Omniscience, and immediately became a powerful witness to her remarkable discovery. With her mind full of the new truth she had learned, she left her water-pot and, full of her great discovery, hurried back to the city. In her enthusiasm she left her water-pot behind as a pledge of her return, not only for natural water, but also for a further spiritual draught from the living well she had found in Christ. Reaching the city, she met the men who knew her only too well, and declared the truth she had learned of Christ’s Messiahship. Because He had unveiled her past life, He must be the Christ for whom both Jew and Samaritan were looking.

Her ignorant mind had grasped the secret of true worship and of Christ’s mission, and her instinct for telling news became apparent as with the passion of an evangelist she said, “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” He had awakened her to a new and better life and such was the effect of her earnest witness that many of those Samaritans went out and came to Jesus at the well. For two days they listened to His teaching, and came to believe in Him, and accept Him as the Christ, the Saviour of the world. This was not only because of what His first native woman evangelist in Samaria had said of Him, but also because they had heard Him for themselves, and hearing, believed. In the glow of her newborn faith, the woman had to tell others and share with them all she had heard and experienced. Some four years later, when Philip the Evangelist came to preach “in many villages of the Samaritans,” he doubtless met “the woman of Samaria” and realized how wonderfully the Holy Spirit had used her life and witness as well as the testimony of the Samaritans she had been the means of leading to Christ, to prepare the way for his miraculous ministry in Samaria. When the disciples returned from the city and saw Jesus talking with the woman, they knew what He meant by telling them that the fields were white already unto harvest. Because of the seed sown by the woman who, when she found the well, left her water-pot, Philip experienced a great ingathering of souls in Samaria, so much so that there was great joy in that city. The most joyful inhabitant was the woman who from her heart confessed, “Come see a man, who told me all things that ever I did; is not this the Christ?” (Acts 8:5-25). She had laid the foundation of that Samaritan Pentecost. At Jacob’s well she saw Jacob’s Star (Numbers 24:17), and ascending Jacob’s Ladder (John 1:51) became the means of others climbing to God.

The Woman Who Begged as a Dog
Matthew 15:21-28; Mark 7:24-30

This remarkable female in Bible biography is called by Matthew, “a woman of Canaan,” and by Mark, “a Greek.” There is no contradiction here because the term Greek was commonly used to distinguish Gentiles from Jews. She was a heathen woman of Gentile stock who came to earn a rare commendation from Jesus even though she was a descendant of the old Canaanite worshipers of Baal. Her name, and that of her husband and also of her daughter are not known. She is presented as a mother suffering unspeakable grief because of the incurable demoniac affliction of her daughter. We likewise have her portrayed as a woman of resolute determination as she sought to get relief for her child from the great Israelite Healer of whose fame she had heard.

Her Region
This unhappy woman of heathen surroundings belonged to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon whose inhabitants had been despoiled by the children of Israel, and who were given over to idolatry (Ezekiel 28:22-26). No love was lost between the Jews and the Phoenicians, but the One who went through Samaria where the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans and left a blessing behind Him, here visits the Gentile district of Northern Galilee to reach some of “the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” mixed up Gentiles in the district. As the Shepherd, He went out after the sheep (Luke 15:4), and brought His salvation to Jew and Gentile alike (Luke 10:9; 19:10). It may be that one object of Christ’s unusual trip to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon was to seek rest and have closer fellowship with His apostolic band, seeing that Capernaum had ceased to be a home of peace for Him. But He could not be hid. His fame followed Him and news of this miracle-worker reached the ears of this poor Canaanite mother, whose excitement would not let her wait until Jesus arrived. Out she ran as if to be the first to meet Him with a cherished hope that He could relieve her daughter. Coming before Him she immediately told Him her sad story, and besought His mercy.

Her Request
Briefly, yet explicitly, the Canaanite woman presented her plea which contained three appealing elements—
1. Her Petition: “Have mercy upon me.” In dire need we are so dependent upon the unfailing mercy of Him who is full of compassion.
2. Her Recognition: “O Lord, Thou Son of God.” Heathen though she was, this grief-stricken mother yet recognized the authority and deity of Him whose name was great in Israel and also among the Gentiles (Psalm 76:1; Malachi 1:11). In the royal title she used she implied that Jesus alone was able to cast out the devil from her daughter.
3. Her Statement: “My daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.” Mark says she had an “unclean spirit.” This mother never wasted words as she stated the terrible trial shadowing her home. Eloquent language is not necessary when we present our needs to Him who knows all about them before we state them.

Her Repulse
The pitying Saviour, who refused no call for mercy, was silent to the pleader’s pointed prayer. “He answered her not a word.” Weary with the pressure of His long and arduous ministry in Galilee, He retired into a friendly, hospitable house nearby, and left the seeking mother outside. Why did our Lord appear to turn a deaf ear to the pitiful cry for the relief of her afflicted daughter? Usually He responded immediately for the exercise of His power, but at this time He was silent, and His disciples as bigoted Jews who were deeply nationalistic and despised all Gentiles, shared the Master’s silence. Why should their Lord bestow a favor upon a Gentile?

Artists never depict Christ with His back turned. He stood with His face to blind Bartimaeus, to the foaming demoniac, to the limping paralytic, to the turbulent sea which He hushed, to the dead whom He raised, but here He turned His back on the suffering woman, throwing positive discouragement upon her petition: “Lord, spare the life of my demon-possessed daughter; it will not cost You anything.” Because of all we know of Christ’s love and compassion, we cannot believe that He meant to ignore altogether her cry for help. Often the problem of unanswered prayer is acute, but He who ever hears the pleas of those who seek Him always answers prayer in His own best way. Perhaps with this Gentile mother, His repulse was meant to try her faith, which proved to be a faith accepting no rebuff.

Her Resoluteness
Driven by a pressing need, this woman of Canaan was determined not to take, No! as an answer. She knew Christ was able to cure her daughter and was determined that the assistance she sought would be granted. So she pestered the disciples for another audience with Christ whose expression of His mission might have discouraged her Gentile heart, “I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” He rallied to the woman’s earnestness, however, and to make His mercy more conspicuous, met her persistence by saying, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread [that is, salvation appointed for the Jews] and cast it to dogs” (or the Gentiles which was the ordinary parlance of the Jews in regard to Gentiles). The gentle, gentlemanly, and loving Jesus never meant to characterize the woman as a dog.

Even this further rebuff did not deter her from falling at the feet of the great Galilean Teacher and sobbing, “Lord, help me!” Although a wild Gentile she begged grace of the Shepherd of Judah. In the passion of her sorrow and resolve she would not let Him go until He blessed her. Even when He further denied her in the words, “Let the children first be fed. It is not fitting to take the children’s bread, and cast it to dogs.” Such a sentence might have crushed her, but inspired humility enabled her to quickly reply with all meekness, “Truth, Lord, yet dogs [tame, house, pet dogs] eat of the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.”

Behind Christ’s seeming frowning countenance there was the smile of love. Although He had addressed the helpless woman in a somewhat austere, traditional way, His coolness made the final favor sweeter. The stranger had not asked for a whole loaf of bread or even for a large slice—only for the crumbs falling to the floor. The Master felt the wit and the earnestness and the stratagem and the faith of this determined woman who dared to persist in her desperate petition, and the expression of His heart revealed Him in His true mission—the Saviour of mankind.

Her Reward
“The aptness and the subdued beauty of her patient reply had charmed Jesus,” and she heard Him say, “O woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” It was as if He had meant, “You have conquered Me. Your daughter is well now. Go home, mother; but before you get there she will come down, skipping to meet you. The devil has left her.” Her conquering faith exhibited the three ascending degrees of all true faith. The trial of her faith consisted of silence (Matthew 15:23), refusal (15:24), and reproach 15:26), all of which were intended by Christ for a beneficent, loving purpose. The trial resulted in triumph, for the woman had turned a seeming rebuff into an argument in her favor, and her faith resulted in definite and practical results. Blind Bartimaeus broke through hindrances cast up by his fellow men, but this woman broke through apparent hindrance even from Christ Himself.

Reaching home the poor Canaanite mother found her darling girl in her right mind, calm and smiling, and how her relieved heart must have praised the Man of Galilee. Her faith had prevailed, and Christ’s disciples began to learn that divine pity was larger than racial boundaries and that their Master’s salvation was a fountain for all. A peculiar feature of Christ’s miracle on behalf of the Canaanite woman is that it was accomplished by remote control. He did not go to the home of need as in the case of Jairus, but stayed where He was, and the moment He uttered the word of healing, the demon-possessed girl was made whole. It was one of His “absent cures.” Distance makes no difference to Omnipotence. “He spake and it was done.”

Daniel 5:10-12

None of the names of the king’s wives or concubines are mentioned (Daniel 5:2), neither is the name of his mother—the queen mother—given. Herodotus, known as “The Father of History,” would have us believe that this queen is not without a name. He recognizes her as Queen Nitocris who did so much to beautify fabulous Babylon. But in Daniel’s record of her “she appears and disappears, like a face at the window, with not even a pseudonym to tell us who she was. She rightly belongs, therefore, in our Bible cluster of un-indexed luminaries.” She is conspicuous in the narrative because of her short and single speech to her frightened son.

After Belshazzar succeeded his illustrious father, Nebuchadnezzar, he gave himself over to his vicious pleasures. During his periods of dissipation, it is more than likely that his strong and wise mother, practiced in administration, took over some of the affairs of State as Queen Regent. Thus, when during the extravagant feast when Belshazzar profaned the consecrated cups of God’s Temple by using them in their debauchery of what followed, the shape of a naked hand moved along the wall. Its fingers wrote three mysterious words, and a sobering fright gripped the drunken crowd. The terror-stricken king called for his wise men, the Babylon magicians who professed to have power to interpret signs. But they were all baffled by the mystic handwriting on the wall. It was then that the stately queen entered the banquet hall, and, as mistress of the situation, said to her son, “O King, live forever,” a formula to be quickly shattered.

Although an idolater, the queen had an intuition as to Daniel’s superiority to all the wise men of Babylon. She told how the divinely inspired prophet had interpreted the dreams of Belshazzar’s father, and because the wisdom of the gods was in him would be able to read out the significance of the writing on the wall. The king following the command of his mother, “Let Daniel be called!” sent for him to interpret the words, which he did to the consternation of Belshazzar who heard Daniel pronounce his doom. One wonders what the thoughts of his mother were like as she heard the crushing sentence, which the great Hebrew prophet whom she had come to revere, pronounced. Theron Brown concedes her a place among the queens of the world. It was she who produced the prophet as the interpreter of the heavenly message, even though she had a fear of its tragic import. As Brown expresses it &--;

We picture her facing with heroic fortitude the decree of Heaven that made her city the stranger’s prey, and herself the consort of a crownless captive and mother of a crownless son. She stands the grandest figure, next to Daniel, in one of the most dramatic of the world’s events. The Hebrew interpreter and seer was there by her own instructions, and vouched for by her own testimony, and her noble candour would not gainsay his words. She knew at last that Divine vengeance must smite the throne of Babylon, and no descendant of hers would ever ascend it again.... Her plume of honour was her friendship for the great Hebrew Prophet who foretold the coming of Christ.

Daniel 11:6-9, 17

Whatever futurist application there may be in Daniel’s prophecy of this southern princess, her historical reality must not be lost sight of. There are those expositors who affirm that the language used here is very general and that the “daughter” refers to the Southern Kingdom itself rather than to a princess out of it. The generally accepted historical interpretation is after this order. The king’s daughter from the South refers to Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt. In order to end his war with Antiochus Theus, “King of the North,” or Syria, Ptolemy gave Berenice to Antiochus, who thereupon divorced his former wife, Loadice, and disinherited her son, Seleneus Callinicus. But Berenice was not able to effect the purpose of the alliance, namely, that she should be the mainstay of peace. When Ptolemy died, Antiochus took back Laodice who poisoned him and caused Berenice and her son to be put to death, and raised her son, Seleneus Nicator, to the throne. The intrigues following this abortive plan are related to the disasters overtaking Egypt.

As for the reference, “He shall give him the daughter of women, corrupting her: but she shall not stand on his side, neither be for him” (11:17), the same is the wily purpose of Antiochus who, instead of immediately invading Ptolemy’s country with his “whole strength,” devised the plan of giving to Ptolemy Epiphanes his daughter, Cleopatra, in marriage promising Coelo-Syria and Judea as a dowry, thereby securing his neutrality in the war with Rome. He hoped through his daughter to obtain Syria, Cilicia and Lycia, and even Egypt itself at last. But the scheme failed because Cleopatra favored her husband rather than her father. For the prophetic significance of the rulers of the South the reader is referred to the same exposition to be found in The Climax of the Ages, by Dr. F. A. Tatford. Through history women have often been used as pawns in international and national politics, sometimes beneficially, but often with tragic results.

As we approach the nameless women of the New Testament, the majority of whom are mentioned in the four gospels, it is a most profitable avenue of study to find out what our Lord’s attitude was toward women. Luke, the beloved physician, whose gospel depicts Him as “the Man,” has a good deal to say about His treatment of the women who crossed His pathway. Condescending to be born of a woman, Christ exalted the female sex, and in all generations countless numbers have risen to call the mother of the Redeemer blessed (Luke 1:48). As we think of Jesus among women we note the following ways He dealt with them.

He Elevated Woman
Jesus raised her social position, and wherever Christianity travels and is accepted woman is emancipated from inferiority, and gains equal respect with men. Think of the five widows Luke mentions, and see how Jesus gives them prominence—Hannah (Luke 2:36), Sarepta widow (4:25), Nain widow (7:11), distressed widow (18:3), widow in the treasury (21:1-4). Woman’s elevation is likewise seen in the place given her in the Christian Church. They were present in the upper chamber praying and awaiting Pentecost (Acts 1:14) “With the women.” “Both of men and women” (Acts 5:14). This fact is all the more impressive seeing that at that time participation in the worship of and work for God was mainly for men. It was somewhat new for women to gather with men in a religious assembly. Women owe more than they realize to the example and teachings of Jesus who lived with His mother for thirty years.

He Knew and Fulfilled Woman’s Longings
When John said that Christ knew what was in man, the generic term for man includes woman. He knew all about the woman of Samaria, as we shall presently see, and met her instinct for worship which is more strongly marked in a woman than in a man (John 4). It was the instinct for deep meditation that Jesus responded to in Mary of Bethany (Luke 10:39). Martha, her sister, was more concerned about serving Jesus, and He appreciated such service. Then, mark how He dealt with Salome’s ideal for her two sons.

He Ennobled the Marital Relationship
Jesus set His seal upon monogamy, which means God’s original purpose in the creation of the first pair, one man—one wife. Behind His teaching on marriage there is the thought that such a union means the devotion of a whole person to another whole person. That Christianity enhances the relationship of the woman to her husband is proven by its use as a symbol of the indissoluble union of Christ and His Church (Ephesians 5:23-33). The home where He is the Head is protected against the disintegrating influences of the outer world. The observation of the sacred relationship of marriage in the humble Nazareth home in which He lived for so long, colored Christ’s teaching on marital affairs, and fostered sympathy for motherly cares and griefs seen in His compassion for the widow of Nain burying her only son (Luke 7:13).

He Relieved the Bodily Sicknesses of Women
Both named and unnamed women came under Christ’s healing power as He responded to their faith and cry. Whatever the nature of their physical infirmity or disease He quickened their mortal body, and, as in the case of Jairus' daughter, raised the dead (Luke 8:43, 47, 49; 13:11). Many of the women He healed served Him with their treasures and time, and He condescended to accept and honor what they gave. How He extolled the sacrificial mind of the poor widow who gave her all! (21:1-4).

He Accepted the Service of Women
Luke begins his gospel with a number of songs of praise, in which women play a prominent role: Hannah, Elisabeth and Mary (1:42-55; 2:36-38). Christ sang the praises of Mary when she anointed His feet and earned the testimony, “She has done what she could.” He was grateful to the women who followed Him in His itinerary missions, and cared for His material needs, and whom He rewarded by making them the witnesses and heralds of His Resurrection. Then His apostles also recognized the part women can play in the tasks of His cause. Think of Dorcas, Phoebe, Euodias, Syntyche and Priscilla, and others who labored with Paul in the Gospel. (See under these named women.) All through the ages, the practical life of Christian women has been a living demonstration of their gratitude to Christ for all He has meant—and means—to the women of the world.

We now come to the unidentified women of the New Testament in which the writers, recording the unknown females, have obscured “their tent, their name, their shapely bloom.” While it may be true that “written lives that answer to no proper noun are unique in the interest that keep both the narrator and reading wishing for the missing name,” it would be more fascinating to have the names and background of many of the females more or less prominent in their chronological order in the gospels.

Matthew 8:14-18; Mark 1:29-34; Luke 4:38-41

In the references to Peter’s nameless wife attention is focused upon her equally name-less mother. Although the Roman Catholic Church, falsely claiming Peter as its first pope, would like to discredit the fact that the Apostle had a wife, the Scripture is emphatic in its assertion that he had both a wife and that his wife’s mother, living with them, was healed by Jesus. From Paul we learn that Peter’s wife accompanied her husband on some of his missionary journeys, caring for his many needs (1 Corinthians 9:5). We do not know why the name of this noble woman who was a faithful partner of Peter during the days he fished for a living, and then during the long years of his apostleship, is hidden from us. Peter’s writings in the New Testament were written after his surrender to the claims of Christ, but behind him, as behind many men attaining eminence, is a sympathetic, discreet and understanding woman.

Naturally, Peter was an impulsive man, and had a tendency to quit when things went against him. Coming home in such a mood we can imagine how his wife would reason with him, caution him to go slowly, and encourage him to rise above trials and disappointments. In sickness she would be his comfort, as she was when her mother was stricken with fever. We are not told whether there were any children in their Capernaum home. If there were we are sure that Peter’s wife was the best of mothers. When the Apostle came to write his two epistles, and described in them ideal womanhood and wifehood, did he have before him the example of his wife, as one who was equal to, subject to, her husband, and worthy of all honor as the weaker vessel (1 Peter 3:1-12)? Did she inspire Peter’s description of a modestly dressed woman who thought more of the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit than gaudy apparel? We feel that she was a most worthy wife who was willing to be hidden in order that the cause of the Master to whom Peter and she were dedicated, might be advanced and adorned.

Tradition has it that Peter’s wife was the daughter of Aristobulus, so that while Mark is described as “sister’s son to Barnabas” he was also brother-in-law to Peter. There is also a touching legend concerning Christians in Rome who ceased not to urge Peter to escape when seized and cast into prison so that he might continue to be of service to the church at large. The Apostle yielded to their entreaties and somehow escaped, but when free on the open road he was arrested by a vision of Christ, and he asked Him, “Whither art Thou going?” The glorified One replied, “I am come to Rome to be crucified a second time.” Peter, humiliated, turned back to prison. When death came, his wife was martyr first, and as she was led out to die, Peter comforted her with the words, “Remember the Lord.” When Peter’s turn came he begged his crucifiers to crucify him head downward, feeling he was unworthy to die in exactly the same way as his Lord. In heaven, Peter and his loyal wife shine together as stars for having turned many to righteousness.

The Woman Who Was Healed by a Touch
Matthew 9:20-22; Mark 5:25-34; Luke 8:43-48

This sick, anonymous woman must have been emaciated after a hemorrhage lasting for twelve years, which rendered her legally unclean. She could not throw herself, therefore, at the feet of Christ and state her complaint. Her modesty, humility, uncleanness and pressure of the crowd made close contact well-nigh impossible, hence her eagerness to touch in some unnoticed way the hem of His garment. Who was this woman of faith? The primitive church, feeling she was entitled to a name, called her Veronica, who lived in Caesarea Philippi, but in the gospels she is enrolled in the list of anonymous female divines. There are several aspects of her cure worthy of note—

She Was Cured After Many Failures
What this poor woman really endured at the hands of the medical men of the time is left to the imagination. What a touch of reality is given to her story by the knowledge that she had suffered many things of many physicians and was no better but rather “grew worse.” Where men failed, Christ succeeded. Down the ages men and women which no agency could reclaim have been restored by Christ. What is not possible with men is blessedly possible with God. Her disease was of long standing yet she was swiftly healed, for as soon as she touched the hem of His garment, “straight-way the fountain of her blood was dried up.” If a person suffers for a while from a complaint and seeks no medical advice, but in the end goes to the doctor, he invariably says, “You should have come to me sooner.” But it is the glory of Christ that He can heal those who come late to Him.

She Was Cured With the Utmost Rapidity
Mark’s favorite word, “straightway,” which he uses 27 times in his gospel, is in most cases related to Christ’s rapid cures. How swift He was in His relief for the suffering! As at creation, so in His miracles of healing, “He spake and it was done.” Spiritual parallels of His instantaneous power can be seen in the conversions of Matthew, Paul and the dying thief. Many of us, too, can testify to the fact that He can transform character in a moment of time. The term Jesus used in addressing the nameless sufferer suggests that she was still young, though wasted and faded by her malady which made her look older than she was. But the nature of her disease and the age of the one afflicted made no difference to Him in healing the sick and saving the lost. As Jesus passed by the withered fingers of the woman brushed the border of Christ’s sacred dress, and all at once her thin body felt the painless health of her girlhood return. A strength she had not known for 12 years renewed her being, and she knew that Christ had made her whole.

She Acknowledged Receipt of the Benefit Bestowed
As soon as the woman touched Christ’s garment, He felt that “virtue had gone out of Him,” and turned about and said, “Who touched me?” The disciples mildly rebuked Jesus by saying, “Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?” Perhaps her touch had been unnoticed by the eyes of those around, and she must have been one of many who touched the Master that day as he proceeded on His errand of love, but a touch of faith could not be hidden from Him. Quickly the Physician saw the patient, and trembling with self-consciousness but too glad and grateful to falter, she confessed to her touch of His robe. “She told him all the truth.” She experienced that open confession is good for the soul. What a glow of gratitude her countenance must have had, as she publicly stated that her burden for twelve years had rolled away!

She Was Commended for Her Faith
The crowd who listened to her confession also heard the Saviour’s benediction, “Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.” As a true daughter of Abraham (Luke 13:16), her faith is crowned by the Master. Hers was not faith without a touch, or a touch without faith. Believing, she appropriated and was healed. “Daughter,” was an endearing term for Jesus to use. Some tender insight of His own must have prompted Him to use it. As Theron Brown puts it so beautifully—

The restored sufferer would never forget the friendly benignity that assailed her with one indulgent epithet or the sympathy in that endearing term by which the Messiah of Israel recognized her as His own.... She cherished her debt to the Man of Galilee.

She Has a Place in Legend
It is said that this woman who was healed of her plague walked with Jesus as He went to His cross, and that seeing His blood and sweat, she drew out her handkerchief and wiped His brow. Later on, as she reverently caressed the piece of linen, she found the image of the blood-stained face of Jesus imprinted on it. Face cloths for the Roman catacombs alleged to hold the impress of His features were called Veronicas. About a.d. 320, Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea and a dependable historian records that when he visited Caesarea Philippi, he heard that the woman healed of her issue of blood out of gratitude for her cure had erected two brazen figures at the gate of her house, one representing a woman bending on her knee in supplication—the other, fashioned in the likeness of Jesus, holding out His hand to help her. The figure had a double cloak of brass. Eusebius adds this explicit statement as to these figures, “They were in existence even in our day and we saw them with our own eyes when we stayed in the city.” The well-known Sankey gospel hymn recalls and applies the story of the nameless woman whom Jesus healed—

She only touched the hem of His garment,

As to His side she stole,

Amid the crowd that gathered around Him,

And straightway she was whole.

It is encouraging to know that His saving power this very hour can give new life to all who by faith take hold of His skirt (Zechariah 8:23).

The Child—Woman Jesus Raised From the Dead

Matthew 9:18-25; Mark 5:21-43; Luke 8:41-56

Actually, the miracle previously considered was “a miracle within a miracle,” for Jesus was “on the wing,” as it were, during His journey through a busy city street to the house of Jairus to heal his young daughter. Thus the healing of the woman with an issue of blood was a story folded in a story and vividly illustrates the swift and strenuous ministry of Jesus while in Galilee. The wayside incident of the sick woman and her sudden care as she touched Jesus was an interruption in His walk in response to the call of Jairus. But what a miracle He performed during that interruption. Often when extremely busy we resent any interruption, but Jesus turned interruptions to good account.

The subject of this cameo comes before us nameless in her girlhood, just as her mother who shared the deep anxiety of Jairus over their child, is also nameless. Unlike many other unidentified feminine lives and characters, the part of this girl of twelve summers is a passive, not an active one in the Bible record. The woman Jesus healed on the way to her, suffered for twelve years—the girl herself was twelve years of age. What a blow it is to a family where love reigns, when one of its members is taken in life’s fair morning. The miracle Jesus performed in raising Jairus' daughter from the dead marked the beginning of the end for Jesus, who was being closely watched by the Sanhedrin whose members hated Him and sought His death. There were not many happy days left to Him in Galilee, and “when He raised up the little maid of Israel it was as if, by a sweet domestic deed of love, He sought to leave in His cherished city one young life to shed its gratitude on His path of pain, and assure one welcome if ever again He came to His own and His own received Him not. He had saved perhaps, a future Christian mother.” We would like to believe that when the resurrected Jewish maid grew up that she was numbered among the saints who loved and worshiped the Redeemer, and who held communion with His risen life. For those wishing to develop a message on the petition of Jairus and the raising of his daughter from the dead, the following outline might help—

His Position
Jairus was “a ruler of the synagogue,” and was presumably a man of no small worldly means with an inherited distinction, as well as a personal one. Yet with all his pedigree position and possessions he was unable to do anything for his dear daughter’s relief. His coming to Christ proves how He reached out to all classes, lowly and great, just as the sun shines on a hovel as well as a palace. The religious rulers of which Jairus was one, were, as a body, adverse to the claims of Christ (Isaiah 53:3; Matthew 11:19; John 10:20). The appearance and social position of Jesus, poorly clad and poor did not mark Him out as the expected Messiah. But one of these rulers had the moral courage to manifest his faith in Christ’s authority, and the homage he paid Him is a miniature anticipation of the universal adulation He will yet receive (Romans 14:11).

His Prayer
Falling at the feet of Jesus, Jairus presented his request, “My little daughter is at the point of death.” Trouble, a common heritage, attracted him to the Man of Sorrows, acquainted with human grief, and in a greater Ruler he found relief.

Trials give new life to prayer;

Trials bring me to His feet,

Lay me low and keep me there.

His Perception
This ruler with his most urgent mission was delayed by the interruption of the healing of the woman with the issue of blood. Every moment counted if the life of his daughter was to be saved. Yet the healing “on the wing” as Jesus was making His way to the home of Jairus was an encouragement to his faith. He believed that once the hand of Jesus was laid upon the fatally sick girl that she would live, but his faith was tried when word reached him as he was soliciting Christ’s aid that his daughter had died. However, such an announcement made more room for trust in Christ’s power. While the sad news added the last pang to his sorrow, his faith did not weaken. Had not he sought the aid of One who had raised the widow’s son at Nain?

His Promise
The grief-stricken father had the best of promises whispered by Jesus, “Fear not, only believe.” What a staff to lean upon that was in the shadow of death! How faith receives strength from the divine promises! (2 Peter 1:4; 3:13). At last Jesus reached the death-stricken home and the ruler’s faith was honored when his child was raised to life. The hired mourners attracted attention by their “weeping” and “laughing” (Mark 5:39, 40). With authority He rebuked the unseemly noise of those whose presence in the death chamber was an impertinence. Those professional mourners mocked Jesus when He said, “The little girl is not dead, but asleep”—sleep, referring to the body (see John 11:11-13; 12:1).

His Praise
What praise and adoration must have filled the heart of Jairus as he witnessed Christ’s power as “The Resurrection and the Life.” With the weeping mother and sorrowful father, along with Peter, James and John, Jesus went into the room where the young girl was lying in a dreamless world. Already she had heard the heavenly voice saying, “Come up hither!” Now she was to hear the majestic voice of One who could command both worlds.

Standing by the little bed, Jesus took one of the girl’s cold hands in His and tenderly said in her own Aramaic tongue, “Rise up, little maid!” No lengthened process was necessary once His divine hand had been put forth. Quickened by His word and touch, the dead girl revived, saw the Saviour and got out of bed and walked. In his description of the miracle, Luke the physician says, “her spirit came again ... her parents were astonished.” The command of Jesus that the grateful parents should not publicize the miracle was meant to guard them against the temptation to talk unnecessarily about the wonderful event, and thereby lose the full benefit of the blessing they had received. Then when Jesus further requested that food be given to the resurrected girl, He revealed how practical He was, and how He fully recognized and honored natural laws. Yet in spite of the silence imposed on Jairus and his nameless wife whose praise for Jesus knew no bounds, the two miracles of that brief period caused His fame to spread “abroad through all the land.” Thus a woman with her helpless disease of twelve years charmed away in a moment, and the extinguished life of a girl twelve years of age lit again, to burn in gratitude, both lived to glorify the Lord and Giver of life. How Jairus, his wife and restored daughter must have become bound to Jesus in loyal faith, and consoled His lonely heart when friends who misunderstood His mission “walked no more with him.”

The Woman Who Urged Her Husband to Commit Suicide
Job 2:9, 10; 19:17; 31:10

Strange, is it not, that while we have the names of Job’s three daughters (42:14, 15), we do not have the name of his wife who remained at his side all through his trials and tribulations? She is identified by only ten words which she uttered to her husband as she saw him suffering from so much bodily pain and discomfort. “Dost thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God, and die,” or “Curse God and die by your own hand. End your suffering by taking your own life.” She urged him to commit suicide and thus relieve himself of further anguish. There was also the diabolical suggestion that he should relinquish his faith in God, seeing He was permitting him to endure such terrible physical torment and material loss. It is because she allowed Satan to use her as an instrument to grieve rather than comfort her husband, that commentators have spoken ill of her character. Augustine referred to her as “The Devil’s Accomplice,” and Calvin wrote of her as “An Instrument of Satan” and as a “Diabolical Fury.” The little she said to her husband whose heart was at breaking point was enough to crush him altogether. The one closer to him than all others should have encouraged him and offered him human sympathy. Job’s wife, however, was the female foe in his household and reminds us that “the worst trial of all is when those nearest us, instead of strengthening our hand in God and confirming our faith, conspire to destroy it” (Micah 7:6; Matthew 10:36).

Job’s triumphant faith is seen in his most appropriate answer to his wife: “What, emancipate myself from God, and take my own life?” Sitting on his ash-heap he replied: “Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh.” He was not biting, bitter or condemnatory in his rebuke but gave vent to a question that multitudes of perplexed hearts, all down the ages, have found consolation in: “What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?”

Job was determined not to sin with his lips as his thoughtless wife had done. What a sublime contrast there is between the testing of Job and that of Jesus! (Matthew 26:39-42; Hebrews 5:8). Because God has given woman an affectionate heart, and a large capacity for sympathy and compassion, it is incumbent upon women who profess faith in Christ, to bind their husbands closer to Christ and persist in encouraging them in times of great trial and tragedy. It is only thus that a woman functions as God meant her to, as an “helpmeet.”

Jeremiah 15:10

Jeremiah, the “prophet of tears,” gives us his father’s name, Hilkiah, possibly the high priest of that name (1:1; 2 Kings 22:4; 23:4), but leaves his mother unnamed. Anonymous, she was yet godly, for Jeremiah came out of her womb sanctified and destined to be a prophet to the nations (Jeremiah 1:5). Called while quite a young man to the extraordinary office of a prophet, he exercised his great ministry for at least 40 years. His name, meaning, “elevated or exalted of the Lord,” given him by God-honoring parents, expressed their desire to have their son set apart for the Lord from his birth to magnify and extol Him as he did. But what intense grief was Jeremiah’s as he earnestly and constantly called the people of God to repentance. His reproofs and threatenings for their sins were saturated with his tears. Imprisoned because of his faithful ministry, he yet lived to see his people return from captivity.

In the remarkable mural to be seen in the Sistine Chapel, Rome, Michaelangelo depicted Jeremiah with brooding, downcast eyes, and in sorrowful meditation which fittingly describes the weeping prophet’s character and life. Of all the Old Testament prophets, Jeremiah seems to have had the hardest lot of suffering. Was there “sorrow like unto his sorrow” (Lamentations 1:12; 3:1)? He seemed to protest fruitlessly against the sins of his time. In the portion where he addresses his mother in tones of pathetic tenderness, it would seem as if she were still living and that the thought of her suffering because of her son’s grief only added to his burden. The sword of anguish of the nation’s sins pierced her soul also (Luke 2:35). What heartbreak is behind his cry, “Woe is me my mother, that thou hast borne a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth!” In previous verses Jeremiah speaks of widows being increased above the sand of the seas, and doubtless his dear mother was one of them. As he addresses her, he wants her to understand “the awfulness of his calling as a vessel of God’s truth,” and that he had found that he had been raised up “not to send peace on earth, but a sword,” like the Greater Prophet after him (Matthew 10:34). All the while Jeremiah’s mother was alive she must have consoled her son’s sorrowing heart, seeing he was divinely forbidden to take a wife to weep with him as he wept (Jeremiah 16:2). For vividness of imagery, pathos and passionate intensity the Book of Jeremiah is unsurpassed.