In the Gospel of Luke we see that Jesus’ coming changed the way that women were viewed in the community of faith. In his book of Acts, Luke shows that Jesus’ disciples continued to include women in their ministry.
Luke spends quite a bit of time talking about women. In the last few weeks I have posted stories about Mary the mother of John Mark, Lydia, Priscilla, Tabitha, Sapphira, and the prophesying daughters of Philip the evangelist. The lives of these women cover the gamut of church service – hospitality, church hosting, teaching, serving, and prophesying.
There are a number of other females in the book of Acts. We can learn something from all of their stories. We have already seen that Luke can tell us much in only a few sentences. There are so many wonderful stories that we will divide them into two parts – Part 1 this week and Part 2 next week.
This week let’s especially note that women were coming into the kingdom of God just as the men were. This is a significant break from Judaism where women were not allowed to minister as the men were. In our day it is hugely different from other religions such as Islam and Hinduism.
Women come into the Kingdom of God with the men:
These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women, and Mary the 
mother of Jesus, and with His brothers. (Acts 1:14)
And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women, were constantly added to their number. (Acts 5:15).
But when they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, men and women alike. (Acts 8:12)
But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house, and dragging off men and women, he would put them in prison. (Acts 8:3)
When our days there were ended, we left and started on our journey, while they all, with wives and children, escorted us until were were out of the city. After kneeling down on the beach and praying, we said farewell to one another. (Acts 21:5).
We see from these verses that women were accepted immediately as disciples. They gathered and prayed with the men before the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost.
Whenever Peter or one of the other apostles would preach, large numbers of Jews would respond. All came to be baptized and all were included in the number of the church. Church membership is based solely on faith in Christ. The number of those who followed Christ was increasing rapidly and it worried the Jewish authorities.
Saul began to arrest them. So we find that not only were men and women allowed to worship and serve together, they got to suffer or die together. “Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of he Lord, went to the high priest and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem” (Acts 9:1,2). All through history we will see as many women martyred for the faith as men.
Of course Saul would be converted and take the name of Paul. He spread the Gospel that he once hated to his fellow Jews and to Gentiles for many years. When he took his final journey to Jerusalem men and women gathered to bid him farewell. This new community of believers looked radically different from the old Jewish faith.
A servant-girl and a slave girl:
When he knocked at the door of the gate, a servant-girl named Rhoda came to answer. When she recognized Peter’s voice, because of her joy she did not open the gate, but ran in and announced that Peter was standing in front of the gate. They said to her, “You are out of your mind!” But she kept insisting that it was so. They kept saying, “It is his angel.” But Peter continued knocking; and when they had opened the door, they saw him and were amazed. (Acts 12:13-16).
Here again Luke takes time to tell the story of a seemingly insignificant person. Rhoda was a girl, and a servant girl at that. Why is she important? Rhoda was a new believer and she was apparently included in the household prayer time.
Rhoda was the servant of Mary, mother of John Mark. (You can read more about Mary in my May 14, 2014 posting). Mary hosted the young church’s prayer meeting at her home. Though Rhoda was her servant, Mary allowed her to be involved in the life of the Christian community.
Rhoda also displayed a good characteristic that we can emulate. Rhoda was persistent. Though the adults in the room doubted her, she kept insisting. She knew that their beloved leader, Peter was at the door. The only reason she left him standing there was because she was so overjoyed that she couldn’t help running and telling the others.
All believers are on an equal footing when it comes to praying and worshiping Jesus. Rhoda was no exception just because of her youth, gender, or economic status.
It happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a slave-girl having a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune-telling. Following after Paul and us, she kept crying out, saying, “These men are bond-servants of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation.” She continued doing this for many days. But Paul was greatly annoyed, and turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!” And it came out at that very moment. (Acts 16:16-18).
This young girl was not only a slave, but she was demon possessed. We are not told how the demon got control of her
life, only that unscrupulous men realized that they could make a profit off of her and used her to divine the future for them.
Something about this story is rather mysterious to us. The demon in her was apparently telling the truth. We are used to the fact that Satan is a liar and cannot be trusted. In this story the demon is proclaiming the truth about Paul’s mission. Why? It is most likely that the demons were mocking Paul or at the very least just trying to irritate him. Perhaps their noisy shouts kept people around Paul from hearing the Gospel. In any event, after a few days of this annoyance, Paul cast the demon out of the girl.
We don’t know what happened to her after this. We do know that her owners ignored her and went after Paul and Silas. They dragged Paul and Silas to the authorities because they were angry that they would be losing money now that their slave could no longer tell fortunes for them.
This story is important. We had many stories of Jesus casting demons out of women – Mary Magdalene for instance. Now the apostles would continue in Jesus’ footsteps freeing men and women and girls from the dark bondage and oppression of the evil one.
Mothers who raised their children well:
Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. And a disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. (Acts 16:1)
There are a number of women who are mentioned incidentally. This does not mean that they are not important. Luke takes time to mention the women who were involved in the lives of the apostles and leaders of the church. He could so easily have left them out, but he didn’t. His friend Paul would give credit to women in his ministry as well.
Luke and Paul must have known Lois and Eunice, Timothy’s grandmother and mother.
Luke tells us about Timothy’s family including the fact that his father was a Greek. Later Paul will remind Timothy that the gift of faith came to him “which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and our mother Eunice,” (II Timothy 1:5). The testimony of these godly women was so tremendous that it inspired many.
Another mother of course was Mary the mother of John Mark. She has been mentioned several times as a woman who showed hospitality and willingness to open her home to the new believers. Her son, John Mark was also well known to Luke and Paul.
But the son of Paul’s sister heard of their ambush, and he came and entered the barracks and told Paul. (Acts 23:16).
Another woman briefly mentioned by Luke is Paul’s sister. We do not know her name, but Luke made sure we knew that she was involved in helping Paul to escape the plot against him. Luke did not need to mention her; he could have simply said “Paul’s nephew”. But here again, we see that Luke takes the opportunity to show how involved women were in the new church.
Women in the New Testament were living in exciting times. They were limited in what they could do under the old Jewish laws. The pagan religion also kept them in bondage. Now with their new freedom in Christ they could participate in all of the life of the new community. They would be included in worship services and could pray, sing, prophecy, and serve along with the men.
Jesus died for His whole church – His single body in which “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28).
