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    Strong Was Her Faith 22983: Women of the New Testament
    Strong Was Her Faith 22983: Women of the New Testament
    Strong Was Her Faith 22983: Women of the New Testament
    Ebook149 pages2 hours

    Strong Was Her Faith 22983: Women of the New Testament

    By Dr. J. Ellsworth Kalas

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    About this ebook

    In this follow-up to his book The Thirteen Apostles, popular author J. Ellsworth Kalas focuses on several women of great faith who were crucial, in ways both obvious and understated, to the story of the New Testament. Kalas looks into the life and times of eleven different women. With his signature style, Kalas examines the Scriptures to see what we can learn about these women and what we can learn from them, and how each woman fit into as well as shaped the New Testament story.
    Chapters include:
    “Elizabeth: A Friend in Need”
    “Anna: She Knew How to Wait”
    “Martha, the Disciplined”
    “Mary, the Extravagant”
    “The Mighty Widow”
    “The Anonymous Evangelist”
    “Mary Magdalene: When Love Is Greater than Faith”
    “Mary, the Mother of Mark”
    “Dorcas: Worth a Miracle”
    “Lydia, the Businesswoman
    “Mary in Life and Legend”
    “Why Mary?”
    This book also includes a discussion guide.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAbingdon Press
    Release dateMay 1, 2012
    ISBN9781426755866
    Strong Was Her Faith 22983: Women of the New Testament
    Author

    Dr. J. Ellsworth Kalas

    J. Ellsworth Kalas (1923-2015) was the author of over 35 books, including the popular Back Side series, A Faith of Her Own: Women of the Old Testament, Strong Was Her Faith: Women of the New Testament, I Bought a House on Gratitude Street, and the Christian Believer study, and was a presenter on DISCIPLE videos. He was part of the faculty of Asbury Theological Seminary since 1993, formerly serving as president and then as senior professor of homiletics. He was a United Methodist pastor for 38 years and also served five years in evangelism with the World Methodist Council.

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      Book preview

      Strong Was Her Faith 22983 - Dr. J. Ellsworth Kalas

      STRONG WAS HER FAITH

      WOMEN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

      Copyright © 2007, 2012 by Abingdon Press

      All rights reserved

      No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission can be addressed to Permissions, The United Methodist Publishing House, P.O. Box 801, 201 Eighth Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37202-0801, or e-mailed to [email protected].

      This book is printed on acid-free paper.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Kalas, J. Ellsworth, 1923-

      Strong was her faith : women of the New Testament / J. Ellsworth Kalas.

      p. cm.

      (binding: adhesive, perfect : alk. paper)

      1. Women in the Bible. I. Title.

      BS2445.K35 2007

      225.922082—dc22

      ISBN-13: 978-1-4267-4465-5

      2006030279

      All scripture quotations unless noted otherwise are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

      Scripture quotations taken from THE MESSAGE are so marked. Copyright © Eugene H. Peterson, 1993, 1994, 1995. Used by permission of Nav Press Publishing Group.

      Scripture quotations marked GNT are from the Good News Translation in Today's English Version-Second Edition © 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by permission.

      12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21—10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

      Image2

      Along generation ago most churches had some faithful worker who was called the church secretary. In more recent years we have developed a variety of titles that we hope might describe these persons more adequately. Whatever the name, their role is often priceless. I'm confident that most readers of this book, whether clergy or laity, will immediately identify such an individual from their experience.

      I want to dedicate this book to three such persons who blessed my pastoral ministry over the years:

      J. Emory Temple

      Beverley Reed

      Bobbie Buchs

      Other Titles by J. Ellsworth Kalas

      A Faith of Her Own

      A Hop, Skip & a Jump through the Bible

      All Creation Sings

      Beatitudes from the Back Side

      Detective Stories from the Back Side

      Easter from the Back Side

      Faith from the Back Side

      God's Promises That Keep Us

      I Bought a House on Gratitude Street

      If Experience Is Such a Good Teacher,

      Why Do I Keep Repeating the Course?

      Life from the Up Side

      Longing to Pray

      More Parables from the Back Side

      New Testament Stories from the Back Side

      Old Testament Stories from the Back Side

      Parables from the Back Side

      The Best of J. Ellsworth Kalas

      The Ten Commandments from the Back Side

      The Thirteen Apostles

      What I Learned When I Was Ten

      Contents

      Foreword

      1. Elizabeth: A Friend in Need

      2. Anna: She Knew How to Wait

      3. Martha, the Disciplined

      4. Mary, the Extravagant

      5. The Mighty Widow

      6. The Anonymous Evangelist

      7. Mary Magdalene: When Love Is Greater Than Faith

      8. Mary, the Mother of Mark

      9. Dorcas: Worth a Miracle

      10. Lydia, the Businesswoman

      11. Mary in Life and Legend

      12. Why Mary?

      Study Guide

      Notes

      Foreword

      Several years ago, soon after the publishing of my book The Thirteen Apostles, I was speaking at a church in the Greater Washington, D.C., area. The director of adult education said during a coffee hour, "Now you should write a book about the women in the New Testament." I agreed that such a book should be written but protested that perhaps the author should not be a man. She insisted kindly that I could do the job fairly and well, so I have ever since kept her counsel in the back of my mind and soul. This book is the result.

      You might rightly ask about some of the women I have included, since in some instances the biblical references are few and brief. I can only counter that the same is true of such apostles as Simon the Zealot, James the Less, and Thaddeus. Where possible I have supplemented the biblical material with some of the traditions and legends that have grown around these persons, making clear that such material is treated for what it is and not as historical data. In every instance, of course, I have tried to find the plot line in the person's story—the passing incident or the brief words that reveal character and that provide a kind of holy trajectory.

      I should tell you that I found it difficult to narrow my list to a desired number. I wish I could have included Phoebe, described by Paul as a benefactor of many (Romans 16:2), and the mother of Rufus, to whom Paul affectionately referred as a mother to me also (Romans 16:13). And how about the four unmarried daughters of Philip, who had the gift of prophecy (Acts 21:9)? Or that wonderfully insistent mother who worked so earnestly on behalf of her sons, James and John (Matthew 20:20-28)? I'm almost certain some of you will write to object to some of my choices, while offering recommendations of your own. Thus I make this early appeal for clemency.

      I want to pay special thanks to one of my students, Shannon Sumrall. I enlisted her help in several instances of background research. She not only did this research with admirable skill but also added insights of her own several times. In those two or three instances where I mention an insight from an unnamed student or friend, you can insert Shannon's name.

      —J. Ellsworth Kalas

      CHAPTER ONE

      Elizabeth:

      A Friend in Need

      Scripture Reading: Luke 1:39-45

      Next to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, Elizabeth was the first woman to recognize and serve our Lord, and she began doing so before he was even born.

      Many of the most notable Christians come to faith by dramatically negative paths: Paul as the premier persecutor of Christians; Augustine as a libertine; C. S. Lewis and many others as, at first, atheists. Elizabeth came by a path of virtue. From all we can know, she was an exemplary human being.

      Her genealogy gave her a head start toward virtue. She came, not simply from good stock, but from great, enviable stock. When Luke introduces her to his readers in an early paragraph of his Gospel, he gives her ancestry before mentioning her name: After noting that there is a priest named Zechariah, Luke continues, His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth (Luke 1:5). This was to say not only that she "came over on the Mayflower," so to speak, but also that she traveled in a stateroom. Aaron was Moses' brother and Israel's first high priest. He made some egregious mistakes, but he was in a class altogether to himself. If Elizabeth had been a man, she would have been a priest by right of descent and potentially perhaps even a high priest.

      Then she married well. Staying not only within the levitical clan, she married someone who was also a descendant of Aaron, a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah (Luke 1:5). This, as the saying goes, was a union made in heaven.

      But the fairy-tale quality of their marriage stumbled there. Luke puts it without embellishment: But they had no children (Luke 1:7). He could have gone on to explain that in their time and place, for a marriage to be childless was both a tragedy and an embarrassment. Jewish rabbis said that seven people were excommunicated from God, and first on the list was a Jew who has no wife, or a Jew who has a wife and who has no child.¹ That is, to be childless was far more than disappointment and personal heartbreak. There were theological implications; it was as if God had not really approved of the marriage.

      But with all of this, Luke nevertheless tells us, Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord (Luke 1:6). Righteous, blameless—I'm struck by the fact that the book of Genesis uses the same words to describe Noah. I doubt that the times were quite as bad in Elizabeth's era as in Noah's, when every inclination of the thoughts of [human] hearts was only evil continually (Genesis 6:5), but the times were bad enough. There was peace, but it was the enforced peace of a powerful Roman military; slavery was a way of life and commerce; and moral corruption not only abounded, it was sanctioned in high places. At such a time, our planet needed some sort of redemptive visitation. These visits are not often by angels; mostly God intervenes in our planet through human beings—many kinds of humans, but especially when they are available, righteous, blameless humans. Elizabeth and Zechariah were such.

      But who knew about this couple? True, Zechariah was a member of a rather large, if exclusive, company of priests, but they were important only to the somewhat despised sect of the Jewish people. For most of the then known world, what happened in a Jewish temple mattered little. If you were an intellectual, you cared about Athens or Alexandria; and if you wanted to get into real power, the world of politics, there was Rome. Only God and a few saintly souls cared about what was happening in Jerusalem. And if I know anything about human nature, some in Jerusalem weren't necessarily impressed by Zechariah and Elizabeth. After all, they couldn't have children, so there could always be gossip about what was wrong in their lives—why were they not favored by God? I venture there were women at the well in Zechariah and Elizabeth's village who said, Elizabeth may have good ancestors, but I have babies.

      Then special good fortune came Zechariah's way. It is estimated that at that time there were as many as twenty thousand priests, so the company was broken into sections to serve at particular seasons; and from those sections a priest was chosen by lot to offer a morning or evening sacrifice for the entire nation. A priest might go all his life without this holy chance. Now, the opportunity fell on Zechariah. As he ministered in this singular setting, an angel of the Lord appeared to him, to tell him that he and Elizabeth would have a son, whom they should call John. We will later know him as John the Baptist. But wonderful as this promise was, it was not simply a private blessing. It was appropriate that Zechariah should receive this revelation while he was in prayer for the spiritual welfare of his nation, because this child, the angel said, would be great in the sight of the Lord, and would turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God (Luke 1:15-16).

      So Elizabeth did, indeed, conceive. When she was in the sixth month of her pregnancy (see Luke 1:26), something still more momentous happened. Gabriel, the same angel who had visited Zechariah, now came to a virgin named Mary, who was engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, to tell her that she was to have a child by the Holy Spirit, who would "be called Son

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