What Does The Bible Say About Women?
Video Timeline
WELCOME
0:00 - Welcome with Matt & Anna
TALK with Hannah Sloan
06:05 - What does the Bible say about Women?
07:02 - The Woman With The Issue Of Blood
09:46 - Jesus Sees You, Notices You And Pursues You
12:18 - Jesus Loves Us In A Really Radical, Countercultural Way
14:05 - Jesus Accepts Us And Treats Us As More Than Enough
15:45 - How Does This Impact Us?
PRAYER
19:27 - Prayer For Ukraine
WORSHIP
22:01 - I Will Exalt with lyrics
CONVERSATION STREET with Matt & Anna
26:36 - Conversation Street
CLOSING WORSHIP
57:40 - Only In You Jesus with lyrics
Podcast:
What does the Bible say about Women?
— Hannah Sloan
I am a doctor, and in all my different areas of medical and non medical work, I'm an advocate for women. I've been asked today to speak about women in the Bible, which to be honest petrifies me as it is a huge topic.
And because of that, I've decided to look at a passage of scripture about a woman in the Bible who isn't even named. But that really speaks to me time and time again. Every time I read this Scripture, Jesus speaks to me about something of him. And so I thought it was a really important piece of scripture for us to talk about and discuss today. I hope it speaks to you and gives you a deeper understanding of God's love for you.
The Woman with the Issue of Blood
So this scripture is in the gospels, Luke, Mark, and Matthew. But I'm going to read the scripture today that's in Mark 5:25-33,
“And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.””
So just have a think, have a reflect about what that passage of scripture says to you, what it speaks to you, about women, and about how Jesus thought about women, felt about women, and acted towards women. Because that is a good example of how we too should think about ourselves, and how we should act towards the women in our lives.
I have three points to make from this passage of scripture that I want to discuss and talk about today:
Jesus sees you, notices you and pursues you.
Jesus loves you in a radical, countercultural way.
Jesus welcomes you. He accepts you as more than enough and as a daughter.
And so we're going to briefly unpack those three points today and think about how that impacts us.
#1 - Jesus sees you, notices you, and pursues you.
So in this passage of Scripture, Jesus noticed that somebody had touched him. He'd noticed that somebody had touched his cloak. And rather than continuing to walk on, continuing to get on with his day, he stopped. He stopped, and noticed this woman.
Now the disciples were trying to just dismiss it. They were trying to say, now, you know, loads of people were pushing you, it could have been anybody. But Jesus didn't dismiss it. He knew that somebody had touched him. He knew that somebody was seeking Him out, that the power had left him. And he turned, and he noticed this woman. He noticed her and saw her. He didn't dismiss her. He didn't continue walking. He didn't just notice that she touched him and continue on, he pursued her. He looked in the crowd to find where she was, to find the woman that touched his cloak, to see her.
And this is what Jesus does with us. He sees and notices us, in whatever circumstances we are in at the moment, in whatever we are going through, in whatever difficulties or challenges, he sees us. And he pursues us. He wants to know us. He wants to be allowed to love us. In Matthew 7:7, it says,
“Seek, and you will find”
And I think this is a wonderful example of a woman who sought Jesus, who sought her healing and found him and found so much more, as we'll go on to discuss. So Jesus sees and notices us, he pursues us. And like this woman, when we seek Him, we will find Him because He wants us to find him. He wants to be found by us.
So the first point, Jesus sees and notices you and pursues you. Perhaps you will seek Him and find Him today.
#2 - Jesus loves us in a really radical, countercultural way.
So this woman had been bleeding for 12 years. She had been seen as being unclean, whatever she touched also in that tradition became unclean. And you can see from this passage that she fell trembling with fear. She would have been so fearful to have touched Jesus's cloak, to have touched a rabbi, a teacher, to potentially be making him unclean, too.
And so perhaps she was fearing the harshness of Jesus. Was he going to be harsh to her? Was he going to shower her? Was he going to humiliate her? Was he going to treat her as she felt she perhaps should have been treated according to the rules and regulations. As someone who was unworthy, unclean. Maybe she felt unlovable.
But Jesus did none of that. Jesus treated her as someone to be loved. He loved her by being there, by healing her, by noticing her. This was all a display of Jesus's love for her. He loved her in a radical, countercultural way, in a way that she would not have expected. To have touched somebody, potentially made them unclean, and to have been healed by Him.
Jesus loves us, amazingly, radically, and treats us well, as women of God. So that is the second point that Jesus loves us, like he loved this woman, in a radical way.
#3 - Jesus accepts us and treats us as more than enough.
This woman came to him, as it said, and told him her whole truth. She had been bleeding for all that time. She'd felt perhaps rejected, unclean, dismissed by people. She was fearful of coming to him. And yet Jesus didn't just heal her, or show her his love or notice her. But he went one step further, and he accepted her.
He healed her and then the pinnacle, the crown, called her daughter. He welcomed her as he welcomes us, into his family. When we come to Him as we are, with our whole truth, with our difficulties or challenges, our baggages, the things we've done wrong, the things we've done right. The amazing things about us and maybe the not so amazing things about us because we all have those things. He loves us, and He calls us daughter. He accepts us as more than enough, even when we don't feel enough for him.
So this is the amazing Jesus, a God who accepts us as daughter, a God who loves us, in a radical way, sees us, notices us, and pursues us.
How does this impact us?
So let's think about how this impacts us, and how this impacts others.
1) If you are a Christian
So, if you are a Christian, you should be modelling Jesus to others, to becoming more like Jesus, as Holy Spirit works in you. And so the question is, are you modelling how Jesus treats women in your life and in your spirit spheres of influence? Are you modelling Jesus?
2) If you are not a Christian
And if you don't know Jesus, these are still pretty good principles, to model that love and that inclusivity and acceptance of women in your life?
3) If you are a woman
If you are a woman, how are you embracing the God given identity that you have, as someone that Jesus notices, as someone that Jesus loves, in a radical way? And as a daughter of God, have a think today? How are you embracing that identity? Because from that identity comes who you are in life, how you behave, how you act, how you feel, how you think.
We must live from that amazing identity, as women, as daughters of Jesus. Women are so important to God. We are woven throughout Scripture. We are in his story throughout Scripture. There are women throughout Scripture who have shown courage, bravery, who have shown a faithfulness to Jesus, like this woman showed her faithfulness, and who have had much resilience.
Conclusion
From the knowledge of these three points, being seen, noticed and pursued by Jesus, being loved in a radical way, being accepted as a daughter of Jesus, as a daughter of God, I encourage you to accept these things and embrace them as your identities of daughters of God. If we can all embrace these, we can live a life full and fruitful, knowing who we are. So I pray and I ask that the Holy Spirit would speak to you through these points that you would know God's love. And you begin to accept how Jesus treats you and feels about you. And his love for you.
CONVERSATION STREET
With: Matt Edmundson & Anna Kettle.
What is Conversation Street?
Conversation Street is part of our live stream, where the hosts (in this case, Matt & Anna) chat through Hannah’s talk and answer questions that were sent in through the live stream. To watch the conversation now, click here.
Matt Edmundson - So let's get into this whole thing. If you are outside of the church, and you've never really done the whole church thing, then there's probably a little bit of confusion here, which may just be worth clearing up. There are different schools of thought about the role of women that come from the church, which sometimes have been very, very unhelpful, I think.
And sexism exists in the society. Let's just be frank, and let's be real. And so I think we're addressing this both from the viewpoint of "I've lived in his culture for a fair few years, but I've also been in the church for a fair few years" as I dare say you have Anna, obviously you're a woman. I'm a man. Let's be totally clear on that from from the start. What are your experiences because you grew up in the church right?
What are your experiences growing up as a woman in the church?
Anna Kettle - Yeah, interesting question. I think it's been varied. I think the church has changed a lot. Certainly the church in the UK has changed a lot over the years. When I was a kid growing up, I think it was very much still men at the front leading, men leading worship, definitely men preaching. And that was kind of the framework of church that I grew up with as a kid.
As I was going to university into my 20s, there was a bit of a shift in a lot of churches. Some churches were doing it sooner than others, but there was a lot more women in leadership. And it was also talked about more as an issue as I grew up, maybe I also just became more aware of it as I got older.
But yeah, it felt to me that in the 90s there was a cultural shift towards realising that women had more to contribute in a church context. When I grew up in the 80s, it was very much like women did the kids work or they did leadership, but it was kind of feminine sort of areas, like they could probably do worship, and like sing in the band. And those are the kind of women you saw on stage. But they weren't necessarily doing heavy lifting in church like preaching or running the church, whereas I think you see that much more commonly now. So I think it's changed a lot, even in my lifetime.
Matt - And it's also changed, I think, in the culture as well, hasn't it? I was just reading because you mentioned about International Women's Day. I was curious, too, I didn't know what kick-started it. And apparently, it was kick-started around 1910 by a German lady called Clara Zetkin, who was a communist and actually was pretty anti-feminist at that point, however feminism was defined back then, but women needed to contribute from her political standpoint, and International Women's Day was founded only over 100 years ago. So I'd say it's interesting how the church's attitude towards women have changed.
But also, have you found it just in society as general growing up in the UK?
Anna - I think when you talk to most women my age, the vast majority of people my age and older, remember their mums being at home as housewives, who raised them. My mum always worked, she was a part time teacher. But she certainly took a large period of time out for quite a number of years to raise a family full time. And I think that choice to be a full time mum was still the predominant norm when I was growing up.
Now I would look at most of my peers, and the vast majority are working mums. And I think, the norm much more now is to send your children to nursery and go back to work, as soon as you've had a child really, maybe take a year off. It's good, like women can be a mother and have a career. And some do it all. I think there's downsides of that, in that it's hard to do all well, and puts pressure on women, but just that shift culturally is huge. And yeah, the church probably just reflects something brought around the fact that women's roles have changed a lot in a generation or two.
Matt - Sharon's put here in the comments "When my mum was in her 50s, my grandmother trained for the ministry and then helped pastor the church we belonged to. My grandfather fully supported her." This was back in the 1960s - 1970s. And I admire them both a lot for that. That was not the usual ploy. And Sharon's grandparents were just remarkable people. They've both gone to be with the Lord now.
Matt Cox has put here "When I was a teenager, the person who had the most influence on me about the Christian faith was my mom's friend who was a female vicar." And again, this is going back probably to the 80s. We had a female prime minister in the 1980s, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, which again, was a little bit unusual.
And it's interesting the culture that you and I have grown up in and the changes that we've seen both in society and in the church over the last few years. Just sort of tying it back to Hannah's talk, Phil wrote, "I wonder how the crowd reacted to what Jesus did. I think Jesus' behaviour would have been shocking. Talking to the Samaritan woman, breaking gender and cultural taboos, were all massively countercultural. And it makes me wonder how inclusive we are." Which I think is a great question, isn't it? How inclusive are we? And just tying that back into Hannah's question, its such a phenomenal question.
How well do we model how Jesus treated women? From your point of view, Anna, as a woman, how do you think society is doing and how do you think the church is doing?
Anna - I think it's a really important question to keep checking in on. I think Jesus treated everyone that he came across, regardless of race, religion, or background or sex, he treated them all with respect and incredible dignity.
How are we doing as a society or individuals? I think, the core of that question is, how loving are we? How much do we love ourselves? How much do we love those around us? And I think the answer is, we could always be better. I would like to think I'm someone who treats other people around me with dignity and respect. But if I'm rushing through a checkout in a shop and the cashier is being slow, how much dignity am I giving that person? Am I looking them in the face? How am I making them feel? It shouldn't even be an issue of gender or anything. Everyone has an intrinsic value. And I think we can always get better at being loving like Jesus loves. Am I showing it as a Christian as well? I think we're doing better as society on a whole, but there's always room for Grace.
Matt - There is. And if I talk directly to the men watching the broadcast, this is a very good question you should ask yourself, and perhaps ask your partner or the females in your life how you're doing.
When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden and they eat the forbidden fruit as we know the story. God tells them not to, they do it, and creation plummets into darkness as a result. And one of the things which I find fascinating in this story is that when that happens, how they both knew that they were naked. Right? They didn't know this before, but all of a sudden, now they know it and they feel ashamed. They're vulnerable, all of a sudden they sense that something's not right. And so what happens is, Adam hides from God. And so this is a really interesting point about men that when they realise they're naked or vulnerable, or they're ashamed, they hide, and they usually hide from God and God's like, hang on, where are you? This is not right, we should be having conversation.
And the first thing that Adam does when God says, "What's going on?", is Adam blames the woman. That's his default position, not to take responsibility and to cast blame on the woman. And history is littered with men doing this in a massive way, where I'm not taking responsibility, I'm gonna blame the woman, and all kinds of trouble has ensued as a result. It's such a simple get out clause, just to blame the woman. When I asked myself this question, am I modelling Jesus's attitude towards women? It's like, how much am I blaming the female of the species versus taking personal responsibility? And I think it's such a powerful question.
Anna - I think, you're right, Matt. And particularly when you think of areas where women are disrespected because of their bodies. That is definitely something I've heard, not propagated by all churches, but in some church culture in the past that idea of "Oh, if men are looking at women, it's because women are dressing wrong or inappropriately or they're encouraging it". And I think that's where men could take more responsibility.
And actually, it's interesting that you bring up the the creation story, because I think some of that comes from that original sin story where men have taken more of a lead in church historically, and being seen in some sections of Christianity throughout history as the stronger sex. Actually, when you look at that scripture in totality, before sin comes into the world, God makes man and then he makes woman and he says, "It's not good for man to be alone. And so I'll make him a fitting helper."
And, it's that word helper that often gets misused or misinterpreted. The Bible was written in Hebrew. And I don't think we have an exact word for the word "Ezer". And so it's been translated in a lot of scriptures as helper. But I think helper sounds like, Oh, you're the leader, and I'll be the helper. There's an inequality to that. And that's where the whole thing of women being more subservient, I think has come from, or a lot of that kind of belief throughout the ages.
And, actually, something I read recently was that the word Ezer is also how God is described in the Bible. Its the same word that it says repeatedly in the Bible for God is our helper, and you wouldn't think of God being in any way subservient to us, right? So it's more like an incredible partner. I would say incredible, you know, a person who comes alongside and strengthens us, and that's a much better interpretation of the word.
Matt - Yeah, absolutely. Its actually a position of strength, isn't it? If I look at the women who have had a big impact on my life, my parents divorced when I was nine. So I grew up with my mum, very strong, stoic woman. My wife, very strong. The strength of women is unbelievable compared to men.
We joke about "man flu". And if you've not seen it just go to YouTube and search "man flu paramedics". In a video that comes up, a man gets a cold, the paramedics come in and help him. The woman gets a cold. They're just like, sort it out because you're a woman. And I wonder if that strength sometimes intimidates men. It shouldn't do, but I think it does.
So the first question that came in, are women created equal in God's image? I think we've answered that one. And we would both quite categorically say yes. That we are all created with equal value and equal worth, and we should all be given equal dignity. And that is something that we hold to at crowd church. And I think there are reasons why we hold fast to that. There's reasons why it's great that Hannah speaks, there's reasons why it's great that women like Anna host, and we value that here at crowd, which leads me nicely onto the women in leadership question which has come in. Anna, you're here hosting, you're kind of leading crowd. So it's self evident. But let's deal with that.
Do you have an issue with women in leadership in the church?
Anna - No, I don't see any reason. I think biblically, there's multiple models of women that lead and did lead man. You see that in the Old Testament, and you see it in the New Testament. There's prophetesses, judges like Deborah in the Old Testament. And in the early church men and women led together as a couple.
There's multiple examples and leadership, like any area of serving should be based on talent and skill. Have you got the right heart to do it? And also, have you got the right skillset to do it? Same with any other area of church, whether that's like leading the worship, or the youth work or anything else that you could do to serve in church community? I think it's should be based on skill and the heart to do something.
Matt - Yeah, absolutely. Based on calling, isn't it? And I think there are plenty of men out there who think they need to do the speaking, when actually their wife is a much better speaker, and you just need to get out of the way. I think Sharon is a much better teacher than I am, for example.
Over the years, I think there's been one or two scriptures, which we won't go into massively, in the New Testament, which had been pulled out of context, or at least not understood. So, there's a verse in Ephesians, "Wives submit to your husbands". And this has been loaded over women for a very long time.
Controversial Scripture portions taken out of context
But the context of that whole passage is that actually, Paul's talking to men, and he's like, No, you need to submit one to another, which was never done in that culture. Men were not great towards women. And then Paul goes, no, no you need to submit to them and not only that, you need to love them as Christ loves the church. You need to respect and honour them and do all of these amazing things, which they just weren't doing. And so I think we're very good at taking one or two lines of Scripture and pulling it massively out of context without understanding the wider point. And I think there are verses in the Bible like that which we have pulled out of context.
There's another controversial set of verses in the book of Corinthians which is a fascinating one to me. If we don't understand who Paul is writing to, and why he's writing to them the way it is, it's easy to pull out of context. And I think when you understand what was going on at the time, when you understand the culture at the time, like should women wear head coverings, should women be silent in churches and a few other verses.
I don't think that they apply to us in this context, but if you want to know more, there's a book out there called "Why not women" by Loren Cunningham which you should definitely read. And anything by Kenneth E. Bailey. I think he wrote a book called "Paul through Mediterranean Eyes", and it'll be really interesting because he explains the culture of what's going on.
Anna - Yeah, I agree. I think it's so dangerous with the Bible to read it out of context. And you have to remember that those letters of Paul were a specific letter written to a specific church in a specific place and time. And it's not meant to be read by all churches as word for word. So our context is really important.
Matt - It really is. Paul in Galatians 3:28 said this,
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for all are one in Christ Jesus."
Now this is a verse which you can quickly read over. But in effect, what he's saying is, we're all one we're all equal in the eyes of Christ. And it refers specifically to an old Jewish prayer, which men would say every morning. It wasn't part of God's plan. This is just men being men, right? When left alone, this is what they come up with. This was the prayer that they were praying,
"Blessed be he who did not make me a Gentile, blessed be he who did not make me a woman, and blessed be he who did not make me an uneducated man or a slave."
Hence the reason Paul goes, No, no, there's no Jew nor Greek. There's no Gentile. What's wrong with you? There's no male nor female. There's no slave nor free, you are all one. So he, in effect, eradicates that whole prayer with that one simple verse. And this is what I mean when I say that the Bible is radically countercultural. So let me ask you a question, Anna, I'm just going to go back to Hannah's questions here. So the question I think, especially towards men is, are you modelling how Jesus treats women? And we should all think about that. And I guess the question, she asked the women and let me ask you this question,
How are you embracing the God given identity that you have?
Anna - Yeah, that's a really good question. And I think a lot of that is about how you look and think about yourself as a woman. Women can be quite prone as a sex, I think we can be quite prone to thinking too small of ourselves, to thinking badly of how we look, being over-critical of ourselves. And so, seeing yourself as God sees you, but also stepping up, like if God's called you to lead, in your home, in your workplace, in the church or somewhere else, stepping up and doing that. And not apologising for being a woman, but just getting on to doing it, and not using it as an excuse, and settling for people holding you back because of your sex.
Matt - Wonderful. And I think it's probably worth saying right here, that at Crowd church we believe in the equality amongst the sexes. And I love it personally when women take their place in the Kingdom of God and do what God has called them to do with bravery and courage just as I enjoy it when men do that. And the challenge is on me and on us as men just to think a little bit more and to ask ourselves that question, are we modelling how Jesus treats women? Yes or no?
One of the things that came up a few years ago, I can't remember who said it, is that if it's dark, and you're walking down the street and there is a woman in front of you, do you actually just cross over to the other side of the road and walk on that side of the road because of just that sense of safety? And do simple things like that matter?
Anna - I think, it'd be nice to live in a world where that didn't cross your mind as a woman. It'd be nice to live in a world where women never got attacked or raped or anything like that, but we're not there as a society. So while there is that slight query about am I safe as a woman walking out around at night on my own? I mean, it's not something I tend to do, I like to go running. And I only run in evenings in the summertime when it's light. So yeah, I think it's real. Most people are good, but there are a few bad eggs out there. And so I think anything that you can do to make women feel more respected, more safe. I think that's good thing. Definitely.
Matt - Yeah, absolutely. Matt Cox has written here, "I don't get men who are disrespectful to women. I really don't. Whenever I see it, it is so ugly, and it makes that man, not much of a man in my eyes." And I would give my hearty Amen to that comment, Mr. Cox. Definitely. Matt crew said "Women are amazing. They deserve respect." And that is actually very, very true.
More Bible Verses on Women
Genesis 2:23,24 - The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
1 Corinthians 11:12 - For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.
Luke 1:45 - Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!
Proverbs 11:16 - A kindhearted woman gains honor, but ruthless men gain only wealth.
1 Peter 3:3-5 - Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their own husbands,
Titus 2:3-5 - Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
Proverbs 14:1 - The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.
1 Peter 3:1,2 - Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.
Proverbs 31:10,11 - A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value.
Proverbs 31:25,26 - She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
Proverbs 31:30 - Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
More from this series
