“Jesus and Women As we look at Jesus and how He interacted with women, we see Him dignifying, validating, and championing them—all in contrast to a misogynist culture. In addition, women played a prominent role in Jesus’ earthly ministry. As John Bunyan put it, “They were women that wept when he was going to the cross, and women that followed him from the cross, and that sat by his sepulcher when he was buried. They were women that was [sic] first with him at his resurrection morn, and women that brought tidings first to his disciples that he was risen from the dead.”2 In an ancient world, where many disregarded the testimony of women, Jesus’ high regard for them bordered on the scandalous. The fact that all these accounts are included in the Canon of Scripture actually verify the resurrection accounts of Christ. Remember, God saw fit that the first eyes to behold the risen Jesus were those of a woman—all during an era where a woman’s testimony had no credibility in a court of law. Women, therefore, were the first evangelists. The only way a man can discover how to treat a woman is by looking at how Jesus interacted with them. Your Lord was the defender of women. He stepped in to save a broken, scandalized woman from the murderous plot of a group of self-righteous men. He lifted the weight of her shame, writing a new destiny for her in the dirt. He saw value in an “unclean” Samaritan woman who was disregarded, despised, and viewed as damaged goods. He honored a prostitute in the house of a Pharisee. He healed a pariah woman whose flow of blood excommunicated her. He exalted a woman who anointed Him for burial by commissioning her story to be rehearsed wherever the gospel message was heard. He never talked down to a woman, but made them heroes in His parables. And that for which Jesus came to die was a woman . . . His woman, the very bride of Christ. Put simply, your Lord is in the business of loving, honoring, and defending women.3 And God chose the womb of a woman to enter this world.”