Jesus's interactions with women are an important element in the theological debate about Christianity and women. Women are prominent in the story of Jesus. According to the resurrection story, the resurrected Jesus was first seen by women.
High number of references to women According to New Testament scholar Frank Stagg and classicist Evelyn Stagg,Stagg, Evelyn and Frank. Woman in the World of Jesus. Westminster John Knox Pr, 1978. the synoptic Gospels of the canonical New Testament contain a relatively high number of references to women. Evangelical Bible scholar Gilbert Bilezikian agrees, especially by comparison with literary works of the same epoch.Bilezikian, Gilbert. Beyond Sex Roles. Baker, 1989. Neither the Staggs nor Bilezikian find any recorded instance where Jesus disgraces, belittles, reproaches, or stereotypes a woman. These writers claim that examples of the manner of Jesus are instructive for inferring his attitudes toward women and show repeatedly how he liberated and affirmed women. Starr writes that of all founders of religions and religious sects, Jesus stands alone as the one who did not discriminate in some way against women. By word or deed he never encouraged the disparagement of a woman. Karen King concludes, based on the account of Jesus's interaction with a Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7:24–30 and Matthew 15:21–28, that "an unnamed Gentile woman taught Jesus that the ministry of God is not limited to particular groups and persons, but belongs to all who have faith."
Women as disciples The gospels of the New Testament, written toward the last quarter of the first century AD, often mention Jesus speaking to women publicly and openly against the social norms of the time.Blevins, Carolyn DeArmond, Women in Christian History: A Bibliography. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1995. From the beginning, Jewish women disciples, including Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, and Salome had accompanied Jesus during his ministry and supported him out of their private means.King, Karen L. "Women in Ancient Christianity: The New Discoveries". https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/first/women.html
Kenneth E. BaileyBailey, Kenneth E. "Women in the New Testament: A Middle Eastern Cultural View". Theology Matters. Jan/Feb 2000. spent 40 years as a Presbyterian professor of New Testament in Egypt, Lebanon, Jerusalem and Cyprus. He writes about Christianity from a Middle Eastern cultural view. He finds evidence in several New Testament passages that Jesus had women disciples. He first cites the reported occasion when Jesus's family appeared and asked to speak with him. Jesus replied:
Bailey argues that according to Middle Eastern customs, Jesus could not properly have gestured to a crowd of men and said, "Here are my brother, and sister, and mother." He could only have said that to a crowd of both men women. Therefore, the disciples standing before him were composed of men and women.
Women of obscurity noticed by Jesus The Gospels record several instances where Jesus reaches out to "unnoticeable" women, inconspicuous silent sufferers who blend into the background and are seen by others as "negligible entities destined to exist on the fringes of life". Jesus notices them, recognizes their need and, "in one gloriously wrenching moment, He thrusts them on center stage in the drama of redemption with the spotlights of eternity beaming down upon them, and He immortalizes them in sacred history".
Peter's mother-in-law
The three synoptic gospels all record the healing of Simon Peter's mother-in-law., , When Jesus came into Peter's house, he saw Peter's mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. He healed the woman of fever by touching her hand. She rose and began to wait on him. With this particular healing, something unique occurs. Quite often, after being healed, people left Jesus to go about their renewed lives. Peter's mother-in-law, however, immediately rose and began to "serve" him.
The woman who touched Jesus's garment
Jesus practised the ministry of touch, sometimes touching the "untouchables" and letting them touch him. Among the things considered defiling (disqualifying one for the rituals of religion) was an issue of blood, especially menstruation or hemorrhage. One such woman had been plagued with a flow of blood for 12 years, no one having been able to heal her. She found the faith in a crowd to force her way up to Jesus, approaching him from behind so as to remain inconspicuous, and simply touching his garment. When she did, two things happened: the flows of blood stopped and she was discovered.
Jesus turned and asked who touched him. The disciples tried to brush aside the question, protesting that in such a crowd no individual could be singled out. Jesus pressed his inquiry and the woman came and trembled at his feet; she explained her reason and declared amid the crowd what blessing had come to her. Jesus treated her as having worth, not rebuking her for what the Levitical code of holiness would have considered as defiling him. Rather, he relieved her of any sense of guilt for her seemingly rash act, lifted her up and called her "Daughter". He told her that her faith saved her, gave her his love, and sent her away whole.
Fontaine writes, "The 'chutzpah' shown by the woman who bled for 12 years as she wrests her salvation from the healer's cloak is as much a measure of her desperation as it is a testimony to her faith."Fontaine, Carole R. (1996), "Disabilities and Illness in the Bible: A Feminist Perspective", written at Sheffield, U.K., in Athalya Brenner, A Feminist Companion to The Hebrew Bible in the New Testament (1st ed.), Sheffield Academic Press Fontaine comments that "the Bible views women as a group of people who are fulfilled, legitimated, given full membership into their community, and cared for in old age by their children," and that barren women risked ostracism from their communities. She notes that when disabled people are healed, the act "emphasizes primarily the remarkable compassion of the one doing the good deed, not the deserving nature or dignity of the recipient".
Daughter of Jairus Jairus was one of the rulers of the Jewish synagogue, and had a daughter who had been very ill and was now at the point of death. She was an only daughter, and was twelve years of age. So hearing that Jesus was near, Jairus came to Jesus, and, falling down before him, implored Jesus to come and see his sick daughter. She had been comatose, and in Matthew 9:18 her father says she is already dead. Jesus went to her, even though the others mocked him and said it was too late. When he saw her body, he took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha koum," which means, "Little girl, I say to you, arise!" She immediately arose and walked around. He gave strict orders that no one should know this and said that she should be given something to eat.
Widow of Nain
The widow lived in a remote small town on a hillside in Galilee. However, the death of her only son left her with little means of support. Jesus noticed the grieving woman in the funeral procession. Jesus gave the command "Arise!" and gave the bewildered son back to his mother. "They all knew that God had a special love for the little widow with one son in Nain of Galilee."
The woman bent double Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath and saw a woman who had been "crippled by a spirit for eighteen years". She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. He called to the woman, said "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity", then laid his hands on her body, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.
The synagogue ruler, the defender of the Sabbath, was indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. Rather than confront Jesus, he rebuked the woman publicly by saying to the whole congregation, "There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath".cf. In response, Jesus said, "You hypocrites! Doesn't each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?" The Staggs emphasize that this is the only reference in New Testament to "a of Abraham". They conclude that Jesus spoke of this woman as though she belonged to the family of Abraham just as much as did the of Abraham.
Women as models of faith Jesus who always kept his covenant of chastity presented women as models of faith to his listeners. In the culture of the day, women were neither to be seen nor heard since they were considered "corrupting influences to be shunned and disdained".
The widow of Zarephath
The Queen of the South
Parable of the ten virgins
The persistent widow
A poor widow's offering
Jesus honours a poor widow who cast "two copper coins" into the Temple treasury. What the widow gave to God was the totality of her belongings. Women had only limited access to the Temple in Jerusalem. There Jesus found the most praiseworthy piety and sacrificial giving, not in the rich contributors, but in a poor woman.
Women as models of Jesus's work In the Parable of the Lost Coin and the Parable of the Leaven, Jesus presents his own work and the growth of the Kingdom of God in terms of a woman and her domestic work.Ben Witherington, Women in the Ministry of Jesus: A study of Jesus's attitudes to women and their roles as reflected in his earthly life, Cambridge University Press, 1987, , p. 39–41. These parables follow the Parable of the Lost Sheep and the Parable of the Mustard Seed respectively, and share the same messages as their more male-oriented counterparts.
Joel B. Green writes of the Parable of the Leaven that Jesus "asks people—male or female, privileged or peasant, it does not matter—to enter the domain of a first-century woman and household cook in order to gain perspective on the domain of God".Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, Eerdmans, 1997, , p. 527.
Women as persons of value
Raising their dead The Gospels describe three miracles of Jesus raising persons from the dead. In two out of those three incidents the dead are restored to women—to Mary and Martha their brother Lazarus and to the unnamed widow from Nain her only son.
Warning against lust
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus expounded upon the Ten Commandments. He defended the value of women and men by equating lust to adultery.
Warning against divorce
Jesus expounded upon the Book of Deuteronomy. Regarding men's custom of divorce, he defended the rights of wives by equating unjustified divorce with the guilt of causing the sin of adultery.
Women as first resurrection witnesses After the Resurrection of Jesus, he chose to appear first to a group of women and gave them the privilege of proclaiming his resurrection and communicating his instructions to the Apostles. In the story, appearing first to them implies his claim was not dishonest because a rational deceiver would not appear to witnesses that could not testify in court (i.e., the group of women).
Mary, mother of Jesus
At the Temple in Jerusalem
The canonical Gospels offer only one story about Jesus as a boy—Luke's story about the boy Jesus in the Jerusalem Temple. According to Luke, his parents, Joseph and Mary, took the 12-year-old Jesus to Jerusalem on their annual pilgrimage to the Passover. Mary and Joseph started their journey home without Jesus, thinking he was somewhere in the caravan with kinsmen or acquaintances. When his parents found him three days later, Mary said, "Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you." The boy Jesus respectfully but firmly reminded her of a higher claim he must answer: "Didn't you know I had to be about my Father's business?" It is noteworthy that in obedience to his parents, Jesus left and was subject to them.