9 When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. 10 She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. 11 When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.
12 Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. 13 These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either.
14 Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.
15 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”
19 After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. 20 Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.
-Mark 16:9-20
One common complaint that people have about Christianity is that it’s misogynistic and treats women as second class citizens. Nothing can be further from the truth. In this passage notice how the first person Jesus chooses to appear to in his resurrected form was Mary Magdalene, a woman.
During this time period and in Jewish society, a woman’s testimony or statement was oftentimes discounted or deemed unreliable. It’s almost like Jesus purposely chooses to reveal himself to a woman first as a means to mocking the unfair social norm of the day.
Furthermore, this passage makes all the men look bad! The “Eleven” male Apostles that were left were all rebuked. You saw Jesus die. And then Jesus appears to you and the first thing Jesus does is to rebuke you for your lack of faith. Feels bad. But apparently, Mary, a woman, had more faith than all the male apostles.
If the Bible didn’t value women, this story wouldn’t be here in the Scriptures, but it is!
Since it’s inception, people have been twisting God’s Word to oppress others—including women. Don’t let them do it. Read your Bible for yourself. Listen and read great commentaries (scholarly explanations of the Bible). Tim Keller is a great expositor of the Scriptures. He has a wonderful Podcast where he talks about issues just like the one in today’s devotional.
If you study the Bible for yourself, you’ll begin to see the world the way God does. You’ll be able to discern how people twist God’s Word to oppress others. And you’ll be able to point out passages like these to prove them wrong.
Here’s the link to the Tim Keller podcast called “Gospel In Life”:
https://podcast.gospelinlife.com/feed.xml
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