SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/10/2024 8:39 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2
“Sympathetic Loyalty”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 27:55-56
Message of the verses: “55 Many women were
there looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee while
ministering to Him. 56 Among them was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of
James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.”
It is my desire to finish this second to last
chapter on the 27th chapter of the book of Matthew. I began Matthew 27 on the eight of July this
year and it looks like I will not get it finished until sometime late this
month, and then there is one more chapter to look at, and that will finish the
book of Matthew which I began looking at on 11-17-2019. It has been and still is a great joy to study
this great gospel of Matthew, and I look forward to seeking what book the Lord
desires for me to look at in the future.
I
begin this SD with a quotation from John MacArthur who explains “Ministering translates
diakoneo, which has the basic meaning
of serving and is the verb form of the noun from which deacon is derived. Although
the feminine form of the term was not used to describe a specific type of
ministry until many years later in the early church, if at all (see Romans
16:1, where ‘servant’ could be translated deaconess), those ministering women
were, in effect the first deaconesses.”
I find this quote both interesting and informative, hope you do too.
I
think that the ladies who read this next quote from MacArthur’s commentary will
like it as he spends time in writing about women in the Bible. “Throughout the Old Testament, godly women
are acclaimed. The psalmist extolled the
Lord by declaring that ‘He makes the barren woman abide in the house as a
joyful mother of children. Praise the
Lord!’ (Ps. 113:9). And even apart from
the possible office of deaconess, the role of women in the early church
centered in their faithfulness as wives and mothers and in their practical care
for fellow believers. The kind of
elderly widow Paul declared was worthy of support by the church was one who has
‘a reputation for good works,…has brought up children,…has shown hospitality to
strangers,…washed the saints feet,…assisted those in distress, and…devoted
herself to every good work’ (1 Tim. 5:10; cf. Luke 4:39; 10:40).
“Far from being spiritually demeaning, such
self-giving acts of practical helpfulness are a mark of womanly excellence and
spiritual maturity—a truth Jesus had a very difficult time teaching the
disciples (see John 13:3-16).
“The
ministry of godly women has always been of great significance in the church. Those women by the cross were primary
believing eyewitnesses to Jesus’ crucifixion, and a woman was the first person
to see the Lord after His resurrection.
Those faithful women certainly would have had a special place of respect
and affection in the early church. When
the apostles were first preaching the gospel and testifying of their
experiences with Jesus, it is hard to imagine that they d d not frequently
acknowledge the courage and devotion of thos women—who remained with the Lord
during His time of agony and death, while they, His specially chosen and
trained men, had fled and were hiding out in some obscure part of Jerusalem.
“Through
His direction of Matthew’s pen the Holy Spirit identifies some of those godly
women by name. The first is Mary
Magdalene, the one from whom Jesus had cast out seven demons (Luke 8:2). Magdalene was not part of her family name but
simply indicated she was from the town of Magdala, on the western shore of the
Sea of Galilee, just south of Capernaum.
She probably was identified in that way because she was unmarried and
could not be identified by her husband or sons, as was the common practice in
that day.
“The
second woman mentioned is Mary the mother of James and Joseph. This James was one of the apostles and was
commonly referred to as James the Less (Mark 15:40) or James the son of
Alphaeus (Matt. 10:3; Acts 1:13) to distinguish him from the other James, who,
with Peter and his brother John, constituted the inner circle of the
Twelve. John identifies this Mary as the
wife of Clopas’ (John 19:25), apparently a variant of Alphaeus.
“The
third woman is identified as Salome by Mark (15:40) but is referred to by
Matthew simply as the mother of the sons of Zebedee, in other words, Zebedee’s
wife. The sons of Zebedee were James and
John (Matt. 3:21) and were nicknamed by Jesus ‘Sons of Thunder’ (Mark
3:17). From John’s gospel we learn that
Mary the mother of Jesus was also at the cross (19:26), although she may not
have been with the other women at this time.
“The
first of the three women Matthew mentions was not married, the second was
identified by her children, and the third by her husband. The implication seems to be that divine
dignity is bestowed on all categories of womanhood. God had a marvelous and blessed role for
women He has gifted and singleness, for women who are faithful mothers, and for
women who are faithful wives. And
perhaps in order not to suggest a secondary rank for the single women or for
the formerly wicked woman, Mary Magdalene is here named first.
“Conspicuously
absent from the scene at the cross were the Twelve, except for John. Judas had committed suicide, and the other
ten were hiding for rear of their lives.
During their Lord’s greatest time of need, they had temporarily violated
the basic principle of discipleship. ‘He
who does not take his cross and follow after Me,’ Jesus said, ‘is not worthy of
Me’ (Matt. 10:38). At this time the disciples not only did not have the courage
to risk bearing their own crosses but did not even have the courage to stand
with their Lord as He bore His.”
I
believe that the role of women in our society has changed very much from the
time that I was younger as most women who were married stayed home to take care
of their children. My mother did that
but before she did that she worked putting rivets in air planes to help with
the Second World War. My mom had a very
difficult younger life even after she was married to my dad, but later on
things got easier for her, especially after my dad got a job at Ford Motor
Company.
9/10/2024 9:23 AM
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