Women Who Do

Readers of the Bible … Let me start again. Some readers of the Bible do not recognize that women were with Jesus from the very beginning of his public ministry. And before. Furthermore, a recent study of female disciples in the four Gospels reveals that women more consistently followed Jesus as he expected of disciples that even the twelve disciples. The book is by Holly J. Carey and it has the hilarious title Women Who Do: Female Disciples in the Gospels (Eerdmans, 2023).

As Carey opens her book, so I open this series on her book:

“A closer look reveals that in each of the four Gospels women were with Jesus all along. They followed him as he preached and taught and healed and performed miracles throughout Galilee, Judea, and the surrounding gentile regions. They functioned as his benefactresses, funding his ministry and providing for the others who were part of their community. The Gospel writers lauded many of the women whom Jesus encountered along the way, presenting them as exemplary in their faith or for their insight into who he was or what he could do. He uses women as examples of faith in his teachings and parables. Some women went toe-to-toe with Jesus on the interpretation of the Torah and what their place should be in God's Kingdom. And it was women who were there at the end, following the body of Jesus as he was placed in a tomb, then returning to care for it only to find that he had risen. It was these same women whom angels first commissioned with the task of “going and telling” of his resurrection to the others who followed him. Women were everywhere in Jesus's ministry.”

Carey comes from the Restoration movement where women were to be seen but not heard. They, like the Gospel stories about women, were overlooked. She had a question as a college student who utterly loved to read the Bible: Can I do this? She learned it was more May I do this? She was encouraged to carry on into such a career of teaching. She is now teaching at Point University outside Atlanta.

Some major ideas to come in this book on female disciples as portrayed in each of the four Gospels. (In this book the distinction between “Gospel” vs. the “Gospel” is not adhered to.)

First, our understanding of what a disciple is has been shaped by the belief that the word disciple in the Gospels attaches itself to male disciples, in particular to the twelve disciples. Carey believes this distorts the picture. She’s right.

Second, a disciple is someone who may follow Jesus physically in his ministry, but the term also pertains to those who have interactions with him and to act in ways that he expects disciples to act.

Third, “the Twelve are a complex combination of faithfulness and unfaithfulness as they vacillate between a calling of self-sacrifice and a concern for self-preservation.” Hence, they cannot be a pristine example of discipleship. The behaviors of women in the Gospels stand in contrast to the vacillation of men.

Fourth, “if the man gets it wrong, the woman gets it right” – at least often in the Gospels!

Fifth, the essence of discipleship is action. Action that demonstrates faithfulness to the vision of Jesus for a disciple. So a good question arises. “What do men do?” which is followed up with “What do women do?” If discipleship is measured by action in the Gospels, Carey points out the it is the “women who do” and not the male disciples!

Sixth, “female disciples show a consistency between their words and actions in ways that mirror Jesus much more often than male disciples do.”

Seventh, in previous scholarship about women in the Gospels, the focus has been on select women in their individual stories, the relationship between women and Jesus that can lead to clear teachings about the role of women in the church today, the broader discussion of women in the ancient world, and of course routine appeals to the “hard passages” or clobber passages in the New Testament.  

Eighth, Carey’s study examines the crucial role of women and their actions as they correspond to the actions expected of Jesus for his disciples. She studies women in the narrative framework, and social context, of the ancient world and the Gospels.