By Margaret Mowczko “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (John 11:5). Martha and Mary of Bethany are well-known figures of the New Testament. The two sisters seem to have had different temperaments, and their characters are often polarized in the retelling of their story. These polarized characterisations are caricatures which obscure the real picture of the women, their
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By Margaret Mowczko One of the basic tenets of Complementarianism – an ideology that, among other things, restricts women from some functions in the Church – is that men and women are different, and that the sexes complement each other. I agree that the sexes complement each other. Hopefully we all complement each other with our various strengths, gifts and
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By Margaret Mowczko [I am grateful to Adele Hebert for pointing out to me several of these similarities between Rahab and Lydia.] Rahab in the Old Testament, and Lydia in the New, are separated by thousands of years and by thousands of miles. Despite different cultures and different circumstances, there are some intriguing similarities and comparisons between these two women who
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By Margaret Mowczko “The scriptures . . . offer an impressive number of examples of women exercising social or political authority without raising any questions as to the propriety of that authority.” This quote from Gordon Hugenberger – and the article it comes from[1] – is the inspiration for this post in which I include lists of Bible women who
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By Margaret Mowczko This article was written for Resurrection Sunday, 2013. Each of the gospel writers recorded that Mary Magdalene was the first person to see Jesus alive and that she was the first person entrusted with the amazing message of the resurrection.[1] The gospel writers recognised that this was significant. Like them, I don’t think it was a coincidence
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By Margaret Mowczko Abigail, Nabal and David Abigail is an interesting woman who we meet in 1 Samuel chapter 25. Like several women in the Old Testament, Abigail is described as beautiful. Unlike other women in the Old Testament, Abigail is also described as “intelligent” (NAB, NIV, TEV), or “clever” (NRSV), or “of good understanding” (KJV, ASV), etc. Abigail was married
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I have written extensively on Wordgazer’s Words about why “But the Bible clearly says” isn’t necessarily a very good defense for certain traditionalist positions. I’ve written a lot of posts that analyze certain texts which are supposedly “clear,” but which maybe weren’t intended by the original writers (or understood by the original audiences) to mean what seems so “clear” to us
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I have often had online discussions where Christians have insisted to me that we must receive New Testament teachings about male authority and female submission as universal, timeless commands based on the creation order– that the only other alternatives are to dismiss them as “only cultural,” or to decide that the New Testament teachings of the Bible are no longer
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By Margaret Mowczko My life is devoted to knowing God and being a disciple of Jesus, empowered by his Spirit. And my life is invested in learning and understanding the Scriptures. I do not think that my knowledge and experience of God is generally inferior to that of many of my brothers in Christ. It bothers me, however, that many
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by Margaret Mowczko In the earliest days of Christianity the effects of the Holy Spirit’s ministry were immediate and profound. The Holy Spirit’s presence and ministry was a great equalizer in the Christian community. On the Day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit was poured out on the followers of Jesus – on both men and women – who had been
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