What Their Stories Teach Us

Today's Reading

Read Galatians 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

Then read Hebrews 11:32-40: "And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets — who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises... And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect."

Reflection

Over eleven days, we have met twelve women who shaped the story of redemption. Their circumstances could not have been more different — a disgraced first mother, a laughing nomad, a desperate widow, a Canaanite prostitute, a Moabite foreigner, a barren woman in a broken tabernacle, a queen in a pagan court, a teenage girl in Nazareth, a woman freed from seven demons, and a tentmaker who risked her neck for the apostle Paul.

What do they have in common? Not social status — some were queens, some were outcasts. Not moral perfection — some acted with breathtaking courage, others resorted to deception. Not cultural background — some were Israelites, some were foreigners with no natural claim on God's promises.

What unites them is this: at the critical moment, each one acted in faith. Sarah believed the impossible promise. Rahab staked her life on a God she barely knew. Ruth chose loyalty over safety. Hannah prayed when the institution had gone deaf. Esther stepped forward when silence would have been betrayal. Mary said "let it be." Mary Magdalene went to the tomb when hope was dead. Priscilla opened her home and taught the faith.

N.T. Wright argues that Paul's declaration in Galatians 3:28 — "there is no male and female" — does not abolish gender but demolishes the barriers that kept anyone from full participation in God's people. The old divisions have been torn down by the cross. And the pattern was set from the beginning: a risen Lord who first appeared to a woman established that in His kingdom, the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

Going Deeper

Hebrews 11 lists the heroes of faith and then says, "time would fail me to tell of" all the rest. Many of the women in our plan are not named in Hebrews 11. But they are woven into the story that Hebrews 11 tells — the story of people who "through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises." Their faith was the same faith. Their God was the same God.

The thread that connects Eve to Mary to Mary Magdalene to Priscilla is not gender but grace — the grace of a God who consistently works through the people the world overlooks, who turns barrenness into abundance and weakness into strength, and who will not be stopped by any human boundary in His relentless pursuit of redemption.

As you close this plan, ask yourself: whose faith am I building on? And whose faith am I shaping by my own faithfulness today?