“Woman”

By Bp. Joseph Boyd (Ancient Church of the West)

The first word Jesus spoke in His first miracle at Cana was “Woman”, and the first word he spoke after His resurrection to Mary Magdalene was also “Woman.” Jesus frames his restoration of humanity with the inclusion of women in His miraculous work. Jesus fulfilled the Old Covenant and brought the New through His perfect life, death, and resurrection, and He made women a full and important part of the Holy People of God by including them in His story. He restored humanity back to their Creator, replacing the sign of circumcision with the sign of baptism, making Christian women miracle-workers and evangelists for His Kingdom.

“As every church historian knows, women commonly were more active in the early church than were men. Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great…built many churches throughout the empire, one of them being the church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

“…Christianity‘s growth was also, to no small degree, the result of Christian women not practicing abortion or infanticide, both of which were extremely common among the Greco-Romans. Unlike the pagans, the Christians valued baby girls as much as boys. This added to the church’s membership. Moreover, when Christian women married pagan husbands, ‘the overwhelming majority of children from these ‘mixed marriages’ were raised within the church.’

“Rodney Stark estimates that the early Christian community ‘may well have been 60% female.’ The unbalanced sex ratio…is also evident from what Celsus, the second-century pagan critic of Christianity, said concerning Christians. He ridiculed them by saying Christianity was a religion that attracted women. To him and to many other Romans, this was a sign of weakness and low repute. (“How Christianity Changed the World“ by Alvin J. Schmidt, 2001 Zondervan, p. 107-8.)

Women were and have always been extremely important to the life of the Church, and, while they were never priests, they functioned as an important column of missions and evangelism worldwide!