Last night, I had an interesting discussion about John chapter 2 with a friend. Jesus' mom puts things in motion by telling the servants at the wedding in Cana to follow Jesus' instructions--even though He had sort of refused to do anything when she first approached him with the wine situation.
Mary anticipated a need and did something about it--even if it meant jumping ahead of Jesus.
My friend asked, "How does that work with following Jesus?"
Does following Jesus mean acting only when He does?
Throughout the Bible, women were the first to receive news of God's work on earth. I still believe that women are often more prophetically gifted than men--and that this scares and intimidates men.
The women who went to the tomb were the first to know of Jesus' resurrection--and the disciples did not believe them. (See this interesting link for the full story.)
Rhoda was the servant girl who answered Peter's knock after he had been released from prison by the angel--and the others did not believe her.
So many times, I have witnessed women being told by men that they were "out of their mind"--just because the men could not wrap their brains around a situation.
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| Rhoda is so excited she forgets to let Peter in as she runs off to inform the rest! |
What do we do with faith and following Jesus when it is manifested in females who jump ahead and even take the lead?
I have been in some church circles where male leadership call this tendency "simply women's intuition," which leads to "insubordination."
Do men have to understand a situation before acting on it, whereas women are called to follow male leadership regardless of whether or not they agree?
Thoughts to ponder, as how we answer these questions have real-life implications!
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