biblical women

Remembered for the Wrong Thing: Martha

Posted on by Laura Savage-Rains

When someone mentions Mary and Martha, what comes to mind? If you know anything about them, you immediately associate their names with the scene from Luke 10:38-42 where Martha is complaining to Jesus about Mary not helping her in the kitchen. I am sure one of the reasons that scene is so well remembered is that it is set in a place where women have traditionally been known as the workers: the kitchen.

(On a side note: speaking of the kitchen . . . why do people assume women should be “the cook” at home, yet if you talk about a “professional chef,” a man’s picture comes to mind?!)

Back to Mary and Martha, and more specifically Martha, the sister of Lazarus and Mary and possibly even the owner of the home where the three of them lived. Luke 10:38 says, “As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him” (emphasis added). I want to challenge you today to change your foremost memory of Martha and get her out of the kitchen! Hopefully you already know the “rest of the story,” but allow me to share some of the insights I have gleaned over the years . . .  Read More

Models of Discipleship: Women at the Cross

Posted on by Laura Savage-Rains

Why is it that when the “disciples” are mentioned, we automatically picture in our minds the 12 men named in scripture that Jesus chose to be some of his closest followers?  Why do we not also conjure up the more complete picture of the named women who followed Jesus, traveled with Jesus, sat and learned from Jesus, supported Jesus financially, and were present in greater numbers at the cross and the tomb than his so-called “closest” followers? I can tell you why . . .

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Teachers Who Make a Difference: Lois and Eunice

Posted on by Laura Savage-Rains

Do you have a favorite coffee mug? Does it have a story? I have several, but today’s mug is my Starbucks Cyprus mug given to me by my good friend KayLyn. She used to live in Cyprus when she was a missionary to a Near Eastern country. Her mother and I got to travel together to go visit KayLyn on that beautiful island country in the Mediterranean. Several years later, KayLyn gave me my Cyprus mug because she knew I would enjoy it and the memories it would conjure up.

Some of those memories are of the many things KayLyn taught me about being a missionary. She is my “shero” for being willing to go live and work in the Middle East as a single Christian woman. Much of what I have learned about living and working cross-culturally I learned from KayLyn because I watched her live out her principles in some very difficult places. I believe I had such an easy transition living in Romania because of the things KayLyn helped me understand years before I ever went to live overseas. She wasn’t purposefully teaching me and I wasn’t intentionally her student. Yet within the context of our friendship and mutual encouragement, I learned things that I never would’ve picked up from a book. Thank you, KayLyn!

Which brings me to the biblical women I want to talk about this week: Lois and Eunice. Do you know who they were?

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The Family Memory Maker: Mary

Posted on by Laura Savage-Rains

I love making memories! I try to be very intentional about creating ways to remember the time, the people, the place, the purpose, and the joy of the event. I am blessed to apply this philosophy of life to the times I spend with my granddaughters. What a gift from the Lord! And what an honor given to me by their amazing parents, my stepdaughter and her husband, who allow me to “BE” Grammy. (Thank you, Angela and Forrest!) Spending time with these three little girls, Celeste (almost 7) and her twin sisters, Tallis and Brynn (almost 4), is always a chance to do something with them that will help them remember how much they were loved and cared for by their grandparents. 

This love of making memories goes back to my own childhood. I inherited this trait from my own mother who knew how to build the anticipation so that when the experience actually happened, you were ready to enjoy every ounce of it! She taught me how to get excited with joyful expectations for just about anything. This love of making memories was the motivating factor, I’m sure, for my being high school yearbook editor and for enjoying travel photography of my worldwide adventures. I like to remember things visually. (So why am I not an avid scrapbooker?) 

What has prompted all these thoughts about family memory making is that Mark and I just spent two fun (and too brief) days with our granddaughters and their parents. We made cookies with the rolling pin and cookie cutters. We read books snuggled under the covers on the big couch. We played board games on a rainy day. We put together a tiny plastic vet clinic where the plastic vet helped the plastic horse get a “flea out of its throat.” We watched the girls “go really fast” on their bikes outside. We had family fun! 

Which brings me to my biblical woman for this week: Mary, the mother of Jesus and the family memory maker. How do I know she was the family memory maker? Let me see if I can explain . . . 

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A World Traveler: Phoebe

Posted on by Laura Savage-Rains

Did you know that Sunday, March 8, is International Women’s Day (IWD)? Most of the world celebrates it while the US hardly notices. In many countries, March 8 is celebrated like the US celebrates Mother’s Day, yet in most places, all women are honored–not just mothers. I like to celebrate IWD by donating to one of my favorite organizations: Global Women, a Christian nonprofit striving to bring positive change to the lives of vulnerable women around the world. You can learn more and donate online at http://www.GlobalWomenGo.org. Your gift to Global Women will help:

– stop sex trafficking in Moldova

– birth babies in Haiti

– educate girls in Zambia and India

– develop sewing skills in Romania, Myanmar, and Uganda

– bring clean water to Zambia

– and more!

While thinking about the needs of women around the world, I also watched a few TED Talks this week on various women’s issues. If you have not discovered TED Talks yet, you are missing out! Go to TED.com and spend some time learning some incredible things on just about any topic.

Then my mind started wondering which biblical woman I wanted to tell you about this week. I decided on one who traveled internationally herself. Her name was Phoebe. She is only mentioned in two verses in the New Testament. You will find her in Romans 16:1-2, the famous text ascribed to the Apostle Paul. While the verses may not be very enlightening about the details of her life, the context and a historical understanding of these verses reveal a great deal about the role she had in the church and Paul’s support and encouragement of that role. Read on . . .

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In Honor of Mentors

Posted on by Laura Savage-Rains

I am currently in Birmingham, Alabama, to celebrate a friend’s wedding. A former boss and always-mentor of mine, Sheryl, retired last spring from a long and fruitful career and is now getting married to Wally. I am thrilled for both of them! Getting to come to their wedding gives me a chance to visit other dear friends and mentors such as Barbara, Andrea, Joyce, Joye, and Denise. I have been blessed my whole life to be surrounded by women who modeled a Christ-like lifestyle, challenged me academically, and set the bar high professionally. Their examples taught me so much more than their words ever could. Which brings me to this week’s topic: biblical women mentors (Can we change that word to “womentors”?) *sigh* . . . probably not.

Two biblical pairs I want us to consider this week are Naomi and Ruth from the Hebrew Scriptures and Elizabeth and Mary from the New Testament. I want to share some of the unique aspects of their relationships that have informed my own aspirations of the kind of mentor I want to be. Most of us are aware that the story of Naomi and Ruth is found first in the book of Ruth in the Hebrew Scriptures, yet we may not know the significance of Ruth’s name being mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the first chapter of Matthew. And while we may know that Elizabeth was the relative to whom Mary ran when she found out she would be the mother of Jesus, we may not see on the surface the prophetic quality of Elizabeth’s greeting as revealed in the first chapter of Luke.

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Another Forgotten Foremother: Hannah

Posted on by Laura Savage-Rains

Three seldom-mentioned women found in the Hebrew Scriptures, or what is also known as the Old Testament, or what Dr. Lisa Wilson Davison likes to call the “First Testament” are Hagar, Hannah, and Huldah. I wrote about Hagar a couple of weeks ago. I will share about Huldah on another day in the near future. Today, I want us to reconsider Hannah.

Her story begins in 1 Samuel 1-2, but her influence continues throughout the history of Israel and even into the life of a young Mary, the mother of Jesus. It is within her story that the term “the anointed one” is FIRST used in scripture. This term is what is translated into English as Messiah. See the end of her prayer in 1 Samuel 2:10. Some scholars consider this prayer to be prophetic in that it mentions a king even BEFORE Israel had a king.

Hannah was the childless wife of a man named Elkanah in the days before Jerusalem was the center of the Israelites’ faith. The temple did not yet exist in Jerusalem, and the center for Israelite faith was at the tabernacle at Shiloh, which was led by the priest Eli. Hannah was made miserable by Elkanah’s other wife who had already borne him numerous sons and daughters and took every opportunity to irritate and humiliate Hannah because of her barrenness. As a faithful family, they would all go on their annual trip to Shiloh to worship God there. On one particular trip, Hannah went alone to pray near the entrance to the tabernacle. The priest Eli saw her and accused her of being drunk since she was moving her lips, but not praying aloud, and silent prayer was an uncommon thing to do at that time. When she defended herself with an explanation that she was not drunk, only pouring her heart out to the Lord, Eli believed her and said a blessing over her that God would indeed grant her request.

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In Memory of Mom

Posted on by Laura Savage-Rains

My thoughts this week have turned to memories of my mom, Joyce Savage. Feb 12 is the anniversary of her death–or, more appropriately, the anniversary of her home-going. She even announced to the staff of her assisted living facility several days before she died that she was “going home on the 12th.” And, then, sure enough, she passed away from this life and into her heavenly home on Feb 12, 2012, which was just 4 days before her 84th birthday. I am grateful for the upbringing she and my dad provided for me. And, as is true for many of us, the older I get, the wiser they become. Am I right?!

Thinking of my mom also led me to reconsider a particular biblical woman: Tabitha (her Hebrew name), also known as Dorcas (in Greek), because both my mom and Tabitha shared a common passion–sewing. My dear mom made most of my clothes when I was growing up, and I did not really appreciate that until I was an adult and had to start purchasing them for myself. My mom would have rather spent time sewing than eating or sleeping. It was an all-consuming love of hers.

According to the brief, yet dramatic, story in Acts 9:36-42 about Tabitha, she spent much of her time sewing for others in need, even though she was also a widow and could have been in need herself. Her ministry really touched the lives of a lot of people in her port city of Joppa on the coast of Israel, about 35 miles northwest of Jerusalem. As a matter of fact, she is the first and only named woman in scripture with the title of “disciple.” Some biblical scholars even consider her a deacon.

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Who’s on first?

Posted on by Laura Savage-Rains

That question is usually the beginning of a joke that goes around in circles. But today, I want it to be a question that makes you re-think a character in the early part of our Judeo-Christian faith story.

Over the years, I have been discovering–with the help of many wonderful biblical commentators and theologians–how a woman was chosen to be the “first” person to do something in the scriptural text. The amazing thing to me is the level of importance of some of these “doings” and yet, I have seldom if ever heard sermons highlighting these women as examples of discipleship or leadership.

So, for this next week, I want us to ponder the woman Hagar we meet in Genesis 16 and see again in Genesis chapters 21 and 25. Hagar was an Egyptian slave in the house of Abram and Sarai. She was a foreigner. She was property. She was used by humans to accomplish their desires without consideration of her personal needs or desires.

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