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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