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