Follow the Women Who Followed Jesus

What We All Can Learn from the Courage and Conviction of the Women in the Gospels 

By Dr. Holly J. Carey 

Humans are storytellers. We resonate with people’s experiences when we hear their stories. We introduce ourselves and give our testimony by telling our story. To understand an event that takes place, we try to piece together the story of how one thing led to another. I would argue that we learn best when the things we are learning are woven into story form. 

I don’t think it was an accident that God chose to communicate the most important truths about who he is and what he is doing in the world through the Story of Scripture. It starts in Genesis 1 and continues to the end of Revelation. And the fulcrum—the moment that changes the trajectory of the human story from the brokenness and fallout of sin toward the harmony and healing of grace—is the story of Jesus. Four Gospels, but one GOSPEL. Four witnesses telling their version of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection with one goal: to share the good news of salvation to all people. 

One of the distinctive features of storytelling is the invitation given to the audience. We are invited to join in the world the storyteller has created. In the process of that immersion, the audience is compelled to learn by example. Which characters should we emulate? Which actions are admirable? What lessons should we learn from what we have seen and heard? What should we do? What should we not do? 

Given the unique ability for stories to shape us, it’s no wonder that in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we are given an example of what it means to follow God in the person of Jesus. But Jesus isn’t the only one who functions as an exemplar in these stories. The Gospel writers also give us examples of what it means to follow God in the people who followed Jesus during his ministry—his disciples. 

If you’re like me, when you hear the word disciples you picture the apostles—the twelve men who were called by Jesus and whose names are listed several times in the Gospels. Historically, the apostles become the outward-facing leaders of the early church, at least in the first years before most of them were martyred for their faith. But in the Gospels, the apostles weren’t the only disciples. Many people followed Jesus faithfully. Jesus wasn’t surrounded by a mini, 12-person entourage. He had a whole ministerial operation! 

Among those faithful followers were a remarkable number of women. Some of those women were committed to Jesus for the long haul. They traveled with him from region to region as he taught and healed. They were there from the beginning of his ministry to the end of his life. They witnessed his resurrection and ascension. A group of these female disciples bankrolled his ministry while being in the trenches, aiding him in his good work. Other women popped into his life for a moment or two, but the ripple effects of their stories were profound. Often, these women’s stories were told because they represented the kinds of actions Jesus expected of his followers. Most women in the Gospels serve as role models for the audience. 

So, when we think of disciples and discipleship, we should try to expand our vision to include the very people the Gospel writers identify as faithful followers of Jesus. Because we learn by example from the stories we encounter, we should learn something from these women that can help us on our own journey of discipleship. 

I’ve observed some character traits that female disciples have in common in the Gospels. These are traits that we all would do well to emulate. 

RESILIENCY AND PERSEVERANCE 

Life was not easy in the first century, and especially not for a woman. Barring exceptional circumstances, women were powerless in that time. They were unable to own property, subject to the rule of the paterfamilias (father of the family), rarely allowed to make decisions for themselves (those were made by their father or their husband), and denied formal education. As a result, women were often used as pawns in the games of men who sought power and social stability. Being a woman meant you were already fighting an uphill battle, made even more difficult by the reality of high mortality rates in childbearing for mother and baby, the existence of social stigma surrounding women’s health, and the impact of pervasive stereotypes that presented women as persons who lacked virtue and were incapable of reason. With the deck stacked against them, women had to be resilient to make an impact in their communities. Jesus deliberately chose women as examples in his parables to demonstrate the type of resiliency all his followers should display. 

In the parable of the persistent widow, the protagonist was relentless in pursuit of justice for herself, fighting both the one who sought to take advantage of her vulnerability and the corrupt judge who presided over her case (Luke 18:1-8). In another parable, the woman who lost one of her ten coins demonstrated the sense of urgency Jesus’ disciples should have when it comes to the kingdom of God (Luke 15:8-10). The Gospel writers also told several stories of the tenacity of women who faced difficult circumstances and braced themselves against outright rejection. Women like the Syrophoenician who chased after Jesus and insisted on his help for her daughter (Mark 7:24-30) and the hemorrhaging woman who navigated the crowd despite the danger of being exposed (Mark 5:24-34) risked rejection, shame, and disappointment. Yet they sought his help anyway. And at the end of his life, it was his female disciples who stuck with him—both at the cross and at his tomb to care for his body. Because they were there (while the apostles fled and hid), they were also blessed to be the first witnesses to his resurrection and the first to see his resurrected and glorified body. Mary Magdalene, for instance, had the honor of receiving the mandate to go and tell the others that he had risen from the dead (John 20:11-18)! 

FAITH 

Women who encountered Jesus typically displayed a level of faith that far surpassed that of the apostles (there often was a deliberate juxtaposition of their relative faith and lack of faith, respectively). Several times, Jesus called attention to the women’s faith as models for his followers, and he lauded their faith because of the difficulties they faced in seeking him. It was no coincidence, then, that the two women mentioned above—the Syrophoenician woman and the hemorrhaging woman—were proclaimed to have the kind of faith that Jesus later claimed can move mountains (Mark 11:22-25). Of all the disciples, Martha gave the most robust confession of faith (John 11:20-27). And in the early days of the church, other female disciples showed great faith. Lydia heard the gospel, was moved as the Lord opened her heart, and demonstrated her faithfulness by showing hospitality to God’s missionaries (Acts 16:11-15, 40). Rhoda—a servant girl in the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark—was the only disciple in the house who believed that God’s angel had miraculously broken Peter out of prison (Acts 12:6-19). 

LISTENING AND LEARNING 

Too often, Jesus encountered people who believed they had a handle on what God was doing—people who were seriously misinterpreting God’s priorities and who found themselves in opposition to him. The development of the theme of Jesus’ conflict with the religious authorities in the Gospels is well known, but less obvious are the times when even the twelve apostles opposed or dismissed his claims (Mark 5:31; 8:14-21; 14:26-31). By contrast, no female disciple is presented in this way. Instead, the women who followed Jesus were committed to him, and in their commitment, they deliberately sought to listen and learn from him, even when he made challenging or unexpected statements.  

Sisters Mary and Martha showed him hospitality, served him, and sat at his feet—the posture of a disciple who is learning from the teacher (Luke 10:39). In John’s Gospel, the Samaritan woman at the well willingly engaged in extended conversation with Jesus (John 4:7-26). That conversation started with the woman’s incredulity (“Why is a Jewish man asking a Samaritan woman for water?”) and ended with her enthusiastic witness to his identity as the Messiah, which led to the conversion of many in her city. John deliberately contrasted this with two different responses to Jesus: Nicodemus, who started off wanting to learn from Jesus, but only at night, in secret, and with no immediate outcome from that encounter (John 3:1-21); and the apostles, who left for a Taco Bell run and returned perplexed at Jesus’s actions in conversing with the woman, while being overly concerned that he should eat his lunch (John 4:27-38)! 

SELFLESSNESS OVER SELF-PROTECTION 

According to Jesus, a key feature of discipleship is the willingness to be selfless, rather than being consumed with our own self-preservation. We can see this most clearly in his claim that following him means “taking up your cross” (Mark 8:34) and in his corrections to those who thought that they would somehow benefit from their relationship with him by receiving earthly power and privilege (Mark 10:35-45). Instead, Jesus called his followers to—shockingly—follow him. He walked a path that led in the direction of sacrificial death for the sake of others. Peppered throughout the Gospel narratives are examples of women who seem to grasp this requirement better than some of their male peers. Jesus chose a poor widow’s sacrificial offering of the very last of her money as an object lesson for the apostles (Mark 12:41-44). A group of women used their status and financial means to fund his ministry, risking ostracization from their family and wealthy peers (Luke 8:1-3). And, most importantly, the ones who risked being captured as followers of Jesus upon his arrest were overwhelmingly the female disciples, who stood near the cross, followed his body to its burial, and ventured back to the tomb to care for him on the third day (Matthew 27:55—28:10). The women’s “nearness” to Jesus is deliberately contrasted with Peter’s unequivocal denial of Jesus when confronted and the disciples hiding behind locked doors in fear and despair (Matthew 26:69-75; John 20:19). 

WOMEN OF ACTION 

What do all these women (and so many more!) have in common? They are women of action. The women who encountered Jesus were changed by their encounter with him, and they responded appropriately—with acts of service and faith and selflessness and courage and conviction. Even when doubted, even when dismissed by fellow believers, they remained committed to Jesus’ commands and convinced in the truth of his identity. For these disciples, faith was not just a verbal declaration, but an outpouring of tangible practices in the world. In other words, what they believe led them to live it out, just as Jesus did.  

Female discipleship in the Gospels becomes, then, a model for all believers. May we have the same courage and conviction that these women did—to follow Jesus and to demonstrate his love in our own lives. May we tell their stories alongside the stories of the apostles. Because this Story can change the world. 

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Dr. Holly J. Carey serves as professor of biblical studies and as chair, Department of Biblical Studies, at Point University, West Point, Ga. This essay originally appeared in the Fall 2023 issue of Point Magazine. 

Dr. Carey’s new book, Women Who Do: Female Disciples in the Bible, more fully develops some of the ideas discussed in this essay. The book, published by Eerdmans, also is available at Amazon.