Her Story
Her Story with Grace and Peace Joanne, LLC, seeks to retell the stories of women who were divinely called and empowered to do great things.
Many of them rose to the occasion, and a few very famously did not.
Often, the tragedies and triumphs in their lives are missed, their accounts sidelined, and their portrayals given from perspectives that dismiss the honor and dignity they deserve.
Excavating their narratives from millennia of obfuscation, we now meet the freshly restored, valiant, vivid, and sometimes villainous women of the Bible.
Her Story offers a deep appreciation for God’s work and call in and through women in the scriptures and encourages you and me to take practical steps towards recognition and support of women in all levels and varieties of ministry and spiritual leadership today.
Her Story
Season 6, Christ's Ministry: The Sinful Woman
We don’t know this woman’s backstory at all, whether she was young or old, her culture or clan. Some in our Bible study thought perhaps she was the woman who had committed adultery and was forgiven privately by Jesus after everyone had left (John 8:11).
Maybe!
We really have no information on her at all but what is given in this text.
Back in 591 A.D. Pope Gregory preached an Easter sermon in which he combined the stories of Mary the Magdalene with Mary of Bethany and the woman in this story, which then gave Mary of Magdala the reputation of being a repentant prostitute or a promiscuous woman.
But, if you read the passage carefully you see this is not the same event as when Mary of Bethany anointed Jesus at Simon the Leper’s house. And the woman in this story is also not Mary Magdalene, who had been released from seven spirits in a miraculous healing.
The woman in this story had lived a sinful life was most likely a prostitute. At the very least, she had a reputation. Whatever her growing up story, there were traumas and soul wounds. Then she met Jesus.
Before we get started with this woman’s story, I’d like to say her traditional title of “the sinful woman” is very misleading. In this story, she is portrayed as the devoted-to-Jesus woman, the forgiven-by-Jesus woman, the living-portrait-of-love-sacrifice-and-bold-faith woman.
Her sinful past was only noted by the Pharisee sitting next to Jesus.
To Jesus, she was one who loved much, and he received her.
So, I’d like to reframe her story as
I The Forthcoming Woman, Luke 7:36-38
II The Favored Woman, Luke 7:39-43
III The Faithful Woman, Luke 7:44-47
IV The Forgiven Woman, Luke 7:48-50
To view the original YouTube presentation, click on "The Sinful Woman"
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Each podcast is designed to offer background scholarship on the topic, including setting, culture, original language, and archaeology, as well as a theological study.
Grace and Peace, Joanne Website
Biblical exegesis from an equalitarian point of view
Books by Joanne
"Broken, Searching, Trusted, Powerful"
"Love Feast"
Forty Freebies
If you would like a set of forty Bible studies on Women in the Bible, complete with fifteen study questions, commentary, a bibliograp...