“He was traveling from one town and village to another, preaching and telling the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women… Mary, called Magdalene…; Joanna…; Susanna; and many others who were supporting them from their possessions.”
Luke 8:1–3 · CSB
Luke slips it in almost as an aside: as Jesus went from town to town, there were women with Him — some named, most not — who “were supporting them from their possessions.” The mission that would reach the ends of the earth was, in its earliest days, quietly underwritten by women whose names the world forgot.
They were there at the cross when most of the men had scattered. They were there at the burial, marking where the body was laid. And on the first day of the week, before sunrise, they were there again with spices — and found the stone rolled away.
So it was to women that the news was first entrusted: “He is not here; he has risen.” In a world where a woman's testimony was not accepted in court, God chose them as the first witnesses of the one fact the whole faith stands on.
Heaven's economy is not the world's. The people who bankrolled the gospel and first proclaimed the resurrection are, for the most part, a list that trails off into “and many others.” If your service for Christ is unseen and unrecorded, you are in the oldest and best company.
The first preachers of the resurrection were women the world would have overlooked.
A note on sources
- Documented: Luke 8:1–3; Luke 23–24; the resurrection accounts in all four Gospels.