How Jesus Christ Changed the World for Women

How Jesus Christ Changed the World for Women

Many times I have said in my classes, “You young women who are here today live the best lives  any women have lived in the history of the world. I congratulate you. And you live the life you live because Jesus Christ walked the earth.” In this video I want to connect the dots—how Jesus Christ has given women such wonderful lives.

It cannot be denied. Most women in history and around the world have lived lives of suffering, degradation, and early death. In the ancient world women were often viewed as property; as little more than slaves to be used and disposed of as men wished. Plato taught that if a man lived a cowardly life he would be reincarnated as a woman. And Aristotle, he of ironclad logic, said: “The male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules, and the other is ruled; this principle, of necessity, extends to all mankind.”

When the ancients disposed of babies they were almost always girls. Chinese men encouraged the horrific practice of footbinding. Men in India called upon widows to cast themselves on their husband’s burning funeral pyre. In cultures that practiced human sacrifice the victims were almost always women.

The plight of women has not changed in the modern world outside the reach of Christian culture. Elsewhere I have noted that demographers estimate there are 163 million missing girls in the world, victims of sex selection abortion. Many African tribes to this day practice female mutilation. A number of years ago I stayed in the home of an orphanage director in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He related the story of a family that lived just across the street. The mother gave birth to twins. One was a male and one was a female. The family fed the boy and starved the girl.

But for millions of modern women everything has changed. They enjoy freedom and equality with men. In the West women enjoy excellent health and have a much longer life expectancy than men. In the United States it’s about 7 years longer. In America women get more college degrees than men. Women have no limits placed upon them in job selection—or in the selection of a life’s partner. Without a doubt, this is the golden age for women.

What has changed for women in the modern world? Jesus Christ walked the earth. To see the beginning of this change we have to go back 3500 years to the writing of the words in Genesis 1:27: So God created man in his image, male and female created he them. According to the Bible women were created in the image of God.  This is the most important statement in history about women. In Jewish culture women had worth because God said they did. But Judaism was only a tiny fraction of the earth’s people. Jesus is going to take the doctrine of women’s worth and  spread it around the world. It begins in the New Testament.  Many of Jesus’ important followers are women and they are listed. At the beginning of Luke 8 we find that women form Jesus financial support group. When Jesus rose from the dead the first witnesses were women; many New Testament scholars have pointed out the significance of this in an age when women could not even testify in court. In Galatians 3 Paul says that in Jesus Christ there is neither male nor female—both have equal access to salvation. Paul names many women as critical helpers in the growth of the church. In Ephesians 5 Paul makes one of the most radical statements of all time regarding women. He says that men are to love their wives as Christ loved the church. As a number of historians have pointed out Christianity developed the only culture in world history to restrain male sexual behavior.  In fact, other religions have chided Christianity for being a woman’s religion and it is true, that around the world, the majority of Christians are women.

So we arrive at the twenty-first century. The progress has been slow and uneven, and the treatment of women is still ungodly in many parts of the world, but women under the umbrella of Western, Christian culture now live the best lives women have ever lived. And we know who to thank for that.

Thanks for listening. I have listed many resources below that expand on this topic, please check them out. May our God bless you this day in a mighty way.

More Resources:

This theme is expanded on in chapter two of my book, Seven Ideas That Changed the World. The Amazon link is here: https://www.amazon.com/Ideas-That-Changed-World-civilizations-ebook/dp/B085MM79ZB/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=seven+ideas+that+changed+the+world&qid=1584653313&sr=8-1

See also the video on the denial of sex differences: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWM8lsq5bVs

And on the biblical origin of the equality of women: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5cRM4_fAyc