We are often told stories about the special relationship between Jesus Christ and his 12 Apostles, but, if one reads through the new testament, there is ample evidence to believe Jesus was influenced far more by the women in his life, than by Thomas, Peter or John the Baptist. In fact, many of the parables in the bible include female characters such as the lady at the well, Mary Magdalene and Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Nearly all such characters play a loving and important role in the life of Jesus Christ.
Jesus had an attitude about women that was new and unusual in those times. Many of those that he healed were socially marginalized prostitutes, widows and foreigners. Some of the most famous quotes from the bible involved women. One of the most spoken lines from the bible “let he who is without sin, cast the first stone” was Jesus defending a woman that was accused of being caught in the act of adultery. It is a proverb repeated daily all throughout the earth. He was not condoning adultery, but merely pointing out that the men involved in trying to stone this woman were themselves sinners and hypocrites. He also told the woman to ‘sin no more’, meaning Jesus really wanted people to repent of their sins.
In fact, it is clear from the begriming that women followed Jesus everywhere he went, right up to the time of his death. It was even a woman, Mary Magdalene that found he was no longer in the tomb. Her words “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.” (John 20:13).
Probably the most important woman in Jesus’s life was his mother, Mary. Nowhere throughout the bible did Jesus suffer such sorrow as when he handed her over to the Apostles just before his death. Like any mother, she must have surely suffered the most when she watched him being crucified and humiliated upon the cross. She was picked by God to be the mother of Jesus Christ, so she obviously had a special character that made her the ideal women to carry out such a job. He personally requested that the apostles make her their own mother, to look after her and care for her as long as they were alive. It could easily be said that women, and not the 12 apostles were the most influential figures in the life of Jesus Christ.
