Denigrating Jesus

The denigration of Jesus is subtle. Those who do it are seemingly unaware that they are belittling Christ himself, when what they really seek to accomplish is the denigration of women.

“Rabbi, we have brought food. Eat something.”

“I am not hungry.”

It had been a long day of walking and now they were in Samaria, near Jacob’s Well. The disciples were hungry and had left Jesus by the well while they went into the shops to purchase food. But now he would not eat. They had hurried back with a bag of food so they could feed their teacher. They were surprised to find him still at the well talking to a Samaritan woman, but they knew enough by now not to comment on it. He had often engaged in conversation with women. By this time they were used to it, and even a Samaritan woman did not cause them consternation. What they did comment about was that Jesus was not hungry. (John 4:1-26)

“I’m not hungry.”

“Did someone bring you food? We were starving and you must be, too.”

“I have food to eat that you know nothing about. My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”

The conversation Jesus had with this woman at the well had an effect on Jesus that all the preaching the disciples had done failed to accomplish.

Jesus had given the word to a woman and now look at her. There she goes! She is telling all, just as he had commissioned the male disciples to do. “Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” This woman was harvesting!

A man wrote me and said that the Samaritan woman’s preaching was not effective, and to prove it, he quoted Acts 8:1-6: “Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them and the people with one accord gave heed unto the things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.” That man then asked me: Does this not indicate that the “ministry” of the ‘Woman at the Well’ was not effective? It also indicates that it was a male, an appointed Deacon, who preached to the Samarians and baptized many.”

His comments denigrate Jesus even though his intent was to denigrate the woman at the well by belittling the effectiveness of her preaching.

In Luke 10, Jesus tells them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” A woman was sent out, and a woman harvested, and now men seek to take that away from her, and by taking it away from her, they seek to deny all women the right to harvest.

I wish I could say, “God forgive them, for they know not what they do.” But I do not believe that. They do know what they are doing. They claim to be Bible scholars, and to have the Word of Truth. Yet they deny the Person who is the Word of Truth because it doesn’t fit into their way of thinking. They are unwilling to let Jesus himself speak to them.

Will you call out the men who are false teachers, and men who seek to denigrate women, and who use any means to do so?