In the Greco-Roman world, women were treated differently than they are treated in our world today. In fact, they were sometimes put in the same category as slaves and servants. As Dr. Lynne Hilton Wilson explains, women were expected to be “unseen and unheard,” and there was even a women’s section of the home and a men’s section of the home. There were significant repercussions with this. For example, Dr. Wilson writes, “If you are segregated, you don’t understand each other. You’re not communicating with each other, and the communication becomes a huge issue.”
Women were married as young as 12 and a half years old, and called their husbands “master.” Dr. Wilson explains that there was a Jewish priest named Josephus who was captured by the Romans and who wrote out the Roman history. Josephus taught that women were inferior in all things to men. But when Christ came, and as He walked with his disciples, he treated women differently. He invited them into spaces where they had previously not been welcomed. He called them to speak and to witness of His divinity.
Listen to the full episode here or in the player below. You can also read a full transcript here.
This excerpt has been edited for clarity.
Morgan Jones: You mentioned earlier that women and children were sometimes put in the same category as slaves or servants. Did Jesus address that?
Lynne Hilton Wilson: Oh, good question. ... [A] couple of gospels talk about His advice to different people. And servants come to Him and [say], "What should we do?" And He says, "Obey your master." And then slave owners come and He says, "What should we do?" He says, "Be nice to your servants." But He never says [to] get rid of servitude. So this is sort of interesting too, because a half of the population of Jerusalem are either slaves or servants. One-third of the Roman Empire are slaves or servants. Every middle-class home had about eight slaves or servants. This is an enormous part of the population.
And yet our Savior says in multiple places, "I came to serve, not to be served. I came to minister, not to be ministered unto." And if you remember at the Last Supper, what He does when He takes off His cloak, He puts on the apron and He washes the Apostles’ feet. You know, this was the antithesis of what a master teacher should be doing. ... Their hierarchy was so clearly lined up.
In fact, I'll just give you a little deviation on this story for a little background. In the ancient world, ... often the disciples would take on [the] job of a slave so that they could spend more time with their master teacher. You know, "Let me come in and help feed you. Let me come in and help you get on your 35 pounds of a white wool toga every morning."
Morgan Jones: “Just to be close to you."
Lynne Hilton Wilson: "Just to have five more minutes with you in your office time." And so they had these rules that a disciple of a master teacher could do the [job] of a slave child up to a point, and that was the washing of feet. And a disciple could never wash the master teacher’s feet. It's too demeaning. It's too humbling. And so what does John the Baptist say? "I am not worthy to even unlace the leather strap of His sandals." So, “I'm not worthy to be a slave."
And then Christ comes and tells Peter, "I'm gonna wash your feet" or all the Apostles. And Peter says, "Never, never, are you going to wash my feet." I just see Christ, instead of liberating them from servitude, Christ wants to teach masters how to serve. Christ denounces the masters over and over and over.
I love when He says, "He who sits in Moses's seat," which would be saying [the equivalent of,] "He usually sits in the red chairs at general conference," you know, Moses's seat means in the synagogue, you're sitting on the stand, you're the one conducting the meeting. He says, "I don't want to sit there. I want to sit down in the nursery. I want to be with the kids."
Christ's actions repeatedly over and over say, "I want to be a servant. And if you want to serve me, you need to be a servant." And about 150 years before Christ, some of the Jewish rabbis combed through the Hebrew Bible and found as many prophecies as they could of the coming Messiah. And they pulled them all out so they'd be ready for the Messiah.
Everybody knows He's born in Bethlehem. Everybody knows He's going to duh, duh, duh—but they never took the verses from Isaiah that talk about a suffering servant that we sing about in the Messiah now. "He plucketh out the hair," or "His palms were engraved," you know, "Shall a nursing mother forget her son, no." You know, "His palms are engraved." Or those beautiful chapters of Isaiah 52 and 53 were never [removed].
They never saw their promised Messiah as one who would be a servant. And yet Christ came as a servant, and wanted to teach masters how to serve. And so, when you asked, "Did Christ ever liberate the slaves? And how did He treat women and children?" I think He taught us to honor children more than we honor adults. And He taught us to honor women in all the categories that were important. "I want you to allow them to learn at my feet like Mary and Martha, I want you to allow them to learn of the scriptures. To become literate."
"I want the women to be a voice. In fact, all my first witnesses are going to be women. I want Elizabeth to have a voice and Zacharias, the priesthood holder, to be silent. I want Mary to be the one who first Has my voice. I want Mary Magdalene to go tell the Apostles that she has seen me, because I am trying to cut down so many layers and layers and layers of bad habits. I am going to really exaggerate what I'm trying to do here and have these women with me witnessing."
So did He get rid of slavery? No, but He emancipated women and children and servants and slaves and He brought the high and mighty down so that we could all learn how to be patient, long-suffering, gentle, meek, [and] kind.