🌿 Trusted with His Message

When we picture Yahusha’s (Jesus’) disciples, most of us default to the Twelve.

Bearded fishermen. A tax collector. A zealot.
You know the lineup.

But here’s what often gets missed:

There were women.

Not just background characters with baskets of bread.
Not just weeping at the cross or oiling feet in sentimental side scenes.

They followed Him.
They learned from Him.
They financially supported the ministry.

And when all the male disciples were hiding in fear?

They showed up.

These women weren’t just along for the ride.
They were witnesses. Disciples. Messengers.

And Yahusha never once told them to go home and be quiet.
In fact, He entrusted them with the most important message the world had ever heard:

“He is risen.”

So if the Son of Elohiym (God) had no problem discipling women,
why has the Church?

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📚 Spiritual Apprenticeship

When Scripture lists the people traveling with Yahusha, a surprising detail shows up—not once, but multiple times:

“And certain women, which had been healed of evil ruachoth (spirits) and infirmities, Miryam (Mary) called Magdalene… and Yochanah (Joanna)… and Shushanah (Susanna)… which ministered unto him of their substance.”
-Luqas (Luke) 8:2–3, Cepher

These weren’t just tagalongs or groupies.
They were students. Supporters. Spiritual apprentices.

They weren’t “helping with the hospitality team.”
They were financing the movement, traveling alongside the Messiah, and learning at His feet—just like the Twelve.

These women had something the Pharisees didn’t:
Eyes to see. Ears to hear. Hearts that followed.

Yahusha didn’t segregate spiritual growth by sex.
He didn’t limit Torah teaching to men.
He didn’t just heal women—He trained them.

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📖 Their Stories: Why These Women Followed

The women who followed Yahusha weren’t random additions to His ministry. Each had a story, a reason, a turning point.

Miryam (Mary) of Magdala had been possessed by seven unclean ruachoth (spirits)—a number indicating total bondage. Her healing was more than physical; it was a total reclaiming of her life, her identity, her dignity. No wonder she never left His side.

Yochanah (Joanna) was the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household. That puts her squarely in the elite class. Her choice to follow a homeless rabbi meant walking away from the protection, prestige, and power of the Roman system. But she traded status for truth—and gave her resources to the Kingdom.

Shushanah (Susanna) isn’t given a backstory in Scripture—but she’s named alongside these women, which says enough. In a patriarchal culture where women’s names were rarely preserved, her inclusion speaks to her faithfulness and value in the early movement.

There’s also Miryam of Beyt-Anyah (Mary of Bethany)—who sat at Yahusha’s feet like a talmid (disciple), and Martha, her sister, who despite her busyness declared one of the clearest confessions of faith in the entire Besorah (Gospel):

“I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of Elohiym, which should come into the world.”
-Yochanon (John) 11:27, Cepher

These women weren’t on the sidelines. They were front-row students of the Messiah.

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📜 Discipleship in First-Century Context

In the first-century Jewish world, to be a disciple—a talmid—meant far more than attending the occasional Torah study or quoting your favorite rabbi. It meant living life alongside your teacher, imitating not just what they said, but how they walked, prayed, ate, taught, and engaged the world. You didn’t just follow their teachings—you followed them.

And this path?
It was exclusively male.

Rabbis didn’t invite women to sit under their instruction. In many synagogues, women weren’t even allowed to speak. Their spiritual lives were expected to play out in private, not in public ministry or theological debate.

So when Yahusha (Jesus) allows—no, welcomes—women into His inner circle of disciples?

That wasn’t just countercultural.
It was revolutionary.

He called them by name.
He taught them directly.
He let them sit at His feet—a position reserved for male students.
(Luqas [Luke] 10:39)

So if you think letting a woman lead a Bible study is progressive…
Yahusha handed them the gospel.
Told them, “Go.”
And they did.

He gave them not just access, but authority: to learn, to proclaim, to testify, and to carry the weight of His message into the world.

Yahusha wasn’t just breaking the mold.
He was restoring what had been broken since the garden: a model of co-laboring, where male and female both bear His image and His commission.

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🪨 The Ones Who Stayed—and Spoke

The crucifixion was not exactly a moment of glory for the Twelve.

Judas betrayed.
Peter denied.
The rest? Scattered.

“Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.”
–Mattithyahu (Matthew) 26:56, Cepher

By the time Yahusha hung on the cross, only one male disciple—Yochanon (John)—is named as present:

“Now there stood by the cross of Yahusha his mother, and his mother’s sister, Miryam the woman of Qlophah, and Miryam of Migdal… and the disciple whom he loved…”
–Yochanon (John) 19:25–26, Cepher

When the sun darkened and the world shook, the women didn’t run.
They didn’t hide behind locked doors or blend into the crowd.

They stayed.

They wept.
They watched.
They bore witness.

And when the worst was over, while the others remained in hiding:

“The doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Yahudiym (Jews)…”
–Yochanon (John) 20:19, Cepher

The women went to the tomb.
Carrying spices. Carrying sorrow. Ready to tend to His body—until they found it missing.

“He is not here, but is risen…”
–Luqas (Luke) 24:6, Cepher

The first resurrection announcement was not made in a synagogue, or a palace, or even to Peter.

It was spoken to women.
And it was they who were sent to tell the others.

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🧾 “He Never Sent Women”

You may have heard it before:
“If Yah wanted women to lead or teach, Yahusha would’ve chosen female apostles.”

But that line of reasoning misses the entire arc of what Yahusha did choose.

He discipled women.
He taught them Torah.
He trusted them to testify.
He sent them with the most important message in human history:
He is risen.

And that commission?
It was a divine preview of what restored image-bearing looks like.

The gospel never needed a male-exclusive messenger.

Yahusha didn’t just permit women to speak—He positioned them.
Not in rebellion, but in response.
Not to flip a power structure, but to reveal a Kingdom model the world wasn’t ready for.

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🪞 The Second Adam

Paul called Yahusha the “last Adam”:

“And so it is written, The first Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening Ruach (Spirit).”
—1 Qorintiym (1 Corinthians) 15:45, Cepher

That’s not just a poetic flourish—it’s a theological bombshell.

Even in Enoch — a text Yahusha’s own disciples read and quoted — the story of Adam’s failure was never the end. A Son of Man was promised who would restore what was broken. Paul calls Him the last Adam, and we know Him as Yahusha (Jesus).

“For that Son of Man has appeared, and has seated himself upon the throne of his glory, and all evil will vanish from before his face.”
—1 Chanok (1 Enoch) 69:11–12, Cepher

If the first Adam’s failure plunged us into sin, the second Adam’s obedience opened the door back to Eden’s design.

And what was that design? Shared image-bearing. Co-dominion.

“So Elohiym (God) created the man in his own image, in the image of Elohiym created he him; male and female created he them. And Elohiym blessed them, and Elohiym said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
—Bere’shiyth (Genesis) 1:27–28, Cepher

So if we really believe Yahusha’s sacrifice covers our sins, shouldn’t redemption look like restoration? Not clinging to the curse, but walking back toward the blueprint?

What makes so many fight to preserve the results of the fall—hierarchy, domination, silence—when we’ve been given a kinsman redeemer?

He didn’t redeem us just to leave us in broken patterns. He redeemed us to restore the image of Elohiym in both man and woman.

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🙌🏼 In Conclusion

The Kingdom was never meant to mirror the fallout of sin. It was always meant to mirror the garden.

Yehusha didn’t flinch when a woman broke protocol to sit at His feet as a disciple.
He didn’t scold her for asking questions—or for wiping His feet with her tears.
He didn’t send her away when she clung to Him in the garden, desperate to hold onto hope.
He didn’t rebuke her voice.

He didn’t see women as spiritual liabilities.
He saw them as image-bearers.
As disciples.
As witnesses.
As partners in the Kingdom.

So if you’re following the footsteps of the Rabbi from Natsareth (Nazareth),
you don’t silence women.

You listen.
Because that’s what He did.