Women in Christ: Learning from Women in the Scriptures

So I changed my mind a bit about what I wanted to do for today’s Women in Christ post. Originally I had planned to start in on some discussions about some of my favorite women from the scriptures. I decided that I really wanted to hit some other things I felt were more pressing first. I couldn’t bypass it all together though so for this week I’d like to have a discussion about things you’ve learned as you’ve read or studied the women in the scriptures.

Last October I finished up a yearlong challenge to read through all the scriptures taking a closer look at the women that are mentioned. Did you know that there are over 200 women in the Old and New Testaments mentioned specifically, many by name? If you belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we have another 50 or so in our additional scriptures. This doesn’t even include all the generic daughters and wives mentioned. Isn’t that amazing! I knew that there were a lot of women in the scriptures that never really get mentioned or talked about much but until I took the challenge I couldn’t believe how many stories I never knew. It was amazing to me to see for good and bad just how much of an impact women have had on the history of the world according to the scriptures.

Just as some interesting food for thought – here are just a few of the lessons I learned from the women in the scriptures:

• Families and the work of motherhood is very important to God and His eternal plan.
• We are called to be equal partners with our husbands.
• God can work miracles through His daughters, even when we don’t believe it’s possible.
• Simple acts of service can place us in the right place at the right time to fulfill our destinies in ways that are beyond our current comprehension.
• We can have the gift of prophecy.
• Faith, fasting, and prayer by a virtuous woman can save an entire nation.
• Christ hears our prayers.
• Christ can heal us of all our pains and sicknesses and sorrows.
•  It doesn’t matter to Christ what race or nationality we are born into.
• When we give our best efforts Christ will bless it and sanctify it.
• When we set an example of faithfulness, our families and children will be blessed.
• Everyone has moments of doubt – it’s how we handle those doubts that defines us.

What are some things that you have learned from the stories of the women in the scriptures? Do you have favorites? Is there a woman whose story really touched you?

If you haven’t yet, will you take the challenge to read through the scriptures focusing on the women? As you go through mark the passages that talk about women and try to write down at least the names of the women that you come across. If you really get into it, thanks to modern technology you can learn a lot more about these women than ever before. I really believe that knowing more about the women from the scriptures will help us to more fully understand the power and influence that women have on the world around them.