“He … has broken down the middle wall of separation.”
(Eph 2:14, NKJV)
Separation was thus the principle upon which worship was practiced within the temple, in the context of Jewish religion, at the time of Jesus’ ministry. This strictly enforced the distinction between God and man, Jews and non-Jews, men and women, priests and ordinary people. Although the Torah did in some cases make specific distinctions between certain groups these were not legal prescriptions as the traditions later rendered it.
The temple of Herod – which was not, like the temples of Solomon and Zerubabbel, commissioned by God – thus had (different from the explicit prescriptions) different segregating sections which had to enforce this separation (Mishnah Midoth 2.5). The historian Josephus writes of how, for instance, the women’s section could only be reached through outside gates and outer sets of stairs, which brought about that women were completely separated from men during the events at the temple, something which had not been decreed by God, but had been institutionalised by humans in power, through male prejudice and human tradition.
It is very important to realise that this is the intellectual climate in which Jesus had to live and learn. Still, based on his exegesis of for instance 1 Cor 14:34-35 and 1 Tim 2:12 the great Reformed father John Calvin made it explicitly clear that women were created inferior and thus had to be dominated and controlled by men (Charles Trombley: Who said women can’t teach?, p.8). The Jewish thoughts perpetuated by tradition even found its way into the Reformation, and are still, in our modern era, a point of debate in synods of, for example, the Reformed Church. Added to this we find that this disregarding of women has alas been engraved into our spiritual collective consciousness, a state which can most accurately be described as misogyny.
The dictionary defines misogyny as an unfounded prejudice and discrimination against women; even unspoken hatred of women. Jesus is born and grows up in this misogynist community and comes in close contact with this female stereotyping. The intense danger for a man who grows up within such a thought climate is to keep the status quo for the sake of personal comfort and advantage.
But Jesus had been different from the start. There are various instances of Jesus interacting with women which has been recorded in the gospels and from which one can understand why Matt 27:55 says, at the end of his life – “And many women followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to Him, were there looking on from afar.”
When a woman wanted to anoint him with very expensive and precious oil, in preparation of his death, and the disciples, in a bout of religious self-righteousness scolded her, Jesus told them, “Why are you vexing her? For she has done a most gracious act towards me.” (Mat 26:10, WNT). The word vex includes the entire repertoire of words in the lexicon of misogyny – “To plague; to torment; to harass; to afflict; to disturb; to disquiet; to agitate; to trouble; to distress; to persecute.”
Jesus came to destroy the wall of separation between man and woman. Jesus still asks, to Calvin et al. – “Why are you vexing her? For she has done a most gracious act towards me.”
- Sela: Pray about the misogyny of your immediate society.
- Read: Gen 40-42
- Examine how this has been fulfilled: Gen 41:46 (tip: 2 Sam 5:4 and Luke 3:23).
- For a deeper understanding: Read Charles Trombley’s Who said women can’t teach?
