"Was it mere chance that Mary Magdalene lived there? Or might something have been afoot in Magdala that helped turn her into one of Jesus’s most devoted acolytes—a woman who funds his work out of her own wealth and follows him all the way to the cross, and the tomb, in Jerusalem, even as other disciples abandon him?"
To wit: it's easy to preach to others to sell everything you own and give to the poor when you have a sugar momma in your corner.
Actually the evidence is that many women followed him and put their possessions, whatever they were, at his disposal in obedience to his teaching. There is no prejudice in the term "substance" as if it described great wealth, average wealth, or poverty.
"And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him, And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others [females], which ministered unto him of their substance."
-- Luke 8:1ff.
To wit: it's easy to preach to others to sell everything you own and give to the poor when you have a sugar momma in your corner.
Actually the evidence is that many women followed him and put their possessions, whatever they were, at his disposal in obedience to his teaching. There is no prejudice in the term "substance" as if it described great wealth, average wealth, or poverty.
"And it came to pass afterward, that he went throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him, And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod's steward, and Susanna, and many others [females], which ministered unto him of their substance."
-- Luke 8:1ff.
