Magdalene's Story
Mary Magdalene:
An Early Church Leader
I am Mary of Magdala – one of history’s most controversial women, and one of Jesus Christ’s women disciples present at the Last Supper.
I urge you to be careful what you read and assume about me, for there are many religious scholars as well as others who seek to discredit both our Lord and me. Unfortunately, their speculations overlook definite clues about me in the Gospels.
But fortunately, the most significant event of my life is clearly recorded in the Bible and cannot be misunderstood – I was the first witness of our resurrected Lord. Isn’t that amazing affirmation for women of all time, everywhere?
Because I was the first to speak with Jesus after his resurrection and then to tell the good news to his disciples, I was known in the early years of the Church as “an apostle to the apostles.” Some even called me the “thirteenth apostle.” That was before much of my life’s story became hidden and then forgotten.
Indeed, my life was much like that of the twelve apostles, as the men disciples closest to Jesus came to be called. Like them, for many years I traveled widely to share the good news of the Messiah. I, too, started churches and performed many miracles in the name of our Lord. And like the twelve apostles, I instructed and encouraged the early believers. I even wrote a Gospel, though only fragments of it remain for today’s scholars to debate.
With the passing of centuries, for some reason the record of my role in the early days of Christianity has faded and nearly disappeared in the Western church. But not in the Eastern churches. . .
(For the rest of the story, contact millie@milliesbooks.org.)
