The Third Preaching Tour

150:2.1As the apos­tolic party jour­neyed from Beth­saida, the women trav­eled in the rear. Dur­ing the con­fer­ence time they al­ways sat in a group in front and to the right of the speaker. In­creas­ingly, women had be­come be­liev­ers in the gospel of the king­dom, and it had been a source of much dif­fi­culty and no end of em­bar­rass­ment when they had de­sired to hold per­sonal con­verse with Je­sus or one of the apos­tles. Now all this was changed. When any of the women be­liev­ers de­sired to see the Mas­ter or con­fer with the apos­tles, they went to Su­sanna, and in com­pany with one of the twelve women evan­ge­lists, they would go at once into the pres­ence of the Mas­ter or one of his apos­tles.

150:2.2It was at Mag­dala that the women first demon­strated their use­ful­ness and vin­di­cated the wis­dom of their choos­ing. An­drew had im­posed rather strict rules upon his as­so­ciates about do­ing per­sonal work with women, es­pe­cially with those of ques­tion­able char­ac­ter. When the party en­tered Mag­dala, these ten women evan­ge­lists were free to en­ter the evil re­sorts and preach the glad tid­ings di­rectly to all their in­mates. And when vis­it­ing the sick, these women were able to draw very close in their min­istry to their af­flicted sis­ters. As the re­sult of the min­istry of these ten women (af­ter­ward known as the twelve women) at this place, Mary Mag­da­lene was won for the king­dom. Through a suc­ces­sion of mis­for­tunes and in con­se­quence of the at­ti­tude of rep­u­ta­ble so­ci­ety to­ward women who com­mit such er­rors of judg­ment, this woman had found her­self in one of the ne­far­i­ous re­sorts of Mag­dala. It was Martha and Rachel who made plain to Mary that the doors of the king­dom were open to even such as she. Mary be­lieved the good news and was bap­tized by Pe­ter the next day.

150:2.3Mary Mag­da­lene be­came the most ef­fec­tive teacher of the gospel among this group of twelve women evan­ge­lists. She was set apart for such ser­vice, to­gether with Re­becca, at Jo­ta­p­ata about four weeks sub­se­quent to her con­ver­sion. Mary and Re­becca, with the oth­ers of this group, went on through the re­main­der of Je­sus’ life on earth, la­bor­ing faith­fully and ef­fec­tively for the en­light­en­ment and up­lift­ing of their down­trod­den sis­ters; and when the last and tragic episode in the drama of Je­sus’ life was be­ing en­acted, not­with­stand­ing the apos­tles all fled but one, these women were all pres­ent, and not one ei­ther de­nied or be­trayed him.