Martha (wife of Justus)

• visit of 2 courtesans

133:3.8Imag­ine the sur­prise of Jus­tus’ wife when, at this late hour, Je­sus ap­peared with Ga­nid and these two strangers, say­ing: “You will for­give us for com­ing at this hour, but Ga­nid and I de­sire a bite to eat, and we would share it with these our new-found friends, who are also in need of nour­ish­ment; and be­sides all this, we come to you with the thought that you will be in­ter­ested in coun­sel­ing with us as to the best way to help these women get a new start in life. They can tell you their story, but I sur­mise they have had much trou­ble, and their very pres­ence here in your house tes­ti­fies how earnestly they crave to know good peo­ple, and how will­ingly they will em­brace the op­por­tu­nity to show all the world—and even the an­gels of heaven—what brave and no­ble women they can be­come.”

133:3.9When Martha, Jus­tus’ wife, had spread the food on the ta­ble, Je­sus, tak­ing un­ex­pected leave of them, said: “As it is get­ting late, and since the young man’s fa­ther will be await­ing us, we pray to be ex­cused while we leave you here to­gether—three women—the beloved chil­dren of the Most High. And I will pray for your spir­i­tual guid­ance while you make plans for a new and bet­ter life on earth and eter­nal life in the great be­yond.”

133:3.10Thus did Je­sus and Ga­nid take leave of the women. So far the two cour­te­sans had said noth­ing; like­wise was Ga­nid speech­less. And for a few mo­ments so was Martha, but pres­ently she rose to the oc­ca­sion and did ev­ery­thing for these strangers that Je­sus had hoped for. The el­der of these two women died a short time there­after, with bright hopes of eter­nal sur­vival, and the younger woman worked at Jus­tus’ place of busi­ness and later be­came a life­long mem­ber of the first Chris­tian church in Corinth.