INTRODUCTION
Remember those people from your past? Maybe someone who lived in your neighborhood. Maybe a school teacher who had an impact on your life. Perhaps friends, long lost or even gone now. These were real people in your life, were they not? These first ladies of the Bible are real people from our past, also.
These real-life stories will move throughout history showing the importance God holds concerning women and men and the major roles He has given them from the beginning of time.
Did they know their lives would have such an impact on the world stage? It is doubtful. Do we know that our life is making an impact in the world today? Probably not. But…it is!
God still uses people in unimaginable circumstances, we just need to be available. These women/men were nothing more than ordinary people. They were nothing remarkable, in and of themselves.
None of them were able to see into the future. We may not see the results in the here and now, but our lives can and will affect the hereafter. What is at play here is not some cute Bible story but God’s Power at work. None of these people, on their own, could have done what they accomplished.
Each of them were real everyday people going about their real everyday lives when God intervened. These very special women/men of the Bible probably did not see themselves as anyone extraordinary. Most likely they encountered the exact same feelings of inadequacy that we all experience from time to time.
Some of them were young and apprehensive, if not outright afraid. Some were quite elderly, and we have to wonder if they thought maybe they had just not heard correctly. Some were ashamed because of their past. Some had feelings of jealousy, anger, and frustration.
Some of them were respectable within their culture and circumstances. Others were complete outcasts in their communities and society at large. Some had death, dying, and destruction surrounding them. Others were the cause of the death and dying. Some lived with pagan gods or no God. Then there were those who saw their loved ones die only to return to life.
Each of them had their own personalized story. These remarkable first ladies making up the Maker’s dozen are:
Eve: shows getting what we want, when we want it, may not be a good thing after all. But…God always has a plan to fix whatever we break.
Mrs. Noah: did not allow outside influences to determine her choice to sink or swim.
Sarah: shows giving up a life of things to follow your husband, who is following God’s plan, has its own rewards.
Leah & Rachel: these two sisters show wanting what someone else has never ends well.
Rahab: chose to not go with the idea of stranger danger, but to go when the going got good.
Ruth: shows giving of yourself to others reaps the greatest of benefits.
Esther: shows it only takes one woman to preserve a whole race of people, to save an entire nation.
Anna: shows that great faith, prayer, endurance, and patience, along with great joy, brings about great reward.
Mary, the mother of Jesus: shows age and our station in life does not hinder God’s plan to do the greatest of things in and through us.
Mary Magdalene: shows standing at the foot of the cross pays great dividends. She puts a whole new spin on the term “those who are last will be first.”
Martha & Mary: Martha shows the importance of slowing down and letting God love us for who we are, not what we do. Sister Mary shows devotion to the Lord is more important than daily doings.
Samaritan Woman: shows the only true love and acceptance comes from Jesus Christ, Himself.
Lydia: shows risk taking and hospitality can grow a church and evangelize an entire continent and beyond.
All these women awoke one morning and their life and those that have followed after them, for all generations, up to and including today, were changed forever.
Many of these women left all that was known to them. What they all had in common was a willingness to give up everything familiar and follow the One True, Living God. The radical life changes these women accepted showed where their heart really was and to whom their heart truly belonged.
In every one of these women’s lives it was God’s purpose, God’s plan, and God’s power on display.
These women are proof God desires those from all backgrounds and walks of life to follow Him. He can and will work in and through our lives in important ways to influence the lives of many.
Prayerfully, one day we will get the opportunity to meet these amazing first ladies of the past. Each one of these women show all things are possible with God, no matter the circumstances.
When we surrender to God, through Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, God works in unexpected ways to show His power and reveal His love to us and through us.
Hopefully, as you read these amazing women’s stories, you will see God’s power and you will feel God’s love. God has a story for every woman who is willing to follow Him through this journey called life.
But one thing I do:
forgetting what is behind
and reaching forward
to what is ahead.
Philippians 3:13
BIBLICAL PEOPLE 