Luke 8:1-3 (ESV)
Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.
Today we have mega churches. They are set up in highly populated areas and are designed to attract and titillate those who arrive with coffee bars, warm furniture and entertaining music and message. They have multiple staff, assigned to expert, categorical areas of interest for the purpose of ministering to ever demographic of the community. These ministries are not wrong. However, they are NOTHING like the ministry of Jesus. His ministry was to the rural areas of villages. His pulpit was a hillside, a boat, a well. His team were fishermen, a tax collector, a vagabond found under a tree and a future betrayer. He also had the ministry of women. A scribe or teacher in that day would not have, as their entourage, women at all, much less the women mentioned in the above passage. Jesus’ ministry was with the weak for the weak. Jesus’ ministry was about proclaiming the gospel message in simple terms to those of simple means. Jesus had no coffee bars. He did have five loaves and two fishes that he borrowed to feed 5,000 people. But, not lattes or frappes.
It is interesting that there was a member of Herod’s household that Jesus both healed and commandeered. This is the same Herod who tried to kill him as a baby and had His cousin, John-the-Baptist, killed. It is amazing that Jesus is ministering in the towns and villages of Galilee, serving the weak and He ends up drawing the manager of from the most powerful political circle of the land. This is the power of the Gospel. There is no where the Gospel can’t reach. Ask Jonah about that. He would not go to the Ninevites because he didn’t want them to hear the Gospel. Jesus healed the manager of Herod’s household. Jesus talked to a woman caught in adultery and reached her. Jesus taught against adultery and divorce and then meet the woman at the well with open arms.
Our design for ministry follows the patterns of the world around us. Perhaps, we should consider, at least in some way, the pattern of Jesus’ ministry. He used a small unprofessional group of people, who were saved by grace, to turn the world upside down.
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