Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Women Who Provided
Luke 8:1-3
1 Soon afterwards, he went about through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good news of God’s Kingdom. With him were the twelve, · WEB
Three verses naming the women who traveled with him and paid for the work out of their own money.
Soon afterwards, he went about through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good news of God's Kingdom. With him were the twelve Luke 8:1.
The itinerary is ordinary and the next two verses are not. Only this Gospel records them, and they answer a question the other accounts never raise: how a group of a dozen men who had left their trades ate.
And certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities Luke 8:2.
They are introduced by what had happened to them. Every one of them was there because of something he had done for her, which is a different footing from the twelve — the men were called, the women were healed and then stayed.
Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out. She is named first and named by her town, which means she had no husband or father to be named by. What is recorded of her past is the worst case in the list, and it is stated flatly. She will be at the cross when the twelve are not, and she will be first at the tomb.
And Joanna, the wife of Chuzas, Herod's steward Luke 8:3. This is the surprise. Her husband managed the household of Herod Antipas — the man who had just imprisoned John and would later want to see a miracle. A senior court official's wife is walking Galilean roads with fishermen and a former tax collector, and she too will be at the tomb Luke 24:10.
Between Mary of Magdala and Joanna the social distance is about as wide as that country allowed.
Susanna; and many others who served them from their possessions. The last clause is the point of the paragraph. The women were not passengers; they were funding it. From their possessions means their own money, and many others means this was not two or three exceptional cases.
So the movement that had nothing — no place to lay his head, three chapters from now — was in practice supported by women with means, and this book says so without ceremony. It also quietly explains where its own information came from. Somebody was present for all of this and remembered the names, including the name of a steward's wife nobody else thought to record.
settled What this mark means