Chosen, Changed, Charitable
The glad tidings are these: All manner of sin except one shall be forgiven all men. That one is the blasphemy of the Spirit—rejecting the free gift of salvation (Matthew 12:31). Rejecting the work of Christ is the singular sin that will send a man or a woman to hell—a concept understood even in our own judicial system.…
Convicted of mail fraud in 1830, George Wilson was sentenced to death. But since Wilson’s brother had done Andrew Jackson a great personal service, President Jackson wrote George Wilson a pardon. When the pardon was delivered to his cell, however, Wilson refused to take it. The man sentenced to die refused to receive the pardon. What to do? When the case went before the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Marshall wrote this decision: A pardon is a slip of paper the value of which is determined by the acceptance of the person to be pardoned. If it is refused, it is no pardon at all, simply a piece of paper. Thus, George Wilson must be hanged.
So, too, “You’re forgiven,” Jesus says, “if you’ll take the pardon I offer. If you don’t, you render it meaningless, and you will be sentenced to death eternally.”
Her husband Chuza is mentioned here only. That he was Herod’s steward shows that he was a man of substance, though the precise nature of his office is not clear. The word translated steward may mean the manager of Herod’s estates, or it may point to a political office. Godet conjectures that this man may have been the officer whose son Jesus healed (John 4:46ff.). If so, it would explain why Joanna was numbered among Jesus’ followers and allowed to go with him on this tour.
What interest is attached to this brief declaration, lifting up, as it does, the veil from our Lord’s more private and personal matters, and showing his condescension, in permitting himself to be dependent on the daily bounty of these pious women, while possessed of that creative power, which at a word so magnified a few loaves and fishes, as to suffice for the wants of the thousands who partook of the miraculous repast. So Olshausen: “He who supported the spiritual life of his people, did not disdain to be supported by them bodily. He was not ashamed to descend to so deep a poverty, that he lived on the charities of love. It was only others whom he fed miraculously; for himself, he lived upon the love of his people.” Their substance; literally, things on hand, possessions, property.
The grammar of 8:2–3 leaves it unclear whether all or only some of the women had been healed and whether the named women also, or only the unnamed others, provided the financial underwriting of the expenses of the group.
It is heart-warming to read of this group of women who supported Jesus. And it is worth reflecting that the Gospels record no woman as ever taking action against him: his enemies were all men.