Seven

Jesus was traveling from one town and village to another. He preached and proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God, and the Twelve were with Him. The account moves from place to place without naming the towns, keeping its attention on the work and the people who went with Him.

There were women in that company too. Luke introduces them as “some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities” — women whose presence on the road followed something that had already happened to them. Before he names any of them, he places their healing in the account. Then Mary’s name comes first.

She was called Magdalene, and seven demons had gone out of her. Luke gives the number without telling the story of those days. There is no scene of her first meeting with Jesus, no account of what she said, no description of the moment when the seven were gone. The sentence reaches her after that.

It is a brief introduction for a woman with a life behind her. We are not told how long she had suffered or who had stood beside her then. No member of her family is named here. The account leaves those rooms unopened and places her among the people traveling with Jesus.

Luke calls her a woman “from whom seven demons had gone out” — a past event carried into the sentence that introduces her present company. He does not give the seven names or voices. Mary has a name, and now she has a place in the account. She is there with the Twelve and the other women while Jesus goes from town to town.

Joanna is there too, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager. Her introduction reaches into a named household, where her husband has a particular responsibility. Beside her Luke places Susanna, giving only her name. Three women come into view, each introduced differently, and then the list opens to many others whom he does not name.

The women are doing something together. “These women were ministering to them out of their own means.” The account does not divide the contributions or say what each woman supplied. It tells us where the support came from and who provided it, placing their work alongside the traveling and preaching.

Their own means were part of what kept this company going. Luke does not pause over a particular meal, a purchase, or a place to stay, and there is no need to put one into his account. He gives the women a continuing task. They were ministering to the people with whom they traveled.

Mary belongs within that shared work. After the mention of the seven, the account does not draw her apart from Joanna, Susanna, and the others. Their names lead into the same sentence about what they provided. Jesus travels, the Twelve accompany Him, and the women support them out of what they have.

For now, that is where Luke leaves her: on the journey, among the company, with work to do. He has given no words of hers to remember, only her name, what had gone out of her, and what she now shared. When Mark names her later in Jerusalem, he will remember this stretch of the story. She had followed Jesus and ministered to Him in Galilee.