No Longer Silent: The Empowerment of Women in the Gospels

The story of Jesus of Nazareth has been called "the greatest story ever told," but what role do women play in that story? In No Longer Silent, author Susan Dehn Matthews attempts to highlight the women in the Gospels and provide the background behind those important women.

Matthews starts by noting that women in the Gospels were deliberately dis-empowered in order to maintain their presumed dependence, both in Scripture and in society. She then gives a voice to the minds and hearts of the women of the gospels who have been marginalized or ignored altogether. As she writes, "Each women whose story is recounted here is remarkable precisely because, through the power of an encounter with Jesus, she discovered within herself the Divine energy that allowed her to offer her unique gift to the world." Some of the women Matthews writes about include:

Elizabeth
Mary of Nazareth
Mary at the Wedding of Cana
The widowed mother of Nain
The woman accused
The mother of James and John
The sisters of Lazarus
The wife of Pilate
Mary Magdalene
Joanna