Luke 8:3

“And it came to pass afterward” joins this verse to Luke 7, where Jesus healed the centurion’s servant, raised the widow’s son at Nain and was anointed by a sinful woman. Those accounts show his authority and his compassion. Luke now gathers a whole season of his work into one sentence, and right after it comes the parable of the sower (Luke 8:4–15), which shows how the word he is preaching is received.

The verb for “went throughout”, diodeúō, is formed from diá (through) and hodeúō (to travel), and it means to travel through or go throughout a region. Jesus went to “every city and village”, the larger towns and the small places alike, so the message reached people wherever they lived. Matthew describes the same work: “Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people” (Matthew 4:23).

Two verbs tell us what he did on these journeys. “Preaching” is kērýssō, a public proclamation made with authority, as a herald announces the word of his king. “Shewing the glad tidings” is euangelízō, made from the words for “well” and “messenger”. It means to announce good news, and it is the word that gives us “evangelize”. The first verb tells us how Jesus spoke, openly and with authority, and the second tells us that what he spoke was good news.

Luke goes on to name others who travelled with Jesus: “certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities”.

The verb for “healed”, therapeúō, means to wait upon or attend to someone, and here it is used for relieving disease. The word “evil”, ponērós, describes what is hurtful, calamitous or morally bad. It is joined to pneûma, a word meaning breath or wind that is also used for a spirit, whether human, angelic, demonic or divine. The evil spirits are harmful spirits that afflict people, set against the good and life-giving Spirit of God. “Infirmities” are illnesses of the body. So these women had known both kinds of suffering, and Jesus had freed them from both.

Luke has already shown Jesus doing this. In Capernaum he cast an unclean spirit out of a man (Luke 4:33–36), and in Nazareth he read the words of Isaiah about himself, that the Lord had anointed him “to preach deliverance to the captives” (Luke 4:18–19, from Isaiah 61:1). His power over evil spirits is a sign that the kingdom he preached had arrived, as he said: “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you” (Matthew 12:28). John writes that “the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). That work reached its height at the cross, where Christ “spoiled principalities and powers” and triumphed over them (Colossians 2:15), and through his death he destroyed “him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14–15). What Jesus did for each of these women was a foretaste of that victory.

Luke names two more of the women. Joanna is “the wife of Chuza Herod’s steward”. The word gynḗ means a woman or a wife, and here it places Joanna by her marriage. The word for steward, epítropos, means a commissioner, a manager of a household, or a guardian. Chuza managed the household affairs of Herod Antipas, a post of considerable trust, authority and financial responsibility. Joanna therefore came from a prominent household, very likely with means of her own to give, and the good news had reached even into the court of the ruler of Galilee. Jesus’ followers came from every walk of life, fishermen and tax collectors and now a woman connected to Herod’s household. Joanna stayed faithful to the end, for she was with Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb and among those who told the apostles (Luke 24:10).

Susanna is named here, and Scripture tells us little more about her than her name and her service. “And many others” shows that Joanna and Susanna stood in a much larger company of women who supported Jesus, most of them unnamed.

The verb “ministered” is diakonéō, which means to serve, wait upon, care for or supply. It is formed from the noun diákonos, servant, which gives English the word “deacon”. “Their substance” translates hypárchonta, a person’s possessions, property or means. These women gave practical help out of what belonged to them, most likely food, lodging, clothing and money for travel and daily needs. Jesus and the twelve had left their livelihoods to preach, and the gifts of these women freed them to give themselves wholly to that work.

The order of these verses is worth noticing. The women were first healed, and then they served. Their giving was the answer of grateful hearts to what Jesus had already done for them.

The New Testament goes on to honour this kind of partnership. Paul thanked the Philippians because “in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my necessity” (Philippians 4:15–16). He commended Phoebe, “a servant of the church”, who had been “a succourer of many, and of myself also” (Romans 16:1–2). Lydia opened her home to Paul and his companions (Acts 16:14–15), and the first believers in Jerusalem sold their goods and shared with all “as every man had need” (Acts 2:44–45). The proclamation of the gospel is carried by God’s power and also by the gifts of his people.

In that society women generally had a narrow part in public life and in religious instruction, and their sphere was usually the home. For women to travel in the company of a teacher and to fund his work in public was unusual, and Luke records it with honour. He gives women a large place throughout his Gospel, from Elizabeth and Mary in Luke 1, to the woman who searches for her lost coin (Luke 15:8–10), to the women at the tomb. This belongs to Luke’s wider witness to God’s care for the lowly and overlooked. In Christ “there is neither male nor female” (Galatians 3:28), and every one of his people is welcomed into his work.

These women gave of their substance to sustain Jesus, and he gave far more. Though he was rich in glory, he “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:7). He said that he came “not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45), and that verse shares the English word “minister” with this one. The women fed the One who is “the bread of life” (John 6:35), and they gave drink to the One who gives living water (John 4:10). The One who received their provision is the One who provides all things, and his grace is the true wealth that sustains every believer and all the work of his kingdom.

These three verses show us a King who goes out to his people, town by town, with good news, and who frees those held by sickness and by evil spirits. They show that his grace comes first and that service follows from it, as it did for women who had been healed before they ever gave. Mary Magdalene, once held by seven devils, became the first witness of the risen Lord, and the same grace reaches anyone who comes to him. Joanna gave out of a wealthy household, and Susanna and many others are remembered only by name or not at all, and the Lord counted every gift. Whatever God has given you, time, skill or substance, can serve the same good news that these women helped to carry.