Before the word feminist got invented, it is our Lord Jesus Christ who first supported women in the Bible that are gravely misunderstood.
Nowadays, a lot of people has been aware on what "rights" they have, however, not everyone is capable of accepting the amid the double standard and the gender bias problem in our community. The Lord Jesus Christ is the first one to break all barriers.
It all started when Jesus went to Samaria, and He, being in the flesh, felt wearied because He was travelling a lot. So Jesus decided to sit on a well and rest.
That particular occurrence can be found in the book of John 4:4-26
John 4:4-26
v5 Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.
v6 Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.
v7 There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.
v8 (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)
And as the verse goes on, Jesus met a woman on the sixth hour of the day, basically the hottest time of the day, with no one else around her.
However, we all know why a lot of her peers, whether traveler or not, have been avoiding the Samaritan woman.
1. Because she was a Samaritan. Inn Jesus's day, the Jews despised all Samaritans as religious infidels and "half breeds". To make things short, they are looked down upon by many people.
2. She was a woman, which meant that she had second-class status in her culture. Nowadays, if you say that publicly, you'll probably be shamed non-stop while some will definitely agree, but those times are different from now. Women before, are "owned" by their husband, they are treated as "property."
3. She had failed at love. Jesus asked her where her husband was and she openly admitted that she wasn't married, but was living with a man. Jesus pointed out she had previously been married six times!
4. She was rejected by the people around her.
If anyone have a reason to feel about herself or himself, the Samaritan woman had every right to feel as bad as she could.
But when Jesus entered her life, everything changed.
1. Jesus took the initiative (breaking the barrier) A Jew speaking to a Samaritan is way more absurd that anything in the world. That act is also uncommon before.
2. He reaches out to her, in the same way He reaches out to us long before we reach toward Him.
3. He looked at her as a person on the basis of her potential-not her past, not even her present circumstances.
4. Most importantly, Jesus offered her the living water that would satisfy the emptiness and longing in her soul, a drink water that would provide renewal for her parched soul.
So, even though this world has set a couple of double standards in the community, whether things being done by boys are accepted solely to them and not to girls, whether people discriminating a person because of his or her race, the way a person looks, the way a person thinks, it really doesn't matter. Because at the end of the day, it is Jesus whom we want to please and not men. It is Jesus who is the real source of all the happiness and contentment in life.
Jesus provides us with all the reasons we need to love and embrace ourselves because He loves us warts and all.
Deuteronomy 7:7-8 King James Version (KJV)
V7. The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:
V8. But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
