Welcome to Week 11 of MATRIARCHS!
Study God’s Word with us online or use them in your small group or Sunday School class!
Each lesson includes:
- Teaching video every Monday (15-20 minutes)
- Short lesson provided as the content of the post
- In-depth downloadable PDF to deepen your study
- Worksheets that take you even deeper
ALL LESSONS ARE FREE AND YOU CAN MAKE AS MANY COPIES AS YOU’D LIKE!
Week 1: Eve – A Mother Like No Other
Week 2: Sarah – Mother of Nations
Week 3: Rebekah – Mothering Through Barrenness
Week 4: Mary – Stubbornly Inflexible or Sacredly Flexible
Week 5: Naomi – Not Forsaken
Week 6: Jochebed – Desperate Times, Desperate Measures
Week 7: Hannah – What to Do When God Is Silent
Week 8: Haggar – The God Who Sees and Hears
Week 9: Bathsheba – Daughter of Abundance
Week 10: Elizabeth – Mom Knows Best or God Knows Best?
SALOME: You Take the Good, and You Take the Bad…
It’s easy, as a mother, to feel like our efforts are not really getting anywhere. We work hard every day in the background without pay and most of the time without any recognition. The majority of our lives are lived in obscurity, but obscurity doesn’t equal unimportant.
Below is the video lesson guide. Please click this link to download your FREE IN-DEPTH BIBLE STUDY ON SALOME and gain a more extensive and life-changing understanding of God’s Word. There is also a link to the YouTube video link to study and hear details of Salome’s story. It is a story that many women can relate to.)
Salome was a mother who worked diligently in the background to teach her children to love the Lord and eventually gave a huge contribution to our Christian faith – the apostles James and John. You probably haven’t heard her name before, but you do know who she is.
We have only three recorded accounts of her life –
- Matthew 20:20-24; 27:56 when she asks Jesus to let her sons sit on his right and left side in the coming kingdom.
- Mark 15:40-41 – when she was present at the crucifixion with the ladies who followed and ministered to him.
- Mark 16:1-2 – when she is with the ladies who discover the tomb is empty and are visited by the angel.
We can, however, read between the lines of her life just from the few things we do know about her. We know that she was the wife of Zebedee, a wealthy fisherman. We know she was a Godly mother who taught her children well because they were more than willing to leave the boat when Jesus called to them. We also know she was very human; doing what she thought was best and sometimes overstepping her boundaries.
Just like us.
When stepping back to look at the life of Salome, there are two lessons I think we can glean from her as mothers trying to raise our children to love the Lord. And, just like us, there are some good lessons and some bad ones to learn from her life. You take the good, you take the bad…
She raised her children to follow the Lord
Salome was a great example of a mother who raised her children in the Lord and then released them to do what God had for them. We know from the bits and pieces of the gospel narrative that she must have agreed with their decision to follow Jesus because not only did she send them out, but she went as well. She appears to have been a disciple from the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. She encouraged God’s call in their life, and followed his call in her own.
Isn’t this what we all desire to be as mothers? I want very much for my life to be an example to my children in following where God leads. She did not come to God praying for her children with a life-plan already in mind, she came with open hands. This is something I’m learning as a mother, to pray for my children with open hands. What does HE want for them, not what do I want for them.
She Was Ambitious For Her Children
Why is it that we can have one thousand great shining moments and they fade into the distance in comparison to that one time that we completely blow it? I feel like this is what happened in history to Salome. Because it takes cross referencing to figure it out, I think people don’t usually equate her with being a follower of Jesus, being at the crucifixion, or even being one of the ones at the tomb that was visited by the angel who announced the resurrection.
Nope, she’s remembered as the mother who just didn’t get the concept of the kingdom and was overly ambitious for her boys.
In Matthew 20:20-24 we find the most well known passage about this mother – when Salome approaches Jesus with a request. She kneels at Jesus’ feet and asks him if he will grant that her two sons will sit at his right and left side when he comes into his kingdom. This request seems to come just as much from them as it does from her, as they are quick to jump in with a resounding “We are able” when Jesus asks if they can drink the same cup he does.
She thought her kids were the best suited for the job and wanted to make sure Jesus knew it. We need to be reminded that she isn’t talking about a heavenly kingdom, she isn’t asking if they can sit on his right and left on the heavenly throne. This is not an audacious claim that her sons can be divine like Jesus. No, she like all the others still has an earthly kingdom mindset. She, like the other followers, still thought there would be an established kingdom with Jesus as the conquering ruler. Her request was basically the same as asking for her sons to be the Vice President and Chief of Staff when Jesus is soon ushered into the Presidency.
It may have been a misguided request, but it’s something we all as mothers can relate to: ambition for our kids to have the best. Our society has led us to believe that if we don’t give our kids the best of everything or make sure that they have all the best opportunities that we are failing them as parents. Our ambition for our children, loving or not, might not be what is best for them.
We, as mothers, need to learn to come to Jesus with requests for his will for our children’s lives – not with our own ambitions.
I pray that we can all learn to be more like this real life example of a mother who faithfully leads her children to follow the Lord, and be encouraged that even the best mothers mess up sometimes.
MEMORY VERSE:
Deuteronomy 6:6-9, “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
If this lesson has spoken to your heart… if God has used it, please be sure to leave a comment and please share on your social media outlets using the hashtag #MATRIARCHS
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- Heaviness and Newness - December 23, 2016
