The Mary We Forgot: What the Apostle to the Apostles Teaches the Church Today

by Jennifer Powell McNutt, Esau McCaulley (Foreword by)

Overview

Mary Magdalene's life was transformed when she was healed by Christ and joined his ministry from Galilee to Jerusalem. The Gospels teach that she was also a witness at the cross and the first one sent by Christ to preach his resurrection. Yet her story is often confused, scandalized, and undervalued by the church.

In The Mary We Forgot, award-winning church historian and theologian Jennifer Powell McNutt unpacks Scripture and history to reveal the real Mary Magdalene: the first apostle of the good news and a model of discipleship for both men and women today.

McNutt also invites readers along on her journey through southern France, tracing the path remembered by some church traditions as where Mary Magdalene spread the gospel. Christians will learn from the disciple known as the "apostle to the apostles" how to embrace Jesus's calling to "go and tell" with faith and courage. They'll also be encouraged by the reminder that God calls ordinary, imperfect, and unexpected people to share the good news of Jesus Christ. The hope of remembering Mary Magdalene is ultimately to better know the one to whom she pointed, the risen Christ.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781493446438
Publisher:	Baker Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/16/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	289,241
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Jennifer Powell McNutt (PhD, The University of St. Andrews) is the Franklin S. Dyrness Chair of Biblical and Theological Studies and professor of theology and history of Christianity at Wheaton College. She is an award-winning author, a fellow in the Royal Historical Society, and an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian tradition. McNutt serves as a parish associate at her church and regularly speaks at universities, seminaries, and churches across the country. She and her husband cofounded McNuttshell Ministries, which serves as a bridge between the academy and the church, and live with their three children in Winfield, Illinois.

Table of Contents

Contents
Foreword by Esau McCaulley
Introduction: Mary Magdalene Superstar
1. The Women of Scripture and a Hermeneutic of Surprise
2. Will the Real Mary Magdalene Please Stand Up?
3. Mary Magdalene and Her Church Interpreters
4. France's Beloved Preacher and Evangelist
5. A Woman Possessed--and Healed
6. The "Certain Women" in Jesus's Inner Circle
7. Go and Tell like Mary Magdalene
8. The First Apostle Chosen by Christ
Epilogue: Mary Magdalene for the Church Today

Editorial Reviews

08/12/2024

McNutt (Calvin Meets Voltaire), a professor of biblical studies at Wheaton College, sketches an uneven portrait of the woman who first witnessed Christ’s resurrection and whose legacy has been transformed and warped across history. The author traces how biblical interpreters in the Middle Ages in most of Europe cast Mary as a penitent prostitute “saved by her fervent love of Jesus” (though in France she was lauded as the first apostle and garnered popularity surpassing that of “the almost ethereal Virgin Mary”); how female Protestant reformers in 16th-century Europe drew on her example for permission to preach the gospel; and how during the 19th century, as her associations with prostitution returned, evangelicals headed a “Magdalenist” movement to “rehabilitate” prostitutes. McNutt’s rigorous textual analysis provides a revealing window into the ways societies stereotyped—and overlooked—scriptural women according to shifting cultural and social mores, though her use of Mary’s example to comment on present-day Christianity feels underbaked (“Mary Magdalene can serve as a model of steady faith in Christ, even when our churches fail us and hurt us”). The result is a shaky reconstruction of an oft-forgotten figure. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly