To celebrate each of them, our issue begins at the beginning of the gospel story. Lithuania Christian College professor Jennifer Stewart, has provided a poignant depiction of Jesus’ mother in the first of the many sufferings she would undergo for the sake of the gospel. This tender poem is followed by a fresh look at Mary and Martha, as sisters not in competition, as is usually thought, but as actually in cooperative ministries. Our guide is Mary Stromer Hanson, who recently completed her masters studies at Denver Seminary. Another fresh look is provided by professor Beulah Wood of South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies in Bangalore, India, whose meticulously researched creative reconstruction of Nympha of Laodicea (who is mentioned in Col 4:15) puts flesh and blood on another biblical woman, and thereby follows the theme of rediscovery of some great women of Christian history: the theme of this issue. Next, we step on from the New Testament into the Middle Ages for Sharon Baker-Johnson’s able study of Saint Clare, who worked together with Saint Francis in Assisi. Professor Jason Eden of St. Cloud University then travels with us to Puritan America to meet a woman whose life anticipated egalitarian values. Sharon Baker-Johnson then comes back with an excursion into modern times in an analysis of Jessie Penn-Lewis and the core message of her teaching ministry and preaching ministry. And our issue completes in more contemporary times with Denver Seminary Professor Judith Diehl’s review of Eastern University Professor Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen’s book on C. S. Lewis.

IN THIS ISSUE:

• Editor's Reflections
  by WILLIAM DAVID SPENCER 
• POEM: "Mariah"
  by JENNIFER STEWART FUESTON
• Mary and Martha:
  Models of Leadership in John 11
  by MARY STROMER HANSON  
• Hostess Nympha in Laodicea:
  Gathering Household and Neighbors
  by BEULAH WOOD
• Saint Clare:
  The Anchored Soul
  by SHARON BAKER-JOHNSON 
• Joanna Cotton:
  Unexpected (Proto-) Egalitarian
  by JASON EDEN
• The Life and Influence of Jessie Penn-Lewis:
  “Jesus Christ and Him Crucified"
  by SHARON BAKER-JOHNSON 
• BOOK REVIEW: Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen's A Sword Between the Sexes? C. S. Lewis and the Gender Debates
  by   JUDITH A. DIEHL