Itinerant Preachers

Sadhu Sunder Singh was born in a Sikh family in India, and his mother was a devoted Hindu. He heard about Christ in his Christian school but didn’t believe him. His mother died when he was 14. In anger, he took a Bible and burned it page by page. Desponded with life, he decided to end it by throwing himself before a train. The night before, he prayed if there was a “true God,” he would reveal himself to him, and Jesus appeared to him in a vision. The following day, he gave his life to the Lord and dedicated the rest of his life to traveling from village to village in North India, sharing the gospel.

We are familiar with itinerant preachers of all religions in Asia – Hindu sanyasis, Buddhist monks, and Christian sadhus. Such itinerant preachers didn’t work but preached and lived by people’s hospitality. In Hinduism and Buddhism, poverty and begging are virtues (often imitated by Christian monks and missionaries).

In Jesus’s time and culture, John the Baptizer and Jesus would have been considered itinerant preachers who traveled from village to village, preaching God and living off people’s generosity and hospitality. Luke wrote,

“Jesus went through villages and towns proclaiming and spreading the good news of God’s rule. The twelve accompanied him. Some women who were healed from their evil spirits and weaknesses – Mary, who was called ‘of Magdalene,’ from whom Jesus cast out seven demons, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s administrator, and Susanna, and many other women – ministered to Jesus and the twelve disciples from their possessions.” (Luke 8:1–3)

After receiving deliverance from demons and healing from illnesses, diseases, and weaknesses, several ladies supported the ministry of Jesus and his disciples from their own purses. Luke named three of them: Mary of Magdalene, Joanna (Mrs. Chuza), and Susanna.

Mary was called Mary of Magdalene, her village’s name, probably because of other ladies with the name Mary who followed Jesus, including his mother, Martha’s sister, and Clopas’s wife. Jesus had cast away seven demons from Mary of Magdalene. In gratitude, she supported his ministry and accompanied Jesus’s mother at the foot of the cross (Matt 27:56) and in the garden tomb (Matt 27:61; 28:1). She may have been one of the firsts to witness Jesus’s resurrection.

Joanna was Chuza’s wife. Chuza was Herod Antipas’s administrator (epitropos). Herod Antipas was Herod the Great’s son and was the ruler (tetrarch) of Galilee. He had stolen his brother’s wife; John the Baptizer spoke against it and was killed for it. Jesus, the lion of Judah, called him “a fox.” Chuza was Herod Antipas’s righthand man. The term epitropos was given to someone who oversaw one’s estate, like Joseph managing Potiphar’s household. Joanna was his wife, and she would have been wealthy but afflicted somehow. Jesus healed her, and in gratitude, she funded his ministry. She joined Jesus’s mother and Mary of Magdalene at the garden tomb to anoint Jesus’s body and later witnessed his resurrection (Luke 24:10).

Susanna, too, was healed of whatever ailed her, and in gratitude, she supported the Lord Jesus’s ministry. Several other ladies were similarly healed and, in gratitude, supported Jesus’s itinerant ministry.

They leave us with a lesson: Gratitude must follow healing. Jesus had delivered us from sin, Satan, the world, and death. We repay with a heart of gratitude and support the spread of the good news.