If you had a choice, who would you rather be a Mary or a Martha? 99% of believers would say Mary. Why?
Because we have heard in church the story of Mary and Martha lots of times.
This is because one preacher preaches it and then another and another, and the next thing you know the whole church believes it.
But there is only one teacher, the Holy Spirit, not a man or a woman. And he will teach you the art of meditation so that you can go back in time so to speak, and see what was happening behind the story, it is the unseen realm and only the Holy Spirit can reveal it to you.
He totally deconstructed my whole belief system. I can hear his voice and then he will take me into the word and confirm it in multiple scriptures in such a way, that I can now see what I have never seen before, and then I am persecuted because the church has not been taught to think that way, so they reject it, heresy, sort of like the Pharisee’s in Jesus day. They knew the scriptures better than anyone, yet they did not have eyes to see, because they were a very proud people.
I will mention Martha first since she evidently was older, and more mature in the Lord than Mary was.
This is portrayed by the fact that in Luke 10:38 we read of Jesus and His disciples coming to the village of Bethany and “Martha received him into her house.”
Likewise, she was taking charge of making preparations for the several tired and hungry travelers, while Mary, her sister, sat at Jesus’ feet.
Some have tried to presume from this that Mary was the more spiritual one. However, close examination of the symbolism does not bear this out.
Mary represents the newer, more immature Christian, who is not ready to be “up and serving” the Master.
We must come into a walk with God before we can co-labor with the Holy Spirit in bearing eternal fruit that remains.
There is a time in every believer’s life, where we have to sit at the Master’s feet, so that we can absorb his teaching so that it becomes part of our daily life. Then when we have a walk with God and we become a living epistle, a testimony of how Jesus transforms lives.
Martha was rebuked by Jesus, not because she was serving—that was her responsibility as head of the house-but because she was burdened with having no help and critical of Mary for not giving her a hand.
Martha’s approach to the Master and her words indicate that she was on intimate terms with Him, and evidently had herself sat at His feet much previous to Mary’s coming to that point.
Mary, on the other hand, was no doubt a more recent “convert,” perhaps coming out of a life of deep sin. Therefore, she needed to be at the Master’s feet at that time. Jesus said that she had chosen “that good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Lk. 10:42).
This describes the “gift of eternal life” (Rom. 6:23) which shall not be taken away once it is given (Rom. 1129).
Like Mary, we too who have received His gift of life, must always find time to “sit at His feet” and learn of Him; but we must also grow and mature to where we can also be “up and serving” like Martha. Both are necessary in our Christian experience.
In the 11th chapter of John, we again see Jesus visiting the household of Bethany.
This time it was a crises situation. Martha and Mary had sent word for Jesus to come from some distance and four days had passed before He arrived. In the meantime, Lazarus had died. Jesus had allowed this to happen because He purposed to glorify God by raising him from the dead.
I am not going to go into all the details of this story, but to point out the prophetic pattern of Martha and Mary.
John 11:20 says that “Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him; but Mary sat still in the house.
Martha went “outside the city” to meet Jesus she was more spiritually perceptive than Mary at the time.
After Martha had met Jesus outside the village, and had conversed with Him for a time, John 11:28 says that “she went her way, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying. The Master is come and calls for you.” She went security because before this she had know that Jesus didn’t want to draw attention to himself, although at this time, he did because he knew his death was at hand, and part of the reason why he did this miracle was to inflame the Sadducees and Pharisees to kill him.
This portrays the fact that the Martha group will have a ministry in helping to prepare the Mary group for spiritual maturity.
Mary meets Jesus.
After being prepared by Martha, John 11:29 says that Mary “arose quickly, and came to him.” And verse 30 tells us that “Jesus was not yet come into the town but was in that place where Martha met him.”
Mary met Jesus in the same place outside the town that Martha had met Him. WHY? We would ordinarily think that Jesus would have proceeded into the town with Martha after she had gone out to meet Him.
But once we understand that every MOVE Jesus made portrays a part of His prophetic plan, then such details SPEAK to us.
We see two groups separated by time. Martha meeting Jesus first, and Mary later outside the city which is a type of the church at large.
There will be a remnant of believers that will leave the church at large, because they don’t fit in anymore, they have spiritually outgrown the leaders of the church.
But they will begin teaching another group which is a remnant, who will then teach others, this is part of the restoration of the faith once delivered to the saints that the church at large has fallen away from.
But Mary grew spiritually quickly, she perceived her masters death, John 12:33 Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil.