“And there was a prophetess, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years and had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers. At that very moment she came up and began giving thanks to God, and continued to speak of Him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.” (Luke 2:36-38)

It doesn’t take long to realize as you are reading Luke’s Gospel that he pays special attention to women. Luke is following Jesus in their concern for the poor and the downtrodden. Luke frequently mentioned widows. Anna was the first in a list including the widow of Zarephath (Luke 4:26); the widow of Nain (7:11ff); the widow and the judge (18:1-8); the widows abused by the scribes (20:46); and the poor widow who gave all she had to the poor (21:1-4). In all of these stories the point was to show that God cares for the neglected and followers of Jesus must care too.

Jesus was sympathetic and kind to women. By the time that Jesus’ ministry on earth was finished, the apostles had learned to accept the fact that women were called to be disciples of the Lord also. When Jesus came He not only came to redeem our souls but to begin the process of redemption for the whole creation. This included lifting women up to the position that they enjoyed at the original time of creation. For centuries misguided Pharisees developed a negative attitude toward women that reduced women to a lower position. Jesus would begin to reverse it. Men and women would begin to work in the kingdom of God together.

Luke went against the culture of the times by mentioning a female witness very early in the book of Acts. It is well known by now that women were not considered to be reliable witnesses by the Jews. The Rabbis attitude of Jesus’ day seems really strange to us today. We cannot imagine now how men could think it was all right to insult women in such a way. Surely women could be as reliable as men in witnessing. The Jewish leaders thought that it was blasphemous to let a women read the Torah. Today we cannot imagine that women would not be allowed to read the Bible. How did these changes come about? When Jesus came He lifted women up. The apostles carried on in the same manner. Luke records for us the change that occurs with Christianity in his Gospel and in the book of Acts. Christ’s followers must not imitate the Pharisees who held women down in ways that God never prescribed.

Luke makes a conscience effort to show how the status of women would be greater in the church than in their previous position in Jewish culture. There are twenty-three women or groups of women mentioned in the book of Acts. All except a couple of these are positive accounts. By that I mean that most of these stories are about women who responded to the Gospel with faith in Jesus and entered the kingdom of God.

Anna is the third woman mentioned in the book of Acts after Elizabeth and Mary. A very early disciple of Jesus, Anna the prophetess was given the special privilege of being one of the first witnesses to the Savior. Anna, Mary and Elizabeth prophesied about the Savior through the work of the Holy Spirit. Anna saw Jesus when He was only a baby and she recognized Him as the Messiah. This also was a gift of the Holy Spirit. Many others did not recognize their Messiah.

We do not know much about Anna. She was the daughter of Phanuel. She was of the tribe of Asher. That tribe was part of the Northern Kingdom. Recall that there was a split between the Northern tribes and the Southern tribes. In the north many of the Jews had intermingled with the surrounding heathens. The Jews in the south looked down their noses at them. The Judeans did not consider the Samaritans or other northern Israelites to be of the “pure” religion. The Judeans believed that only the temple at Jerusalem was the true temple. The people in the North had their own temple.

God was gracious to Anna’s family as they moved to Judea and worshipped at the temple in Jerusalem. They must have had great faith.

Anna married and became a widow. We don’t know how old Anna was when she married. Anna was married for about seven years and then became widowed. In those days women were generally married in their teens, so perhaps Anna was a widow for around sixty years until the age of eighty-four. In any event she was a widow for a long time.

As a recognized prophetess Anna had a room at the temple grounds. There were apartments there for God’s servants. During all of that time she was a faithful servant never leaving the temple and “serving night and day with fastings and prayers.”

Anna also went about telling everyone that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah thus also making her one of the first evangelists.

In Christ’s kingdom, ordinary godly women such as Anna would receive the gifts of the Spirit and serve the Lord. Thanks and praise to God for this wonderful story. It is an encouragement to all Christians, men and women, to live for God “night and day”.