What does it mean to be a blessed woman?
The answer might surprise you.
Blessed Among Women
Let’s take a peek at a scene from the opening of the Gospel of Luke (1:41–43):
And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
Led by the Spirit, Elizabeth declares Mary “blessed among women.” The fruit of her womb is the “seed of the woman,” promised in Genesis 3. He was the Messiah who would crush the serpent’s head and deliver his people! What a blessing to be “the mother of the Lord!”
Blessed Rather…
Yet, consider Jesus’s response to a woman later in Luke’s Gospel (11:27). A woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” This woman repeats what Elizabeth said. She gives voice to what every Jewish woman would have believed. The greatest blessing for a woman in Israel was to be the mother of the Messiah.
Yet Jesus replies (11:28), “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” In other words, the greatest blessing for a woman is not her genetic or familial relationship to a man—even the Messiah! Instead, a woman is blessed when she believes in and follows Jesus.
Of course, Elizabeth realized this too. That’s why she ended her prophetic exclamation, “And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” (Luke 1:45) Mary believed the word of God; that is why she was blessed.
Blessed Today
So, what does this mean for women today?
Your blessedness and standing in the Kingdom of God are not determined by your relationship with or proximity to any man other than Jesus.
You don’t need to be descended from, married to, or the mother of any significant man. You don’t need to be serving with, pastored by, or endorsed by any celebrated male. In fact, your path to blessedness is the same path as that of any man.
To be blessed, you only need to hear that King Jesus died for your sins and rose from the dead, and then trust and follow him in faith. That is the true and final blessedness—for male and female, for slave and free, for Jew and Gentile, for rich and poor, for all who hear and believe.