All of us have been a part of a club. All the club members have something in common. That’s part of the definition of what a club is. We join it because all the members are working together. For many years, I was a Boy Scout. All the boys in the troop were doing the same thing. We all wore the uniform, went camping, and worked for merit badges.

Luke 8:1-3 is one of the NT passages that we might think is a “filler” passage. It doesn’t seem to have much to teach us. Luke seems to write it simply to move from one passage to another. It acts as a bridge.

But I think there is more in these verses than meets the eye. One thing I find is that Luke describes a bunch of people who join a club. They have a number of things in common.

The first person in the club is mentioned in the previous verses. In Luke 7:36-50, the reader meets a woman who received high praise from the Lord. She is a “sinful” woman who comes to the Lord and washes His feet with her tears. She anoints His feet with expensive perfume. She serves Him. The Lord says she did what she did because she loved Him. Whatever it cost her was of no concern to her.

In the next verse, Luke says the Lord was going through all of Galilee preaching and teaching the nation about the kingdom of God. A very similar thing happened in Luke 4:43-44. It says there that the Lord went through Galilee preaching about the kingdom of God.

But in chapter 8, something is different. Luke adds that the Lord is not alone. Luke says, “And the twelve were with Him.” The Twelve had joined the club of doing the Lord’s work. Like the woman in the previous verses, they loved Him, wanted to be with Him, and wanted to serve Him.

But others were also joining the club. The woman in 7:36-50 was not the only woman in the club. Mary Magdalene followed Him. He had cast seven demons out of her. No doubt, she served Him because of gratitude and love. In that culture she was also considered a “sinful” woman. Another woman in the group was Joanna. Luke tells us that she was the wife of one of Herod’s officials. Herod was an immoral man and was placed in his position by the despised Romans. I suppose religious Jews did not consider Joanna’s husband’s profession an honorable one. Luke mentions another woman named Susanna. We know nothing about her. Perhaps Luke mentions her because she was not an important person. Finally, we are told that many other women had joined the club.

The Twelve and these women had some things in common. The Twelve had left everything to follow the Lord. Luke says that the women ministered to the Lord by supporting Him with their “substance” (v 3). It is easy to see the parallels with the woman in the previous verses. They all knew that Jesus was the Christ. They were grateful for what He had done for them. They wanted to serve Him. They loved Him.

But they had something else in common. In that society, none of them were powerful. The Twelve were traveling with the King but were not trained in rabbinic schools. The woman in the previous verses was despised by the religious elites. Mary was as well. In fact, church tradition says they were both prostitutes, although the Scriptures do not say that. The others are basically unknown to us.

But they belonged to a great club. They had the privilege of working together to do the work of the Lord. They went to the nation with Him, offering the people the kingdom of God. This club had great benefits. We all know what the Lord would do with the Twelve. But even these women were rewarded handsomely. Mary and Joanna had the privilege of being among the first to be told about the resurrected Lord and to proclaim that news to others (Luke 24:10). Luke says that “other women” were there as well. My guess is that Susanna was one of them.

All these people teach us a lesson. We can join the same club. We might not be anything special in the eyes of the world. But we can all live lives that express our gratitude for what the King has done for us. We can speak of Him to others. We can serve Him with our time, energy, and money. We can love Him.

Many in first-century Israel would have looked at the club in Luke 7:36–8:3 as a motley crew. But I know that I speak for most who read this blog: I want to be a part of that club!