The Book of Acts shows clearly that women were part of the first
church in Jerusalem and were included as the church grew and
spread. The group of 120 disciples (Acts 1:15) who waited in
Jerusalem for the coming of the Holy Spirit included women such
as those previously mentioned in Luke as disciples who followed
Jesus and Mary the mother of Jesus (Acts 1:14). That women
continued as part of the growing church in Jerusalem is attested
by Luke’s comments that “more and more men and women believed in
the Lord and were added to the number” (Acts 5:14), and that
Saul, in his persecution of the Jerusalem church, “dragged off
men and women and put them in prison” (Acts 8:3; see also 22:4).
Women are frequently mentioned in Acts as the account of the
spread of the church is given, including the widows in Joppa,
Timothy’s mother in Lystra, the women in Philippi, the prominent
women who joined the church in Thessalonica, the prominent women
in Berea who believed, Damaris in Athens, Priscilla in Corinth,
the wives in T