Our study of Jesus' words and deeds leads us to conclude that in many regards Jesus differed from His Jewish contemporaries. This is more remarkable when we note that Jesus probably never left His immediate Jewish environment and directed His mission specifically to His fellow Jews.

Jesus' outright rejection of divorce would have offended nearly everyone of His day. His view that the single state was a legitimate calling for those to whom it was given, went against prevailing views about a man's duty to marry and procreate, but nowhere more so than in His native Palestine. This teaching made it possible for women in Jesus' community to assume roles other than those of wife and mother.

The fact that Jesus did not endorse various ways of making women “scapegoats,” especially in sexual matters, placed Him at odds with other rabbis, though doubtless even many Gentiles would have thought that Jesus' rejection of the “double standard” was taking equality too far. Further, we do not find negative remarks about the nature, abilities, and religious potential of women compared to men on the lips of Jesus in contrast to various Jewish authors. There is also reason to believe that Jesus' estimation of the worth and validity of a woman's word of testimony was higher than that of most of His contemporaries.

Jesus' teaching that the claims of the family of faith take priority over the physical family also led to some circumstances that both Jew and Gentile would have found objectionable.