<p>14:9- see on Acts 10:4.</p><p><i>And truly I say to you: Wherever in the whole world the gospel shall be preached, what this woman has done shall be spoken of as a memorial to her</i>- Her generosity was set up as a cameo of the response to the Lord which all who believe the Gospel should make. The Gospel is not just a set of doctrines to be painlessly apprehended. It is a call to action after the pattern of this woman. The good news was to be of the Lord&rsquo;s death and burial, and yet integral to that message was to be the pattern of response which was seen in her- to give our all, our most treasured and hoarded things, for His sake.</p><p>There is evident connection with the Lord's prophecy of how the Gospel would be preached in all the world (Mt. 24:14; Mk. 16:15). He seems to have seen the 'Gospel' that would be preached as a re-telling of His life and incidents in it, such as the woman's anointing of Him. It is significant that her anointing is mentioned in all four Gospel records. In Mk. 14:9 we read that wherever the gospel was to be preached, what she had done would be narrated in memory of her. So &lsquo;preaching the Gospel&rsquo; is defined there as a narration of the events and sayings of the Lord Jesus in His ministry. The Gospel records are transcripts of the Gospel preached by e.g. Matthew. The Gospel is therefore in the Gospels. The rest is interpretation and theology, necessary and helpful, but there is no avoiding the fact that the Gospel itself is in the records of the Gospel which we have in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.</p><p>The Lord foresaw that transcripts of His work and words would indeed be made, and He envisaged how the supreme devotion of this anonymous woman would be part of that message. The language is very similar to that of Mt. 24:14: &quot;This Gospel... shall be preached <i>kerusso&nbsp;</i>again in all the world... and then shall the end come&quot;. Matthew may have had in view how his version of the Gospel needed to be spread into all the world.</p><p>This could mean that when the Gospel message is proclaimed in all the world at Messiah&rsquo;s return, then what Mary had done would be told before God that He may mercifully remember her for good at the judgment. This may sound a forced interpretation to Western ears and eyes, but we must remember that the idea of &lsquo;for a memorial&rsquo; denoted being spoken of for good before someone, in this case, the judge of all. What follows from this is that there will be a direct link between our deeds today, and the judgment process of tomorrow or later today. What we have done will be told before God, and He will remember us for good. On one hand, works are irrelevant. We are saved by grace. On the other hand, there will be a certain &lsquo;going through&rsquo; of our deeds before Him. Quite simply, there is a direct link between our behaviour and our future judgment. Nothing will in that sense be forgotten. &nbsp;</p><p>The early preachers would have gone around telling the good news about Jesus Christ, and in so doing would have recited time and again His teaching and life story. Mark records how the Lord commanded the Gospel to be preached world-wide (Mark 16:15); but he surely intends this to be linked with his record of how the generosity of the sinful woman would be told &quot;wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world&quot; (Mk. 14:9). 'The Gospel' was therefore not just the basic doctrines of the Gospel; it was the whole record of the life and works of Christ. This is why each of the Gospels is somehow personalized to the writer. And the comment that wherever the Gospel was preached, her example would be preached (Mk. 14:9) is tantamount to saying that her action was to be the pattern for all who would afterward believe the Gospel. Note in passing that the Gospel was not intended by the Lord to be a mere set of doctrinal propositions; it was to be a message which included practical patterns of response to it, of which Mary&rsquo;s was to be always mentioned.</p><p>The language of 'memorial' is typically used in contemporary literature about memorials to the gallant deeds of&nbsp;<i>men</i>. But the Lord was challenging such thinking by saying that the Gospel would include a memorial of an anonymous&nbsp;<i>woman</i>. And her humanly senseless pouring out of her wealth in a ten minute act of devotion to Him was none less than the bravest or noblest act of any man.</p>