<p>26:13&nbsp;<i>Truly I say to you: Wherever in the whole world this gospel is preached, what this woman has done shall also be spoken of-&nbsp;</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 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><i>As a memorial of her</i>- 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>