Discussion Jumpstarter
Study leader reference - not a definitive answer
Question 3
Margareta Sattler refused a chance to save her life and chose to suffer the same fate as Michael; how should her decision shape the way we think about loyalty to Christ, loyalty in marriage, and the cost of discipleship for both men and women?
Another way to ask: Margareta chose to die rather than save her life and leave Michael. How should her choice shape how we think about loyalty to Christ, loyalty in marriage, and the cost of following Jesus for both men and women?
Discussion Jumpstarter
Direct Answer
Based on the speaker’s teaching, Margareta’s choice highlights that discipleship can demand shared suffering, and that courage and costly faithfulness are not gendered. Her loyalty to her husband appears inseparable from loyalty to Christ and conviction, since she refuses freedom in order to remain faithful.
- Christy presents Margareta as evidence early Anabaptists were “relatively egalitarian in their church relationships.”
- “Her and her husband, Michael, traveled together…She was always by his side,” showing partnership in mission.
- “They were arrested together and put on trial together,” implying shared public identification with the faith.
- A judge’s wife offered Margareta a way “to not go to her death…save her life,” but “she refused that.”
- Christy says she chose “to suffer the same fate as her husband,” then experienced “her third baptism…drowning.”
- Christy frames these women as “bold and courageous” in conviction to labor in gospel work.