Luke 7:36-38 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him. Jesus went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table.

And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.
 
In a similar incident (which happened at a different time and place), Mary (the sister of Martha and Lazarus) broke a flask of perfume to anoint the head of Jesus.

Mark 14:3-5 says that the perfume was worth over 300 denarii (nearly a year’s salary). Each denarius was worth a day’s wages.
 
John MacArthur notes that alabaster was a fine variety of marble, quarried in Egypt, which could be carved into delicate containers for storing costly perfumes.
 
What would have motivated such a sinner to approach Jesus? To publicly humiliate herself in front of the Pharisee’s guests, and to pour out such an expensive offering to Jesus?

She showed courage just to enter the room; she was desperate to be forgiven. Her weeping shows that her repentance was genuine and painful.
 
The Pharisee doubted that Jesus was a prophet, because he thought a prophet should have known that the woman was a sinner.

But Jesus demonstrated to the Pharisee by reading his thoughts that Jesus was in fact a prophet. Matt.9:4
 
Jesus told a story that would expose the truth about both the woman and the self-righteous Pharisee.
 

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