The Christian Woman in Titus

This Article was originally written by Mrs. Alicia Beckman for my old site titled “Led By The Truth”. This was a well done article, so would like to share it with you all again. I pray you find this useful….Glen

 

Having been a woman for, well, my entire life; and having been a Christian since I was six, I grew up hearing the classic passages preached at women time and time again. Unfortunately such constant exposure tends to cause someone to neglect the importance of such passages. Verses all tend to look the same to the “well churched” and any fresh meaning is lost.

I have attempted to reread these passages, and read commentary about them in order to shed new light on them. One such verse, the topic of my writing today is Titus 2:4-5.

                “That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.”

Typically the emphasis tends to be on the fact that the older women are to teach the younger women how to be good Christian ladies. However in my own personal study, I decided to put the emphasis on the list of things that we, as Christian women, are to be.

1. Sober. Now, in the Bible we know that typically sober means calm, serious…but, I find it more informative to define things using it’s opposite. Therefore, if we are not characterized as sober, we could very easily be characterized as emotional or sensational. Do you tend to blow things out of proportion? Are your emotions easily hurt when discussing something with your husband, friends, father, pastor…? Perhaps we need a bit of sobriety in our lives.

2. Love their husbands. Again, looking at opposites, I see this going two ways. One has to do with the physical expression of marriage. As Christian wives, we are to love our husbands, the opposite in this case would be abstaining. Another antonym for love is scorn. Of course most of us would say that we do love our husbands. However, I feel that often bitterness and scorn can enter into our hearts without our realizing it. Do you sometimes feel that your husband is unworthy of your love? Do you  find yourself constantly resisting your husband? Perhaps we need to work on adding some more love for our husbands into our lives.

3. Love their children. I think the most notable aspect is that loving one’s children is listed after loving one’s own husband. I feel as though many women, once they have children push their husbands away…which can easily lead to a rift in the family and a breakdown of the family structure.

4. Discreet. A woman who is not discreet is thought to be careless, unthoughtful, immodest, and undiscerning. These are tied in with the ideas discussed in sobriety. However, a woman who is discreet knows how to judge situations and react accordingly. She laughs when things are funny and cries with things are sad. But her sobriety keeps her emotions from getting the best of her.

5. Chaste. Sensuality should not be a characteristic for a Christian woman. As stated in the “love their husbands” section, this does not mean that she cannot be sensuous, but that it is something not for everyone to see, simply her husband. However, chaste  or purity also has a broader feeling to it as well. Purity, not just sexually, but in all areas of life. Unfortunately, in this world people are far too often remembered for the wrong things they do, that makes striving to be characterized by purity that much harder.

6. Keepers at home. No, I’m not going to do a white-glove inspection of your house. Instead, as we did with the others we’ll look at the opposite. Keeping your home has more to do with involvement in the lives of your family and less to do with actual cleanliness. Therefore, I would say that the opposite is being involved in other peoples’ lives. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have friends or show concern for another’s life. However, I would say that an easy pit for a wife to fall into (especially one in a small community or assembly) is that of gossip: keeping up with other people’s homes.

7. Good. It doesn’t get much more broad than that. Clearly we see the opposite of good is bad. I know many women are thinking, “I’m not bad.” Other versions I’ve read translate this as “kind,” therefore the opposite would be “unkind.” Have you ever spoken an unkind word, whether the recipient of the insult was there to hear it or not? Have you ever refrained from offering help or kindness to someone simply because you were “too busy” or “did not want to be bothered”? Perhaps we need a little kindness, a little goodness in our lives.

8. Obedient to their own husbands. This is where many women flinch, “She’s going to bring up that word: submissive.” Actually we are discussing things by antonym, so the word I will use is disobedient. Very simply do you ever do something that your husband told you not to do? Or, the more applicable question:  do you do things that you know your husband would not want you to do? Very often we do not get permission to do things, however, we know our husbands well enough to know what he would consider to be acceptable and unacceptable. I also think there is a second aspect to this: the opposite of obey your own husband is obeying someone else’s husband. Now, this concept may sound a bit strange at first, but do you ever put the words of your preacher/pastor/elder over the words of your husband? Yes, the elders of the church are meant to guide us. But, our husband is specifically our head, and we should obey him (especially where he and the elder may differ). Let the elder’s wife be concerned with obeying her own husband.