Woman's Role in the Home pt. 4

Finally, we can put this misogyny behind us. The first post on this topic is here - use the Google search bar the bottom to find the others (or anything else you're looking for.)

E - Encourage Other Women. Again, in Titus 2:3-5, Paul speaks of the aged women’s responsibility to teach the young women. I just want to touch on this briefly because this can pertain to the woman’s role in the church as well as the home. I really believe that we as Christian ladies are lacking in this area and it is a burden on my heart.

The average Christian woman is not living up to the Biblical mandates given by Paul - check.

We need some Titus 2 women…women who will take the TIME to teach and encourage the young women and yes, it does take time. This teaching needs to start in the home as we train our daughters to be “Titus 2 young women”. And then, we need to be encouraging the young women in our church to pattern their lives according to the principles found in God’s Word.

Anybody else think this would make more sense if she'd told us what a Titus 2 woman was? Well, then I'll do it for her. From the BibleGateway.com NIV, Titus chapter 2, verses 3 thru 5:

3Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. 4Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.

Okay, "Don't be an addict" is pretty good advice for anybody, whatever their sex or gender (or age.) As for loving your children, well no one had to train me in that. I have certainly read up on and listened to the counsel of others in matters of teaching him, helping him, and caring for him, but no one had to teach me to love him. Likewise, no had to train me to love my friends, so it would appear my modern Western concept of "love" is not what's being referred to here. No, instead this is about subjection. Will this teaching the older women are doing help the younger women to live happy lives, to have healthy children, or to be fulfilled intellectually and emotionally? No. That isn't the purpose at all. The whole point is "so no one will malign the word of God" and since I know I'm not the only loud-mouthed atheist or non-Christian out here, I think this means "so that these women will not malign the word of God." Which of course, is the word Paul was writing at the time? Hmmm....

Well, let's see what other nuggets of wisdom Paul has to offer in his second letter to Titus.

9Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, 10and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.

Huh. Sounds awfully similar, now that I look at them back to back like this. Alright, let's finish up with Rachel.

I came across this poem the other day in a little publication called WOMEN IN THE HARVEST, and it is so fitting for what I’m speaking of. I’d like to share it in closing. The title of the poem is: SHOW ME THE WAY by Karen Groves

Show me the way, dear mother,
Teach me to obey;
Keep yourself modest, innocent and pure,
For I’m following your footsteps each day.

Show me the way to stay a child, long after I am grown

Teach me, mother, to keep my tongue,
To always watch and pray;
Some unkind word coming from my lips
Could hinder me from sharing God’s way.

Teach me to keep silent, the golden rule of the dysfunctional home.

Mother, could you show me
How my husband and children to love?
For one day God will bless me and
Another crown will be for you above.

For your worth is found in your hymen as a bride, in your womb as a wife, and in your seed as a senile old woman, right?

Help me to make good judgments, mother
So when I’m a keeper at home;
I will not make some awful mistake
Like many others we have known.

Awful mistakes like allowing children the opportunity to make friends with people outside our fanatical religious cults, or treating our daughters like "people."

Walk a little plainer, mother,
For one day I will be like you;
Working willingly for family and friends,
Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?

No, your body is not an altar and your life was not made to be someone else's sacrifice. Trust me, it's better this way.