Older Women Training Younger Women — Titus 2:3-5 Part I

CHomeS Round Up
Older Women Training Younger Women — Titus 2:3-5 Part I
by Barbara Smith
[I travelled with the Above Rubies team from Gore to
Kaitaia, speaking at five camps and 11 meetings during
August and the first part of September.
The five camps were at Christchurch, Gore, Hastings,
Ngaruawahia and Coopers Beach (Kaitaia) while the
eleven meetings were held at Oamaru, Dunedin, Te
Anau, Wanaka, Hokitika, Nelson, Blenheim,
Wellington, Mt Maunganui, Dargaville and Moerewa.
Val Stares, the Australian Director of Above Rubies
(whose messages inspired the following article), and
Heather Jones, the New Zealand Director of Above
Rubies, said to me that the people most ready to listen
to their message were Home Educators. It seems they
already think outside the box.
The interesting thing for me travelling with the Above
Rubies team was the opportunity to speak to a whole
new group of people about Home Education. A lot of
Home Educating mothers came to the camps, and it was
great to catch up with them and to be mutually
encouraging to each other. Then there were those who
came to the camp who had never thought about the
Home Education option. They wouldn’t be at my
“Getting Started” workshop, but as the camp
progressed, they would be challenged by the speakers’
messages and by discussion with others during break
times and often seek me out for as much information on
Home Education as possible in the short time left, even
necessitating an extra impromptu workshop!]
Willing Hands
Proverbs 14:1: Wisdom builds her house, but folly with
her own hands tears it down.
Every wise woman builds her home. The foolish
woman pulls it down again. What does it take to build
a house? Plans? Foundations? Materials? Yes, and
Motivated, Willing hands!
Genesis 2:8: And the Lord God planted a garden in
Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he
had formed.
Man was made outside the Garden, woman was made
inside the Garden. So the man goes out to work to
provide for his family while the woman stays at home
to build her home with willing hands. We think of
ourselves as mothers, teachers, nurses and so on, but
God says that we are also builders. We usually relegate
this role to the men, but we are building with something
far greater than brick and timber.
The word “build” is the Hebrew word BANAH, which
means:
1. To make, to set up surely, to build.
2. To repair. It is not enough to build. We must
constantly keep our lives, our marriages and our homes
and families in repair.
3. To obtain children or bring about an increase in
offspring.
This is how the Titus 2 woman builds her home. We
too are to build God’s way: build to last. New Zealand
is a heathen country — Christians are not a silent
majority anymore. We need to build so much back
again into this nation. Let us pray that the hearts of all
women in New Zealand will turn back to their homes.
It will take work. We have to change our attitudes.
Jeremiah 6:16: Thus says the Lord: “Stand by the
roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where
the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your
souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it’.”
God told them the way to go, but they said that they
would not listen. Let us not be like that!
We all Mother
Even those without children will mother a cat or dog or
become foster parents. Let us be like the mother bird
mentioned in a National Geographic magazine. After
a forest fire the ranger was assessing the damage. As
he walked around the park, he found a charred bird
sitting upright under a tree. As he passed it he kicked
it and it fell over and three little birds ran out. This
mother bird could have saved herself and flown away,
but she chose to stay and protect her babies. She took
them from their nest to the floor of the forest where
they would not be smothered by the smoke. Then she
stood fast, totally committed to her calling to protect
them from the pain of the fire and death.
Are we willing to mother as this bird mothered? Are
we willing to build as this mother built?
Paul introduces Titus Chapter 2 by telling Timothy to
“teach what befits sound doctrine”. And part of that is
Titus 2:3-5: Bid the older women likewise, to be
reverent in behavior, not to be slanderers or slaves to
drink; they are to teach what is good, and so train the
young women to love their husbands and children, to
be sensible, chaste, domestic, kind, submissive to their
husbands, that the word of God may not be discredited.
(RSV)
Note: the main reason we need to be Titus 2 women is
so that the Word of God may not be discredited (RSV)
or blasphemed (NKJV). It is sound doctrine for older
women to teach these things….it tends to blasphemy
not to do so.
Further, Psalm 138:2b says, “for thou hast exalted
above everything thy name and thy word”. The RSV
says in its footnotes, “Thou hast exalted thy word
above all thy name.” The King James and New King
Keystone Vol. VI No. 5 P a g e 2 4 S e p t e m b e r 2 0 0 0
James say, “Thou has exalted thy word above all thy
name.” God’s Word is higher than His Name.
Therefore, we as older women are blaspheming God
and are teaching younger women to blaspheme God by
our inaction: by not doing what His Word says.
Why are the older women not where they should
be?
1 Tim 2:14-15 says, and Adam was not deceived, but
the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if
she continues in faith and love and holiness, with
modesty.
Women are more easily deceived than men (see
Genesis 3 with Eve in the garden). However, John 8:32
promises, “and you will know the truth, and the truth
will make you free.” The truth will set us free from this
tendency to deception.
The mother is the binder of the home, the binder of the
relationships in the home. We bind each relationship to
each other and to ourselves and God. Grandmothers
have an even greater number of relationships to bind
together. I have 72 relationships to bind together in my
home with six children. Val has 272 relationships with
three children, two son-in-laws and ten grandchildren
when they are all gathered around the table in her
home.
Employers entice mothers out of the home because they
know that women are good with relationships and often
put women in positions to keep the relationships
working well in large firms. Yet these mothers should
be using these skills for the younger women about
them: in their own families, in the church, in the
community…..all within the “Garden” setting.
The older women need to teach the younger women to
love and love being with their husbands and their
children. However, they must be careful to love the
mothers and not the babies, which are usually easier to
love. No, give the babies back to the mothers, and
older women, teach by example and Biblical
instruction.
Teach by example
Some of us older women have messed up badly
because we did not have older Godly women to train us
as in Titus 2. We need to learn the lessons then teach
them. That’s me. I need to learn to be reverent in
behaviour, not a slanderer, not given to much wine, and
to be a teacher of good things. Not only that, I need to
really love my husband, and children. I need to be
above reproach in being discreet, chaste, a homemaker,
good and obedient to my own husband. I am needing
to be learning these things as I teach younger women,
especially my daughters and their friends.
Biblical instruction
I need to be training (RSV) or admonishing (NKJV)
younger women to love their husbands, to love their
children, to be discreet, chaste (i.e., not chased)
homemakers, good to and obedient to their
“own” (NKJV) husbands and nobody else’s husband.
We need to train the younger women in the truths of the
Bible.
Let’s look at Proverbs 31:10-31.
Verses 11-12 say, The heart of her husband trusts in
her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him
good, and not harm, all the days of her life.
How are we doing on this? Again, how I long to have
had a Godly older woman to have trained me here. Last
year Craig and I read two books on marriage that are
really helping us. In Reforming Marriage Douglas
Wilson says that all the problems in the marriage,
anything that is going wrong in the marriage, is the
husband’s fault. That sounds good to us women,
doesn’t it? The reason he says this is that the husband
should be nurturing his wife all the time. If he is doing
this, he would know the problem areas in the marriage
and be able to deal with them. On the other hand
Nancy Wilson says in Fruit of Her Hands that wives
should be doing everything they do for the Glory of
God. We all get into hard places in our marriages at
times and find it hard to do what we know we should be
doing. Then that is the time that we wives should
respond to do it for the glory of God, and in doing it for
God we please our husbands.
What a hard lesson this has been for me to learn! So
often we find we are reacting against each other.
Something happens, the husband acts or reacts, then the
wife will react which in turn continues the spiraling
outwards of the marriage relationship as the husband
reacts to the wife, and wife reacts to husband. This has
a negative effect on the children and on our home
education. But when the wife gets into a hard place and
she doesn’t react but looks to God to Glorify Him, this
in turn pleases the husband who will begin nurturing his
wife. This causes the spiraling inwards to bring the
husband and wife closer together. This also has a
positive effect on the children and our disciplining, and
home educating becomes a much easier job.
The husband is the head of the home, but I am learning
at the moment that the wife is the binder of the
relationships, and this creates the atmospere of the
home. When the wife is not walking in her role, the
family can fall apart. When the wife is walking as God
intended her to, then it is easier for the husband to be
the head of the home and the nurturer of the home. So
wives, when you are in a hard place in your marriage,
look to God to help you out and carry you through.