Titus 2 for Ladies- How Not Being Keepers at Home Dishonors God

by Joy Marie Dunlap

Titus 2 : 3 - 5

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be dishonored.

Please note the ending of this passage carefully. It tells us that if we don't do and be all these things, the Word of God will be dishonored. Why? Is this just a quaint way of speaking? We would be badly amiss to take any of God's Word to be just quaint speech. Clearly, a fact is being stated here about how God's Word can be dishonored. Perhaps it is saying, "Here is the Word of God, saying that women should do these things. You can honor it or dishonor it by obeying or disobeying it." Even if that is all it is saying, we should take this quite seriously!

It appears to me, however, that this passage is saying a little more than that. It appears to be saying that our lives will bring God honor in the minds of those who witness the results of how we live, if we obey this passage. The corollary is that if we disobey it, the results in our lives will make a mockery of God and His Word. God is showing women here how to bring about successful results in their family life, so that the outcome (or fruit) of their lives will be good, sweet, powerful, and honoring to God in the minds of all who see them.

So how can we, as women, ensure that the outcome of our lives brings honor to God? The standard answer found in the church today is: to build a career, buy a trendy wardrobe, purchase a home and fill it with expensive and beautiful material things, keep up your outward appearance (face, hair, figure), and put your children in childcare, conventional schools, and after school programs so you can keep up your strength to maintain your "Christian witness" by making sure you and everything you own stays beautiful physically, in terms of outward appearance.

This is the very opposite of what the Bible teaches in Titus 2. The scenario in my last paragraph is exactly what this passage is saying dishonors the Word of God! Yet Christian women fall for it every day, because outward appearance is what the world teaches us, and what the world around us expects, and we know they will persecute us if we don't deliver that outward appearance of success. And that outward appearance of success invariably requires that we put our children aside and take on a career outside the home.

Why does it honor God most when women stay home, are keepers at home, and focus their lives primarily on loving their husbands and children? The answer is because a woman's life focus determines the whole outlook and attitude of the next generation. The husband should be the head of the home, but the wife is the hub of the home. He enforces rules and teaches his children self- discipline, strength of character, and self-control. But she deeply affects the children's hearts with her presence in the home and her attitude. If we are there for our children, loving and nurturing them, teaching them and listening to them, being warm, caring, understanding, and most of all, available to them with quantity time, we win their hearts. And if we are devout Christian women (with Christianity being the central focus in our lives, not just a Sunday thing) we also win their whole hearts to Christ in a lifelong lasting way.

There is a huge difference between getting our children to outwardly acknowledge Christianity, give lip service, go to church all dressed up, even pray the prayer of salvation, as opposed to raising a child to be on fire for the Lord, filled with His love and His purpose in their lives.

When you are at home with your children, the fervency of your heart passes down easily into the hearts of your children. If you are only minimally available to them (which is inevitable when you have a career) your children will pick up on what is on someone else's heart, not yours. That's because children's hearts are most affected by whoever spends the most TIME with them. It is a fact of life you simply cannot get around.

If I have my children's hearts, I can pass on to them a deep rooted, enduring love for God's Word. I can train them up in all the principles of God's Word (not just conformity to my wishes in outward appearance). If I apply God's Word to every area of their lives, they will truly listen with their whole hearts because I have their hearts, because I stayed home and loved them with the bulk of my time.

If the bulk of my time was spent in a career outside the home, someone else would have to watch over them all day on weekdays, and I would not have their hearts. Someone else would have their heart, and they would take on that person's values, not mine. When I applied Scripture to their lives, they would resent and reject it.

We hear this talked about all the time, only it is worded as if it is simply inevitable that teens and adolescents will reject their parents' teaching and their parents' values. This is a lie we should reject . I know from personal experience, because I have every one of my children's hearts. Not all have reached Christian maturity, but the eldest have reached a maturity, submission, tenderness, and openness to my values that is thought impossible in this day and age (though it was the norm when most Americans home schooled!)

If you will stay home and home school, making yourself available to your children, you will have their hearts. When you have their hearts, turn their hearts not just to salvation in order to make it to heaven, but to the whole Word of God in its entirety, to honor Him with their lives. This is God's central calling to women, in every age. And it definitely has its rewards ! It can be hard at times, but join me ! God is with you in it, and if you do your part He surely will do His part, sustaining you with wisdom, provision, and strength to persevere.