Older Women & Younger Women by Kim Campbell
Kim is a contributor of the Talk About Him Blog. She is a seminary graduate from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary with a Masters of Divinity in Christian Education. Kim loves working in the home, serving her husband, guiding her children, and teaching The Word. Kim resides in Augusta, Ga with her husband and two boys.
“Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.” Titus 2:4-5
Relationship of a Titus 2 Woman
Relationships. We are all in relationships. To be in relationship with someone or something is just to have interaction. So we have relationships with coffee, our alarm, our siblings, our spouse, our children, our neighbors, or even those we pass on the street in the morning or those parents who join us in the carpool line.
Scripture is a book about relationships too. God the Father is in relationship with the Son and the Spirit. He is in relationship with sinful man throughout history. He is in relationship with those who He has redeemed through the blood of His Son. And therefore, we are in relationship with others as an attribute of our Great God. One of these relationships is the relationship between older and younger women.
We are encouraged in this relationship in Titus 2 through The Apostle Paul. Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament under the authority of the Holy Spirit, wrote a short letter to a pastor named Titus about the relationship between the women of the church.
Titus 2:4-5 states, “Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.”
Understanding The Passage
There are a few things that we need to understand before moving forward in this passage.
- First, we need to understand that these verses were not only meant for its original hearers. No, it was kept and preserved for us today.
- Second, our whole lives (Romans 12:1-2) need to be lived in accordance with “sound doctrine) (Titus 2:1).
- Third – then once we understand those two things, we can look at relationships. Older women have a role – we are to train – “to give instruction in wise behavior and good judgment” – the younger women.
The Older Titus 2 Woman
Paul tells Titus to teach the older women to train younger women: in wise behavior, in their drinking habits (not to be enslaved to alcohol), keep their tongues with wisdom and love, teaching what is good, train them how to love their husbands and children, serving them well in the home, kind, submissive (gladly come up under the authority of another) their own husbands.
What are we to train in? Paul tells Titus to teach the older women to train younger women: in wise behavior, in their drinking habits (not to be enslaved to alcohol), keep their tongues with wisdom and love, teaching what is good, train them how to love their husbands and children, serving them well in the home, kind, submissive (gladly come up under the authority of another) their own husbands.
The Younger Titus 2 Woman
Younger women – watch the older women in your church. If you see one who is running hard after Jesus, while understanding that no one is perfect even your greatest leaders, ask her if she will grab coffee with you. Learn all you can about how to be the Titus 2 wife: how to love your husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to your own husbands.
How To Practically Live The Titus 2 Woman Instruction
We live this out through simple discipleship and doing life together. For example, I have a mentor I’ve known since I was 18. Our relationship has changed over the years. Did she need a seminary degree to mentor me? No. She let me sit at the bar stool at her kitchen island, watch her cook, watch her serve her husband, love on her kids, parent well, serve families in the local church. She taught me to pray, to serve, and to love. She was willing to share her life with me. And later, when I did get married and had kids, I had years of wise living learned from her stored in my heart, so I could pour into my new relationships.
Discipleship and the act of older women doing life with younger women is crucial. Older women – be willing to seek out younger women to pour into. It’s scary. Yup. You might get rejected. And that will hurt. But, keep going until God opens up the right door.
Why Live The Titus 2 Woman Life? For The Gospel.
Why is this important? For the sake of the gospel. When women lead lives characterized by these things (and things like the Fruit of the Spirit and all things keeping in step with the Spirit), the world sees a beautiful picture of the Gospel. And the Gospel is crucial.
Share lives. Learn. Grow in wisdom. And do it for the sake of the Gospel.
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