Portrait of a Godly Young Woman Titus 2:5b 
Busy at home, good, and submissive

Paul tells Titus to teach the older women three things. To be…
1.	godly in their demeanor 
2.	in control of their tongue 
3.	in control of their flesh

4 Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5 to 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. 

Last Sunday we discussed the first 4 of those:

1.	Love Husbands
2.	Love children
3.	Self-control 
4.	Purity

Now we get to the really popular one that the feminists just love:

5. Busy at Home
to be busy at home

This is another single word from the words for “work” and “home”: “home workers”.  This word appears only here in the NT, but it is used in secular Greek – always in positive contexts with only one exception – when cowardly men who would not go to war were called “stay-at-homes” they would use this word to describe them.”  It refers to someone who stays at home rather than go out and do what a man would normally do.  Within marriage God has called men to be breadwinners and to work a job to earn a living, and He has called women to be homemakers.

The Biblical Argument for Homemaking

In recent years there has been somewhat of a backlash from some of the extremes of the radical feminists, and now many women even in the world are becoming more accepting of homemaking as a legitimate occupation.  But it’s more than just a legitimate occupation – it is the role God has designed for a married woman.  If you are a healthy married woman, and you are not a homemaker, you are in disobedience.  This was God’s design from the very beginning.  You can see it right from the creation.  

In Gn.3:17-19, when God told Adam how the curse would affect him, He said,
"Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food 
until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." 

The curse was not the work; it was the difficulty of the work.  And there is no indication that going out and working the fields was a new role for Adam.  The implication is that this was Adam’s role all along, but now because of sin it would be difficult.  The same goes for Eve’s part in the curse.

Gn.3:16
"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." 

When God punishes Adam in his primary sphere of activity, it’s with his work.  But when he punishes the woman in her primary sphere of activity, it’s all about her role as mother and wife.  This was God’s design from the very beginning.   We see this throughout the Bible – anywhere where there is a discussion of a godly woman.  

In Pr.31 we read about the virtuous woman.  Ironically, this is the chapter many women go to to prove that it’s not necessary for a wife to be a homemaker.  They say, “Look, she was out earning a living.  Therefore I don’t need to be a homemaker.”  But the only way you could come to a conclusion like that is to be very selective in the way you read this chapter.  Everything she does revolves around the home.  This woman is as domestic as they come.  Throughout the chapter she is described in relationship to her husband and her children.
11 Her husband has full confidence in her
23 Her husband is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land
28 Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her:

And the work she does, she does for the home.  For example, she provides clothes for everyone.
13 She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands. 
19 In her hand she holds the distaff and grasps the spindle with her fingers
21 When it snows, she has no fear for her household; for all of them are clothed in scarlet
And she prepares food for the household. 

14 She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar. 
(Some have misread that.  It doesn’t say she’s on the ships.  It says she resembles the ships in that she brings her family food.)

15 She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls. 
She provides food and clothes and is busy with all the various needs of the household.

22 She makes coverings for her bed; 
27 She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness
Those who point to her other activities and say, “There is more to being a godly woman that cooking and cleaning” are right on.  Being a homemaker isn’t restricted to just cooking and cleaning.  God gives women all kinds of gifts and expects them to use those gifts in His service.  There is nothing wrong with a woman having a job or immersing herself in some important task.  Those are good things.  And you could argue that today the housekeeping part of homemaking isn’t as time consuming as it must have been in Bible times.  Women in our culture don’t have to walk a mile to the well and carry water home, or walk down to the river with the laundry basket each day.  Women today generally aren’t spinning thread to sew all the clothes for the family.  

Is it possible to be a good homemaker and do something else as well?  Of course.  For example, many women home school their children.  If they can be good homemakers and still find the time to do that, then homemaking must not require a woman’s full time.  

What about having others watch your children so you can work?  Most people understand that putting your child in daycare all day long is not what God meant by bringing up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. But most of us would also agree that it’s not wrong to get a babysitter for an hour while you work on something important or go out with your husband.  So if an hour is OK, what about 2?  What about 4?  Where do you cross the line?  That’s between you and your husband and God.  Obviously homemaking is going to look different for a mother of several young children than it will for a couple with no children.  

A woman can do all kinds of other things, as long as first and foremost she is a homemaker.  The statement, “A woman’s place is in the home” is kind of misleading.  That makes it sound like the only thing that matters is that you are physically located within those 4 walls all the time.  A better statement is that a woman’s responsibility is in the home.  What’s important isn’t just your presence in the home – it’s the task of homemaking.  God doesn’t want you sitting around watching daytime TV, chattering endlessly on the phone, or being lazy.  Wasting time at home is just as bad as wasting time anywhere else.

This is the chapter where Paul gives the criteria by which we can discern whether an older widow has led a godly life.  
9 No widow may be put on the list of widows unless she is over sixty, has been faithful to her husband, 10 and is well known for her good deeds, such as bringing up children, showing hospitality, washing the feet of the saints, helping those in trouble and devoting herself to all kinds of good deeds. 

Godliness, for a woman, involves a number of things.  But #s 1 and 2 on the list have to do with faithfulness to her husband, and bringing up children.

As for the younger widows:
14  I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes… 

With the exception of those women God has called to be single, generally speaking the task of a woman centers around being a wife, a mother and a homemaker.  And that tends to be the case even in cultures that don’t have the Bible.  You can see God’s design just by the way He made women and men. God has built into women a concern for their domestic environment.  If you walk into an apartment of a single woman or a single man, you are going to notice a difference.  God has made women more domestic.  You see that even with young girls.

A few weeks ago Nikki had her first day at middle school.  As the day approached for that her greatest excitement, by far, was about her locker.  She couldn’t wait to get a locker.  And she went and bought shelves and decorations, and all kinds of things to fix that locker up.  When Tracy picked Nikki up after her first day, she talked to one of the teachers.  The teacher said, “The bell rang, and it was time for class to start.  Usually if anyone is late it’s the boys.  But this time it was time for class to start, ALL the boys were in their seats and ready to go, and there wasn’t a single girl there.”  So she went out to the lockers and there they all were – fixing up their lockers.  The boys just opened the door, dumped off their stuff, slammed the door and went to class.

God has planted in the female heart a desire, generally speaking, to care for her living space – even if it’s just a locker.  Tracy loves to watch decorating shows on TV.  Her favorite is one where professional decorators fix up a couple’s house, then the couple comes in with their eyes closed, and then open their eyes to see their transformed home.  It’s funny to watch the husband and the wife.  It’s amazing to see the reactions of those women.  Very often they are instantly brought to tears and are literally speechless. They will jump up and down and start hugging all the decorators and contractors and the producer and camera man…  Meanwhile the husband is trying to figure out what’s different.

Why do you think God made women like that?  He designed women to fulfill the role He planned for them. God did not design women to be the leaders and breadwinners in the family.  That’s the man’s role.  1 Tim.3:5 sets the standard for overseers in the church.  And in order to be qualified, a man must manage his household well, because If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?

The implication is that part of managing is taking care.  That’s a wonderful term.  It’s the word used in the story of the Good Samaritan, who took care of the man on the side of the road.  It refers to provision, nurture and care.  Providing for the household is the man’s role.  Women are to be provided for.  That’s why Scripture says that when a woman is widowed, God becomes her provider in a special way, because she is without a normal provider.  It’s so important, that when Jesus was on the cross bearing the weight of the sin of the world and the wrath of God, He looked down and was making provisions for someone to care for His mother.  He looked down at her and said, “Woman, behold your son” (referring to John).  He didn’t look at her and say, “Mom, get a job.”

Unless there are some unusual circumstances (such as a man becoming disabled), this is God’s standard.  The man is to be the breadwinner.  We are so quick to relegate that to 1st century tradition and just write it off as “cultural.”  But it’s not some invention of 1st century culture.  It is the design of God from the creation.  In a marriage the man is to provide and the woman is to be a homemaker.  And that was resisted in Paul’s day just like it’s being resisted now.  That’s why Paul has to tell the older women to teach it to the younger women.  He says, “teach them to be home-workers.”

The World’s Standard: 50/50

And this is really the crux of the issue with the feminists.  That’s the part of God’s design they hate the most.  There are two parts to this word that the feminists find hard to take: the part about the home, and the part about working in the home.  According to the radical feminists, any career outside the home is more respectable than being a homemaker.  The distain the world has for homemakers is seen everywhere.  In the current issue of “O” magazine (which is Oprah Winfrey’s magazine – who, indecently, is a master-deceiver and has led many, many women astray)…  There is a feature article entitled, “Young men: Enjoy one today.”  The article is full of exactly the kind of indecent garbage and godless ideology you would expect from a magazine connected with Oprah.  The very first point it makes is this: The reason you should pursue relationships with younger men is because they are less likely to expect you to be a homemaker.

“A man who came of age in the 70s or 80s doesn’t think twice about being married to a woman with her own career, or splitting the household chores with her.  He probably grew up having to pitch in and help with dinner… The fact that a younger man’s very busy mom probably didn’t have time to whip up many culinary delights for the family can also work to your advantage. [Interesting that she assumes only non-homemakers are busy] Anything you serve, however clumsily, is going to be greeted with unbelievable enthusiasm…When it comes to gender roles and the division of labor, you’re better off with a man whose mother has already fought the big battles for you.”

That’s what the feminists want – the obliteration of roles.  “Let’s just split the task of breadwinning, and split the household chores.  Everything will be 50/50, and there will be no distinction of roles in the home.”  There is no homemaker, and so instead of a home you have little more than a house with a bunch of stuff in it that requires a lot of chores to be done.  And since those chores don’t bring an income, they are seen as menial.  So they are no one’s responsibility; they should just be split 50/50.  That may sound fine from a natural point of view, but it ignores the fact that a team can do far more than two individuals.  

God did not design a marriage to just be two individuals living together.  For any kind of team to be effective, there have to be different roles.  A football team where every single player had the same role wouldn’t have a chance.  Let me read you a portion of a letter I got last week:

“When the children were little I had the wrong attitude of thinking that since my husband was an adult he could and should take care of himself.  I felt very overwhelmed with motherhood and I think that was my reasoning.  I did do many things for him but I didn't take seriously my role as helpmeet.  What I really wanted was for him to HELP MEET my needs and my work around the house. The Lord did help me to understand that I was wrong.  I think that young women do fail their husbands by expecting him to work full-time and then come home and do housework and take care of the kids.  And then they want him to be the spiritual leader in the home and at church too.  I too struggled with this.  Over the years I learned (the hard way).  My husband taught and explained the Scriptures to me…I am fully convinced that the Lord intends for us women to be workers in the home (v5) and to do what we can to free up our husband for his ministry.”

I know that couple, and I know that he’s not one of those men who sits in the middle of the house relaxing while his wife is running around doing everything.  When she needs help, or when he is available to help – he helps her with whatever she’s doing and vice-versa.  But they haven’t made a daily routine that requires so many hours of housework from him that he doesn’t have time to engage in serious study of God’s Word and give significant time to ministry.  A huge percentage of ministry at most (if not all) churches is done by the women.  Mostly that’s because women generally have more flexibility in their schedules.  The task of homemaking is such that things can be shuffled around and you can find time to do various ministries.  But we also need men – desperately.  And if they are all at the office from 7 in the morning until 5 or 6 at night, then come home and spend some time with their kids, and help with dinner, and help clean up, and put all the kids to bed, and then spend some time with their wives…  When are they going to be able to do anything for the church?  How are they ever going to fulfill their calling in the body and minister their spiritual gift (or even discover what it is for that matter)?  Where are the leaders going to come from?

Very often women get frustrated because their husbands aren’t better spiritual leaders, and they aren’t taking leadership in the church or the home.  But for a man to develop himself as a spiritual leader, and to become strong in the Lord, takes time in the Word and in ministry.  And a man won’t be able to do that if his whole life is earning an income and doing housework.  (Now, if your wife works hard to provide you with free time and you spend it all watching football and goofing around with your hobbies, you might as well do the housework and let her delve into God’s Word.)  This is a hard area for women, because the task of homemaking and mothering is so hard.  That work is so hard, and so frustrating and monotonous and exasperating at times…  it’s very tempting to just gobble up every spare moment your husband has to get him to help.  Sometimes the best thing an older women can teach a younger women is how to become more efficient in doing the housework so it’s not so overwhelming.  - and how to discipline the kids properly so they aren’t so overwhelming. 

Some women – even with young children in the house, are able to get all their housework done early in the day every day, because they have an efficient system.  If you teach that to the younger woman, think of all the time you can free up for them to serve in other ways.  Men should help.  But that’s what their work should be considered – help (not their share of the housework).  If we finish eating supper and I get up and wash all the dishes – even if I do it every night, Tracy doesn’t start thinking of that as my share of the housework.  She sees it as what it is – me helping her with her task.

The Beauty of Homemaking
	
If you were here last week when I gave all those quotes from feminists, you heard the distain and hatred they have for homemakers.  That’s amazing, because what reality on this planet is more wonderful than home?  What word is more beautiful and comforting than the word “home?”  When we were attacked on 9-11, where did everyone want to be?  Home.  Home is where there is comfort and safety and rest and shelter and warmth and love and family.  It’s where you are accepted and you always have a place.  Every summer kids at camp get homesick – sometimes to the point where they get hysterical.  But no matter how much they enjoy camp, they never go home and get campsick.

There is no more wonderful place this side of heaven than home.  In fact, there is no place more like heaven than home.  That’s why God describes heaven to us in terms of home.  So home is a wonderful place.  But what makes it so wonderful?  The house?  No.  None of the houses we have lived in meant anything to me before or after we lived there.  What makes a home a wonderful place is a homemaker.  If the most wonderful place on earth is home, the most wonderful occupation on earth is to be a home-maker.  How anyone could regard that as demeaning is beyond me.  I guess money becomes such an idol that they can only see value in something if it brings a paycheck.

The Husband’s Responsibility

I said earlier that if you’re a married, Christian woman, and you’re not a homemaker, you’re disobedient.  But in some cases it’s the husband who is disobedient.  There are some cases where a woman is perfectly willing to fulfill her God-ordained role as a homemaker, but her husband has made foolish decisions and has accrued so much debt, and bought such a big house, and such expensive cars, and has taken such expensive vacations…  That it all costs way more than he can earn.  So now she has to earn an income just to help pay for everything.  

In many, many cases the woman is more than willing to be a homemaker and to raise the children, but the husband is so greedy for money that he shoves her out into the world and says, “Bring home a paycheck.”  So off the kids go to daycare, where hopefully unbelievers will do for money what you won’t do for love…  And off goes your wife to work, where she is thrown, very often into a male dominated environment where at the very least she is exposed to innuendo and very often harassment.  Now instead of just being submissive to her own husband she is under the authority of another man.  And to keep her job she has to be respectful and responsive to his authority, which will tend to make her attractive to him (because men are attracted to a woman who is respectful and responsive to his leadership).  And as he becomes attracted to her, very often she is going to tend to be attracted to him.  (The rate of adultery and the divorce rate goes way up when the woman is working outside the home.)  So now her very spiritual life is being harmed because instead of fulfilling your God-ordained role of protector and provider you had to have a few thousand more dollars each month (most of which ends up going to pay for daycare, a new wardrobe, car expenses, etc.)

Some of these principles might be new to some of you.  Perhaps you realize you are in an unbiblical situation, and now you wish you had made different decisions, but you see no way out now.  You have made financial commitments that require two incomes, and there is no way your wife can just quit her job tomorrow and stay at home.  What should you do?  

Here’s what you should do:
If you feel you are not fulfilling God’s desire for your family, make it your goal to get to the point where you are fulfilling God’s desire – but use wisdom.  You don’t have to change everything overnight.  If you apply these principles and decide the Lord would have you be more of a homemaker, just start taking steps toward that goal.

1.	Begin to pray and ask God to give you more of a heart for the ministry of homemaking. 
2.	Explore options like cutting back your hours, or keeping your eye open for another job.
3.	If finances stand in the way, consider reducing the amount of money you need by selling something, or taking fewer vacations, or reducing your standard of living.

I told you last week that the words in this list come in pairs.  Let’s take a look at the companion word that goes with homemaking.

6. Goodness

to be kind, (avgaqa,j) (good)

Literally, it just the normal word for “good.”  So the idea is to be virtuous workers at home.  Just because a woman stays home and raises her children doesn’t mean she is good.  Kindness is definitely a part of that.  She must be a kindhearted woman.  But beyond that is the idea of excellence.  Teach the younger women to excel at this task.

Just like everything else there are good homemakers and poor homemakers.  Teach them how to be efficient.  Teach them self-discipline – simple things like doing the hard job first.  Teach them how to make a schedule and follow a routine.  Teach them how to customize their homemaking to fit the unique needs of their families.  Teach them to be creative – so when they make a home they make the most wonderful home around.  It’s an art.  A woman puts her personality into the environment she creates in the home (and I’m not just talking about the external things like decorations.  I’m talking about things like 
•	the pace at which the home operate 
•	the volume of voices or music
•	the degree to which the household structure is rigidly followed or loosely followed
•	how often guests are there…

She puts the fingerprints of her, unique, God-given personality all over everything in the home.  Teach the younger women to make the most of that.  Don’t just mop the floor and do the laundry.  Create a home for your family – a home like no other home.

7. Submission 

and to be subject to their husbands, 

If you want a full explanation of the concept of submission, pick up the Godly Christian Home album – especially tape 94 and 94b.  I’ll just summarize that study here.

Reversing the Curse

When we read about the household codes in the NT, we always see the same thing over and over - Wives, submit to your husbands and Husbands, love your wives.  That is not just some cultural tradition Paul picked up on, or just one of many options for marriage.  It is a very intentional command targeted directly the difficulties that came from the curse.  

As a result of the fall, the man’s problem tends to be that he rules over his wife with harsh domination.  And so the solution is, Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.  And also as a result of the fall, the wife’s problem is that her desire is tends to be to dominate her husband.  So the solution is for her to be submissive to her husband. 

The whole plan of redemption is to reverse the curse.  And that is exactly what this is.  It’s not a cultural tradition.  It’s a counter-cultural restoration of the paradise of Gn.2, prior to the fall.  Paul is not saying, “Look, just conform to the cultural norms of our day.”  He’s saying “Men, be a Gn.2 type man” and “Women, be a Gn.2 type woman.”  It’s a call for all of us to become paradise people – to return to God’s original design in creation.  Submission has three parts: Respect, obedience and helping.  We’ll just briefly touch on the first one this morning.

Respect

The woman’s role of following the man’s leadership is not so much a set of behaviors as much as it is a disposition.  Most people would summarize Eph.5 by saying, “Husbands love your lives and wives submit to your husbands.”  But that’s not how Paul summarized it.

Eph.5:33  each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. 

The best word to summarize the woman’s responsibility is not submit.  It’s respect.  The action of submitting is just one expression of the attitude of respect.  If you ask most men, “What, more than anything else, do you want from your wife?”  Very few would say, “Obedience.”  Very few would say, “I want her to always do what I say” or “I want her to serve me.”  The chauvinists might say that, and all of us, in our sinfulness may tend to treat women with that kind of attitude, but that is not the deepest craving of a man’s heart.  A lot of women don’t realize this, but God designed men to crave one thing from their wives above anything else – respect.  

You know how you crave affection?  He has that same craving to be looked up to by you.  If you show him affection, he will like that.  If you smile at him from across the room, he’ll enjoy that.  But nothing will energize and strengthen him more than if you are in an obvious way impressed with him.  What a man wants and needs more than anything isn’t for a woman to serve him, but to look up to him, respect him, take him seriously, hold him in high regard – without him having to earn it.  And women are uniquely suited to build up men in this way.  A man may have 100 other men who highly respect him and look up to him, but it’s all meaningless if his wife looks down on him and treats him like a child.  And that’s very easy to do, because of the similarities between him and the children.  In many ways you find yourself having to take care of him in the same ways you take care of your kids.  And very often he will do some of the same irritating, irresponsible things as the kids.  And it is easy to slip into talking to him like you talk to your kids. (“How many times do I have to tell you to pick up your socks!”). You just don’t talk that way to someone you deeply respect and admire.  Nothing is more crushing to man than being looked down upon by his wife.

On the other hand, I know from experience that a man can go to work and have everyone there including his boss think that he’s an imbecile, and he can endure that and maintain his dignity if his wife respects him and is impressed with him.  You may be married to an unbelieving husband who is moving away from Christ and not toward Him.  Obviously you can’t follow in that area.  Godly femininity is an inclination and a disposition toward following the man’s leadership.  A godly woman will be one who wishes he would lead toward Christ so she could follow, and in any area where he is not leading her into sin, she is eager to respond.  If her husband demands that she sin, she must steadfastly refuse.  But she can still make it clear that she doesn’t like having to resist her husband’s will.

Even if a woman has a husband that is so evil he can’t be followed in any area – still she can have a godly attitude toward godly male leadership even if she never in her life experiences it firsthand.  This is what makes a woman beautiful and attractive to a man.

1 Pe.3:4 says the key to being beautiful and attractive and desirable is a spirit that is quiet and gentle.  

The word gentle is the word “meek,” and it means “non-threatening.”  The idea is that the man is in no danger of being belittled or looked-down upon, but rather he will be respected, held up and strengthened.  Then Peter uses the example of Sarah, who called her husband “master” (lit “lord”) – v.6.  The fascinating thing about that is that there is only one place where it is recorded that she called him that – Gn.18.   It’s very significant that Peter, in a section on submission, refers to Gn.18 and not Gn.20.  Gn.20 is a chapter about when Abraham told Sarah to do something that would be hard, and she obeyed and did it.  And you might think that would be the ideal illustration of submission.  But instead he refers to ch.18, a chapter in which he doesn’t tell her to do anything.  It’s just that in that chapter she refers to him as “lord.”  I believe the reason is that the greatest expression of submission isn’t obedience.  That can be a valid expression, depending upon the attitude.  But the greatest expression of respect and submission is in her speaking to her husband this way.  For her to call him “lord” would be like someone in our day referring to her husband as “sir.”  Now, any man who would require that of his wife has got a real problem.  But I also think any wife who would have a hard time addressing her husband in a way shows respect and submissiveness may also have a problem.  If you find that all you can do is speak to him like a peer, that’s a problem.  

Perhaps you have been doing what he asks of you and following his lead in external matters, but the fact is you don’t really respect him.  Then you are not submissive.  There are many wives who have gone to great lengths to do something special for their husbands – maybe they wrote a long letter or cooked a special meal or spent a lot of time and energy and effort trying to do something that would be especially encouraging… – and the truth is they could have encouraged him ten times as much just by waiting for a moment when he showed strong, godly leadership and responded by looking up at him and saying, “Yes sir” with a respectful attitude.  

Respect is the summary of what it means to be submissive, but there are more specifics we need to discuss.  For example, in what sense is a wife to obey her husband?  And what about when your husband is clearly deciding foolishly or sinfully?  And how do you deal with the fear that comes with the decision to be submissive?  (It’s a scary thing to be under the authority of a sinful, fallible human being).  And what exactly does Scripture mean by the term “helper”?  And how does that fit in with the concept of submission?  Those are some of the issues we are going to delve into next Sunday.

Benediction:  Ps 20:1-5  May the LORD answer you when you are in distress; may the name of the God of Jacob protect you.  2 May he send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support from Zion. 4May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.  5 May the LORD grant all your requests.