The Portrait of a Godly Woman, Part Two: Ending With the Beginning

Transcript

JR 19
5/14/2023
The Portrait of a Godly Woman, Part 2: Ending With the Beginning
Titus 2:3-5
Jesse Randolph

Well, good evening, and again, and Happy Mother’s Day. It’s great to be back with you here at church, on this Lord’s Day as we get ready to hear from the living God through His Word. Well, if a person wants to throw gas on the cultural fires that are blazing all around us today a great way to do so is to say something about what the Bible teaches about the roles and the responsibilities that God has set forth for women. That is, assuming you can define what a “woman” is because apparently that now up for grabs culturally speaking, today. See, when you speak up for what God has revealed in His Word about biblical womanhood and when you speak against the culture’s demands for egalitarianism, and gender fluidity, and trading off of male and female roles, and bringing down of what they will call “the patriarchy,” you’re going to face some heat. You’re going to face some opposition.

I saw this unfold right in front of my eyes, really a little over a year ago I think it was now when I happened upon two different social media posts from two different sources of Christian influence, representing two different corners of evangelicalism. The first post came from a church and this post had an openly liberal and egalitarian bent to it. It had a clear “Christians need to get with the times” streak to it. The comments on this church’s post were overflowing with self-congratulatory, effusive praise. Here are just a few of those comments before I get to the post itself. “That is great news!!! A move toward being more inclusive!!!!!” “Historic night. Congratulations everyone!” “Thanks for pioneering towards God’s promised future.” “The blessings of the Almighty be upon you as you enter into a new adventure of ministry, breaking the shackles behind us.” “Thank you for empowering and elevating women just as Jesus did in His day.” “It is SO encouraging to see women affirmed in this way! Thank you for sharing this important moment!” “They deserve it. All amazing women! “Thanks for your brave step on recognizing and validating the ministry of woman.” These were all comments to a post made by Saddleback Church from my old neck of the woods, in southern California when that church publicly announced and celebrated that they had formally “ordained” three women to serve as “pastors” there. Never mind that whole I Timothy 2:12 prohibition on women exercising authority over men in the church. Never mind the fact that a key qualification for the pastorate is that a pastor is be the “husband” of one wife, I Timothy 3:2. A qualification which even today’s cultural moment, no woman could possibly fulfill. No. As made very clear in its social media post Saddleback Church has decided it is time to throw off the shackles of Scripture and look forward to a new and enlightened and liberated day.

Well, judging by the vast majority of the comments that Saddleback received in their announcement, the ones I just read off for you, the church’s decision certainly appealed to the masses. It gave them what they wanted. While the dissenting crowd, you know, the Bible people, people you and me, the miniscule minority, are voices were completely drowned out by the deafening applause of those who were tripping all over themselves to celebrate Saddleback’s announcement.

Well, a few days after that post from Saddleback I saw another post on Twitter. By the way, that’s called a “tweet.” A post on Twitter is called a tweet. You tweet on Twitter. This came from another source of Christian influence from a different part of the nation and as we’re about to see from an entirely different side of the Christian spectrum. I’m going to do this out of order. Again, instead of reading the Tweet for you first, I’m going to read the comments to that the Tweet then I’ll set the context later by reading the tweet itself. Here are a few of the comments to this second tweet, and there are hundreds more like these. “This tweet,” says the comment, “reads like women are still living on the late 1700s frontier.” “Seems like you got your view here from Victorian culture, not Scripture.” “The 1920s called. They want their cultural positions back.” “Stop with the misogyny.” “Grow up and join this century.” “The only thing I’m scoffing at is your patriarchal attitude about the role of women.” “Your poor wife. As if being a mother isn’t enough of a full-time job, she also has an adult toddler husband to care for.” “People like you, who uphold the abusive patriarchy, are why people are leaving the church in droves. The church will die as it should.” The tweet that was being replied to in those comments came from Dr. Owen Strachan who is the Provost and Research Professor of Theology at Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Conway, Arkansas. What was it about what Dr. Strachan’s tweeted that drew such heat? Well, in his tweet, Dr. Strachan said the following, “Christian women: God loves the vocation of homemaking. Laundry, changing diapers, menu-planning, preparing meal after meal, teaching children, helping & supporting your husband, praying, sewing, knitting. The world scoffs,” says Dr. Strachan, “but all this work will be rewarded by God.” That’s it. That’s what Dr. Strachan said. Note his audience. Christian women. Note his tone. Building up Christian women who have devoted themselves to making sure the care and stewardship of their home is primary. Note his method. Providing a non-exhaustive list, there’s an etcetera in there, of some of the ways that Christian women can live faithfully and fruitfully in the sphere into which God has primarily called them to not only function, but to flourish. Well, Dr. Strachan called it. Because the world did scoff when he published that tweet. But sadly, it wasn’t only the world that was scoffing in response to that tweet. It was just as much the church in comment after comment, men and women identifying themselves as Christians were quick to jump in and openly mock and vilify Dr. Strachan for what they called his “Victorian” views.

Now, before we go any further, I want you to note what was going on in this “tale of two Tweets.”
On the one hand there’s this unrestrained praise, and adoration, and celebration for a so-called “church” which is seeking to break barriers by breaking free from what is plainly revealed in the pages of Scripture. On the other hand, the vitriol and venom are reserved for someone who not only dared to believe in but champion God’s timeless principles for women.

That’s where we are today, isn’t it? Yes, there is quite the firestorm brewing, even in Christian circles on the topic of the Bible’s teachings on womanhood. We are going to run headlong into that firestorm again this evening as we go back to our text that we looked at this morning, Titus 2:3-5. We’re going to read it again and you’re going to see in a second where I’m going to take it from there. Titus 2:3, God’s Word reads, “Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so 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, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.”

You know, I suspect, based on the experiences of men like Owen Strachan that if it were somehow possible for the Apostle Paul today to remove his gaze from the glorified Christ in whose presence he is today, now giving him just enough time to set up a Twitter account. If the apostle Paul were to tweet out these words from Titus 2:3-5, he would be vilified just like Dr. Strachan. Why? Why is it that a passage like this is so reviled and so hated in the world? Why is it that men and women alike in the church will look the other way or shift in their seat, or chew on their pen cap, or scratch their temple, or refuse to make eye contact with the person delivering this text, when encountering this passage? Why? Well to figure out the answer to that question, we need to go back to the beginning. So, as we conclude our day together, today on Mother’s Day, the Lord’s Day, we’re going to end with the beginning. This morning we began with the end as we looked at the purpose statement in verse 5, “so that the word of God will not be dishonored.” This evening, we’re going to end with the beginning. In fact, that’s the title of this evening’s message, “Ending with the Beginning.” In this evening’s message, we’re going to tie together and connect several loose ends related to the text that we first looked at this morning. But as we’re about to see, it all starts in the beginning; as in, the very beginning, back in the earliest pages of the book of Genesis.

If you’re taking notes tonight, our first point for your outline, our preaching point is, the past. The past. Turn with me in your Bibles back to Genesis 3. We’re going to go to Genesis 3 as we look at the past as we go back to the beginning. Genesis 3 and we’ll pick it up in verse 1, a familiar passage I’m sure to many. We get to January 3rd in our bible reading plan each year and we’re already at this part of world history and redemptive history. Genesis 3:1 says, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, ‘Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden? The woman said to the serpent, ‘From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, “You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.”’ The serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely will not die!’ For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ He said, ‘I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.’ And He,” meaning Yahweh here, “said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ The man said, ‘The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.’ Then the LORD God said to the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ And the woman said, ‘The serpent deceived me, and I ate’.”

What we see in this passage is that both Adam and Eve sinned against God. They rejected the goodness and kindness and favor which God had shown them. They turned away from their all-wise and their all-benevolent Creator. They heeded the deception of the serpent. To borrow from Proverbs 3, they “leaned on their own understanding.” They ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which was an act of disobedience and sin against God, and which brought about the curse, not only on all human life, but on the entirety of God’s creation. God began by pronouncing a curse on the serpent, we saw there in Genesis 3:14. Then He announced what’s been called the protoeaungelion, the first gospel some will call it in Genesis 3:15. Look at what comes next, in Genesis 3:16. It says, “To the woman He said, ‘I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you will bring forth children; yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” There it is. This is the twofold curse not only on Eve herself, but on all who would fall in her line. In the first part of God’s judgment on the woman, He declared that bearing children would now be painful and traumatic. The woman’s primary life-giving, procreative function would be full of toil. The New Testament counterpart, by the way, to this first part of the curse on woman would be in 1 Timothy 2:13-15, it reads this way, “For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.” We don’t have time today to get into that passage and what it means to be “preserved,” the verb there is sozo, “saved,” what it means to be saved, “through the bearing of children,” because our focus today on the second part of the curse that was pronounced on the woman, when the Lord said at the end of verse 16 here in Genesis 3, “yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Here God declared that the woman’s primary relationship, her relationship to her husband, and the undergirding feelings and emotions that are inherently attached to that relationship, would be disrupted. The marriage relationship, the relationship that was to be central in family, in culture, and later, in the church, the very building-block of all human relationships would be marked by the effects of the Fall. And it starts with these words, “Yet your desire shall be for your husband.”

Now, what does that mean? What is this “desire” that is being referred to here? What in the world does it have to do with the passage that we’re in this evening, Titus 2:3-5? Now, some have theorized that this is referring to some sort of sexual desire. The consequence of the sin of the woman, they will say is that she now has sexual desire for her husband. But how would that be a consequence of sin when sexual desire, when kept safely within the hearth of a properly functioning marriage relationship is inherently desirable and good and right? No, the opposite is true. A woman who experiences and expresses sexual desire for her husband is experiencing a good desire, a noble desire. Certainly not a desire that is a consequence of or a punishment for sin since marriage is and the physical aspect of marriage is, part of God’s good and original plans for marriage. What else might this mean when it says, “Your desire shall be for your husband”? Thankfully, there’s a clue in the very next chapter of Genesis. Look at Genesis 4. The scene here, Genesis 4, you’ll recall is Cain has offered up his offering to God. His offering has been rejected and his brother has had his offering accepted by God, Abel. Cain is furious, it shows on his face, his countenance falls, and jealousy and murder now rise up in his heart. Look at what it says in Genesis 4:6-7. “The LORD said to Cain, ‘why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” There’s that word again, “desire.” In Hebrew, it’s the word teshuqah and in Genesis 4 with that word sin is personified as having animal-like properties. It’s “crouching.” Sin here is pictured like being a lion or a tiger that’s ready to pounce. Or a coiled-up snake that is ready to strike. The aim of the predator is to kill, and the aim of the sin mentioned here in Genesis 4 is to destroy.

With all of that in view, let’s go back to Genesis 3 where God tells the woman, “Your desire shall be for your husband.” Far from referring to a good and God-honoring sexual desire for her husband this is referring to a wrong and sinful desire on the part of the woman. Specifically, it is referring to the woman’s desire to dominate her husband in the same way that sin seeks to dominate each and every one of us. God had originally created the family structure as being comprised of a husband who would lovingly lead and shepherd and care for and tend to his wife, while the wife would follow his leadership. But now there would be, as a result of the curse, this power struggle with the woman having a desire sometimes overtly, sometimes covertly to push him out of his place of leadership. The woman’s desire now would naturally be in her flesh, pitted against her husband and she would now stand in opposition to her husband and his God-given position of leadership and headship and authority. Sadly, this is how it goes in countless marriages today not only out there in the world, but right here in the church! This is why, notwithstanding a long legacy of faithfulness from this pulpit there will inevitably be some stopped-up ears and some stubborn hearts here this evening who refuse to hear and heed the eternal principles that God has set forth for us in His Word. This is why there will be, inevitably, women who are choosing rebellion against what God has declared to be good over submitting to God’s perfect and beautifully designed plans for how His daughters are to live.

Well, it wasn’t just the woman who was affected by this two-fold curse of Genesis 3:16. The text also says, it says, “Your desire shall be for your husband,” and look what comes next, “and he shall rule over you.” The loving leadership that husbands were called to, the text here says, would be replaced by some desire to rule over, to master, to exercise some form of heavy-handed lordship over his wife. This is not the kind of leadership in which the husband is prioritizing his wife’s concerns. This is not the type of leadership that is seeking his wife’s good over his own. Rather, this is the type of leadership which dominates, which stifles, which steamrolls, and which show cases that the husband cares foremost about himself. So, while the woman’s desire would lead to her seeking to usurp the man’s position of authority, in his flesh, the man would be tempted to love himself more than he loves his wife, not all the time, mind you, but the temptation is there. The temptation it’s saying here in Genesis looking back at Cain incidents here in Genesis 4, sin will always be crouching at the door seeking to overtake him. Seeking to overtake the husband and whatever good and godly desires he might have, for a season. What the curse is though, announced here in Genesis 3:16 are highlighted is that husbands and wives, from this point forward would now be battling one another for control; all as a consequence of sin.

This is the reality of life after the Fall. Bringing it back to our topic of study today this is, in their natural condition today post-fall, the state of all women on this planet in that a life which was originally designed to be perfect in every way will now be marred by pain. Pain in childbirth, pain in child rearing, and pain in the home as women who are designed to be helpers to their husbands would instead be tempted to become his nemesis.

Going back to the introduction to this message, it’s the curse on the woman. The curse of Genesis 3:16 which explains so much. The curse explains why there is resistance to faithful men like Owen Strachan and praise for weak men like Rick Warren. The curse explains why the messages I’ve been delivering today would be vilified if they were preached in the public square. The curse explains why many of you here this evening can nod in agreement at the things we’re hearing this evening and this morning from Titus 2:3-5 but why it’s so much more difficult to live out these truths when you get back home tonight.

We’ve looked at “The Past.” That was our first heading, meaning, the biblical origins, tracing it all the way back to the earliest pages of the book of Genesis to see how our world got to be in the state it is today. How we, as humans, got to the place we are today. How it is in a post-Fall world, that things have not become easier, but all the more difficult for women who were cursed not only through the pain of childbearing, but who were cursed in having this innate desire to rule over their husbands. So that’s the past.

Now as we move into second point, I’d like to narrow the funnel a bit as we focus in on how, in our post-Fall world, living according to biblical principles, here in Titus 2, as a woman, has become even more difficult in light of the rise of feminism. So, we’ve looked at “The Past.” Point two is we are now going to look at “The Path.” The Path as in, the path which has, in more recent years, led us to where we are today. Specifically with the rise of feminism. History lesson now for the next ten to fifteen minutes, ok? Then we will get back to the text. Another one of those thirty-five-minute introductions.

On July 19, 1848, 200 women gathered for a convention at a Wesleyan Church in upstate New York in the city of Seneca Falls. Leading the charge at this convention was a woman named Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Stanton’s primary aim in calling the convention was to secure for American women an equal right to vote. At this conference, this convention, Stanton and the other “delegates” issued a document which was called the “Seneca Falls Declaration.” It was modeled after the Declaration of Independence; the American Declaration of Independence and it began with these words. “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.” So, in the original American Declaration of Independence only the word “men” appeared there, “all men are created equal.” The Seneca Falls Declaration mentioned “men and women.” And though this document referred to men and women being “created,” I mean that’s a good thing, right? That’s the right initial presumption. Make no mistake, there was already at this convention an anti-God, anti-Bible agenda that was afoot, through many of the leaders of this movement. In fact, here is Elizabeth Cady Stanton in her own words in a different context. She said, “the Bible, with its fables, allegories, and endless contradictions, has been the great block in the way of civilization.” So that was the person who kicked off the Seneca Falls convention. Then Stanton, along with women like Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony, are credited for ushering in what became known as “first-wave feminism.”

Now another feminist icon who emerged during this first wave of feminism was a woman named Margaret Sanger. Sanger was a nurse, a sex educator, and the person who is credited with coining the phrase “birth control.” In 1914, Sanger founded a monthly newsletter called “The Woman Rebel,” which as I’m sure you can imagine did not hold to biblical presuppositions or a Christian worldview. In 1921, Sanger established the American Birth Control League which would later become known as Planned Parenthood. An organization whose blood-stained legacy has been the role it has played in slaughtering millions of innocent lives. Well, women’s suffrage, the right to vote, was indeed finally obtained in 1920 and that date, 1920, serves as the bookend, the end date of what is known now as “first-wave feminism.”

Well, after decades of war in the 1930s, 1940s, and even into the 1950s a “second wave of feminism” swelled up in the 1960s. This was a wave that actually rode all the way to the early 1990s. Now, while the first wave of feminism was more focused on the civic rights and privileges of women such as the right to vote. The second wave of feminism was more social in nature. Proponents of second-wave feminism were more interested in analyzing society and its structures through a critical lens. They viewed society as unjustly patriarchal with men unfairly exerting power over women and women being subservient to men and being treated as second-class citizens. The goal of the second-wave feminists, then was to set women free from their socially engineered chains of male dominance. In this second wave of feminism, you had women like Simone de Beauvoir who was an existentialist female philosopher who in 1949 wrote a book titled “The Second Sex.” In that book, she called for a feminist revolution in which women took responsibility for themselves and chose freedom from male dominance.

Then there was Betty Friedan who was instrumental in launching what became known as the “women’s liberation” movement with the publication of her 1964 book “The Feminine Mystique.”
In that book, she referred to the concept of a woman whose interests were focused on her home, and her husband, and her children as suffering from “the disease with no name” and suffering from “the malaise of the suburban housewife.”

Then came Germaine Greer who in 1970 wrote “The Female Eunuch.” Her thesis, as its crass title indicates was that our male-dominated society had tamped down the innate female sexual drive and desire. In Greer’s words, “Women have somehow been separated from their sexuality like beasts who are castrated in farming in order to serve their master’s ulterior motives to be fattened or made docile women have been cut off from their capacity for action.

Then came Gloria Steinem, the former Playboy bunny, who was an ardent abortion advocate. The founder of Ms. Magazine which for years unapologetically promoted a feminist message related to the social liberation of women. Now, in this “second-wave feminism” there were laws that were truly helpful to and did protect women such as employment laws which made sexual harassment in the workplace unlawful. But you also had in this same phase the issuance of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973, a judicial precedent that whose lasting legacy will have been the slaughter of well over 60 million innocent lives in this nation alone. Many of them female lives.

Well while many of these second-wave feminist developments were largely happening out in the world and in the culture the church was not exempt. The church was complicit and involved. For instance, in 1992, a feminist named Virginia Ramey Mollenkott wrote a book titled “Sensuous Spirituality: Out from Fundamentalism.” In that book, among other things, Ms. Mollenkott decided it was time to re-write the Lord’s Prayer. The words of Jesus, according to this feminist, needed to be rewritten to align with modern feminist ideology. Here’s how her modified version of The Lord’s Prayer goes. “O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos, focus your light within us—make it useful. Create your reign of unity now. Your one desire then acts with ours. As in all light, so in all forms grant what we need each day in bread and insight. Loose the cords of mistakes binding us, as we release the strands we hold of others’ guilt. Don’t let service things delude us, but free us from what holds us back.” Don’t say “Amen” when you hear those words. That’s just ludicrous. It’s a ludicrous nonsensical string of words.

But in our day, I mentioned the first wave of feminism and the second wave of feminism; we now live in the third wave of feminism. What’s unique about this third wave is how it seeks to fold itself in with various other forms of campaigns for justice and equality. See the modern feminist movement, third wave feminists are no longer caring only about women’s rights. It’s also about championing the rights of same-sex couples and relationships and promoting economic justice and social justice and promoting all versions of environmental justice. But what is really notable for our purposes here this evening, about third-wave feminism is this. Unlike first-wave feminism back at the Seneca Falls convention which at least had a semblance of a connection to a Christian worldview, third-wave feminism stands completely apart from any guiding Christian values, principles, or beliefs. It is far more radicalized and secularized. It is far more critical and even condemning of biblical beliefs and convictions. In our day we have people like a woman who is recently deceased, Rachel Held Evans, publishing books with mocking titles like “A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband ‘Master.” We have gone from the earliest feminists meeting at a church to more modern feminists infiltrating the church and actually ridiculing the charter of the church the Word of God.

See for our church, Indian Hills Community Church, which for many years now has refused to be caught up in the undertow of these three waves of feminist ideology and theology and which continues to unashamedly adhere to what Scripture teaches about God’s design and purposes and roles for women, there is no doubt that we are being and will continue to be caricatured as being some form of prehistoric creatures who are simply behind the times. We are going to be and will continue to be maligned as being dogmatic and intolerant individuals who have been brainwashed by power-hungry pastors like me whose sole aim is to oppress and suppress women. However, no one here needs to be afraid of or to back down from or apologize for what the Bible teaches about God’s design for women. His design provides safety and security for women. His design provides blessing and favor for women. His design is perfect and unchanging for women. His design for women will always be upheld and proclaimed here as what is best.

With all of that history supplying now a new angle from which to launch back into our text for tonight. Let’s go ahead and head back to our text, Titus 2:3-5. It says, “Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so 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, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.” As we get back to our text for this evening, we’ve seen the past, we’ve seen the path, now we’re going to get back into the principles. Meaning, we’re going to survey, from a bit of a different perspective this evening, this text that we’ve been camped out in all day.

One item I want to draw your attention to, right at the outset, before we go any further here is the role of Titus himself in this passage. The extent of what is being said about Titus here ought to impact and color what passes for “women’s ministry” in a lot of churches these days. Alright, well I guess while I’m on the topic of expressing unpopular opinions I might as well go for the trifecta here by going after “women’s ministries” in churches today.

See, here’s the reality. In most churches in our day, even in otherwise-faithful Bible-teaching churches women’s ministries have become self-sustaining “islands” of ministry. “Islands” which have very little pastoral involvement or oversight, or the female leaders of those ministries are going beyond investing in the way we looked at in this morning’s sermon, teaching and training what is good and all the various forms that we saw in those three verses, to actually shepherding them. To actually becoming the other women’s main source of spiritual wisdom, and insights, and resources. To doing work that comes awfully close to doing pastoral work and crossing a line that Scripture plainly does not allow. What we’re also seeing in many women’s ministries in otherwise biblically faithful churches is certain women with a natural gift of public speaking going far beyond training and instructing women on in the matters we see saw in the three verses this morning to actually “preaching” sermons. To giving deep-dive exegetical messages through individual books of the Bible like we would do here on a typical Sunday morning as they point fingers and pound pulpits and otherwise play the part of the preacherette. The well-meaning thought, that I think undergirds that philosophy of ministry in otherwise well-meaning churches is this. That there is a hunger among the women in these churches to learn, to grow in the word, to have fellowship with other sisters in Christ. I think the thought processes is with many of these churches is at least we’re not giving those women who lead those ministries the title of “pastor” so we’re okay. We’re good. The thought is as long as we don’t call the women in our church who officially lead our women “pastors,” we’re in the clear. Now the women’s ministry can otherwise remain relatively independent and unsupervised and unchecked.

But is that what is being portrayed for us here in Titus 2? Think about it. Who are the players here in Titus 2? Of course we have God, the Holy Spirit directing all that’s being said. But the first person is Paul, an Apostle. There aren’t any more of those today. If you disagree with me let’s talk about it in the south lobby after the service. Giving instructions to Titus, a pastor. As pastor who has been called to go minister there in Crete, like we saw this morning. Paul is telling Titus to give instruction to the older women who in turn are to give instruction to the younger women so they in turn will be faithful in their calling to live the way that God has called them to live.

We can’t miss and I think we often do miss that pastoral link here. That pastoral backdrop to this text. Titus, the book of Titus, just like I Timothy and 2 Timothy, is a “pastoral epistle.” In the pastoral epistles the immediate audience, the first person, the first recipient of that audience of that letter, the immediate intended target of that letter is a pastor. In those three letters, Titus, I Timothy, and II Timothy pastors are being given instructions as to how they are to fulfill their tasks and roles vis-a-vis various groups and people there within the church including men and women. But an unstated reality standing behind our passage for today and one that doesn’t get talked about very often and probably because no one wants to talk about the sacred cow of the “women’s ministry” and they don’t want to upset half the church is that there needs to be pastoral involvement. Pastoral oversight and, in some cases, pastoral teaching of the women of the church as an aspect of equipping them so they can now teach and train one another. It’s wonderful to have women’s ministries where sisters in Christ are encouraging one another and blessing one another and serving one another and putting their spiritual gifts to work for the benefit of one another and yes, even teaching and training one another. But what is never modeled in Scripture is women taking on some sort of quasi-pastoral role with respect to half of the church “preaching” sermons to them and “shepherding” them as though they were a pastor.

Now, does this mean that the only spiritual touchpoint a woman should have in her church is a pastor, one of the men that’s charged to oversee the church? Does this mean that women have no role in helping other women grow in their relationship with the Lord? Does this mean that women are never to teach other women? Absolutely not! Quite the contrary. As we explored at length this morning our very passage here, Titus 2:3-5 shows us that older women in particular are called by God to play an instrumental role in the training and instruction of younger women. But what is out of bounds is women effectively functioning as pastors in the lives of other women.

OK, now that I’ve taken us on that little detour and gotten worked up and now that we have this historical picture in view with the biblical record of Genesis 3 and the historical record with the advent of all three waves of feminism. Let’s circle back to the principles that we looked at in this morning’s message. We’ll do this in a bit of a more rapid-fire format this time around, since we’ve already covered most of this, this morning. My aim here in the last few minutes we have here together is to give us all an unmistakably clear picture of what the portrait of a godly woman looks like.

As we saw earlier, what we see in this passage is older women in the church teaching and training the younger women in the church about what it means to watch their hearts and to love their homes. That’s the overall framework of what’s happening in these three verses. But there’s great richness and texture in these words so I think it would be worthwhile to look through them and survey them once again. He starts verse 3 “older women likewise.” We’ve seen that line between “older” and “younger” in the Scriptures is based on the age of a woman’s children and her capacity to have more children. If the woman is in that phase of life where she is either raising children in the home or is still capable of bearing children, she would be considered a “younger woman.” If the woman is beyond those years, she would be an “older woman.” Such “older women” are called to have as we see here, certain character traits and credibility in order to teach and train younger women. First, an older woman is to be “reverent.” That means the older woman is to be priestess like,” “temple proper.” Putting it more simply, she is a godly example of holiness, constantly aware that she’s in God’s presence. Second, she must not be a “malicious gossip.” The word there we saw is diabolos which means “slanderer” or “false accuser.” The very word, diabolos, that word is used in Scripture over and over thirty-three other times to refer to Satan. It is the word from which we get our English term “devil.” The godly older woman recognizes that “gossips and slanderers” are among the vices listed in Romans 1 of those who are given over to a depraved mind. But because her mind, she’s a follower of Christ after all, has been renewed, Romans 12:1-2; because her mind has been taken captive by the word of God she doesn’t vent or spout off. She’s not given to complaining, or bitterness, or jealousy. She’s not all about spreading lies or rumors or vitriol in the body of Christ. Rather, she is self-controlled in her speech, Ephesians 4:29, “let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.” Third, we saw that she’s not “enslaved to much wine.” She is self-controlled in all of her actions. She is surrendered to the word of God in every aspect of her life. No particular substance can control her or does control her. She does not as Ephesians 5:18 says “get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation,” but she is “filled with the Spirit.” She is a spirit of temperance which time, wisdom, and godliness have forged into her. Last, the older woman is committed to “teaching what is good.” Through a life dedicated to the study of Scripture that the older woman knows the importance of teaching younger women that which is good, noble, lofty, and excellent. Specifically, and as we’re again going to see, she focuses her teaching to these younger women on watching their hearts and loving their homes. Each of the traits of the godly younger woman that we’re now going to see in verses 4 and 5 fall into one of those two categories. The heart and the home.

We’ll start with the heart. Paul describes a few different ways that younger women, verse 4 now, are to watch over their hearts. First, they are to be “sensible.” They are to be sensible, sophronos. To have a sound mind, to be cautious, and to self-controlled. The sensible woman is disciplined within herself. She is in control of herself. She is the opposite of the woman described in Proverbs 11:22 which says, “As a ring of gold in a swine’s snout so is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion.” The Hebrew word used in a Proverbs 11:22 is a close cousin of the Greek word for “sensible” here in Titus 2:5. The “sensible” woman applies God’s wisdom through right thinking and right living. She submits her thoughts, and feelings, and emotions to the word of God. She is not a slave to her own desires. She doesn’t allow her emotions to overtake her or rule over her or to justify otherwise sinful conduct or behavior. She doesn’t do it all perfectly, but a pattern of her life is that she manifests the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5:23, of “self-control.” Second, younger women are to be “pure.” The word for “pure,” hagnos carries with it the idea of morality and goodness and obedience and in this context, sexual purity, and chastity, and in the context of married women, marital fidelity. Of course, we live in a place and an age in which sexual sin is idealized and idolized and even worshipped. The sermons that the country, the world, the culture are preaching to our women here this evening is that they should seek empowerment and pursue self. But God’s Word preaches a contrary message that His daughters should be seeking the Lord and pursuing holiness. I Peter 1:16 to “be holy as He is holy.” Or I Thessalonians 4:3 to “abstain from sexual immorality.” Third, the women are to be “kind.” The meaning of this one is pretty obvious. The godly young woman is nice to people. She is gracious toward others. She is considerate. She is congenial. She is sympathetic. Even to, and, sometimes, particularly to those who may not deserve it. She recognizes that “kindness” is a fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5:22, and she grasps that her own kindness reflects the immense kindness she has been shown by God through Christ. That’s what Ephesians 4:32 says. We saw that this morning, “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you.” All of those terms, “sensible,” “pure,” and “kind” are wrapped into the ways in which older women are to train younger women as to how they are to watch their heart. There’s another component, though, to the type of woman-to-woman training that should be happening around the church.

As we’ve also seen, older women are also to be teaching younger women as to what it means to love their home. The remaining set of characteristics that the godly young woman is to pursue Paul stresses the importance and the centrality of the home. This valuable, important, even sacred place where the godly younger woman will spend most of her time. Now, as we’re going to see, Paul’s charge to the younger woman through the older woman is not that she only be in the home. But that she should love her home. Now for some of you simply as a result of having been born in an era that is already awash in three waves of feminist thought you might immediately be taken aback by what I just said. You’re thinking about the industrious little girl who just wants to be a doctor one day. Or you’re thinking of the drudgery of making lunches and ironing shirts and being a taxi service that takes your kids all around town. You’re thinking of expensive college degrees that will one day gather dust. I get it. In the world’s way of thinking the idea of the woman’s primary role being in the home and her joy being found in her God-given role in the home is, at best, unsatisfying and, at worst, a form of male-imposed slavery. This would be the time for me to say, though, that if you have a misunderstanding of the woman’s role in and value to and love for the home your quibble is not with me ultimately. Your quibble is about what is revealed and declared timelessly in the word of God.

That being said, Paul tells Titus here to tell the older women in the church how they are to train the younger women in the church to love their homes. He gives them a few ways to do so. First, jumping back up to verse 4, they are to “love their husbands.” We saw this morning that, that word is philandros. It’s a composite word that Paul actually made up in this verse where he mashes together the Greek word for husband and the Greek word for love, one of the Greek words for love. She is, it says here, to be a husband-lover. It’s phileo type of love, “brotherly love,” affectionate love. We can even say she is not only to love her husband but to like her husband. It’s that type of love. Husbands we know, from Ephesians 5:25 to love their wives “just as Christ also loved the church” but wives as they are called here are to actually like their husbands.

We also saw in verse 4 that younger women are to love their children,” Titus 2:4. Of course, many career-minded women today have been programmed by the culture to think of the opposite of what this verse teaches. As today, the time in which to get married and have children is routinely being pushed back into the middle-30s or later so that women who otherwise could start a family at younger age or an earlier age are now instead “chasing the wind” by pursuing various experiences, careers, an education, and travel, and romance deferring the experience of “loving their husbands” and deferring the experience of “loving their children” so that they can “love themselves” for as long as possible. This modern attitude in no way measures up with the godly woman’s view on the home and the children that the Lord blesses her with in that home. Instead, she sees children the way God sees them, as a “gift,” Psalm 127:3, “as a heritage from the Lord.” When the Lord, in His timing provides her with children, “the fruit of the womb” as that same Psalm says, she affectionately and lovingly cares for her children, not viewing them as burdens or obstacles to what she would rather be doing or where she’d rather be but instead viewing them as a divine and blessed stewardship.

Third, we saw the younger women are to be “workers at home,” Titus 2:5. What this text tells us, what those words tell us is that the godly woman’s priority is the home. Her home is being attended to. It’s being invested in. It’s under control. Her home is a place that can be used for service and ministry to others. Her home is a place where she can be hospitable for others. But for her family, the husband and the children she is called to “love,” her home is a haven. A place of rest. Not a place of chaos and disorder. The godly woman prioritizes her home. She isn’t trying to escape her home, rather, she loves her home, and she thrives in her home.

Fourth, on the loving her home side of things, younger women are to be “subject,” it says, verse 5, “to their own husbands.” The word there for “subject to” is hupotasso. It can also be translated “submissive.” The godly young woman is to be submissive to, or subject to, her own husband. A few things that are worth noting there. “Submission” does not mean the wife is inferior to her husband. Far from it. Like her husband, she has been created in the image of God, Genesis 1:27, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Like her husband, assuming they are Christians, she is “in Christ Jesus,” Galatians 3:28 and like her husband, she is a, I Peter 3:7, “fellow heir of the grace of life.” So “submission” also does not mean that she is a doormat. It does not mean her husband gets to squelch her personality or refuse to listen to her opinions or fail to consider her feelings. Rather, what “submission” truly is, is the woman fulfilling her God-given design to be her husband’s helper. His perfect complement as he shoulders the weight of being head of the home. Of course, the flesh revolts against this principle of submission. Principles like these of submission, which is why, in the context here in verses 3-5 younger women need examples of godly older women who experienced a lifetime of figuring out what it means to be living in subjection to or submitting to their husbands.

We’ll, that’s a lot to take in for one day and one text and three verses. We’ve covered the history. We’ve covered various aspects of history. We’ve seen some of the cultural sides of things. We’ve worked through the text again just by way of review this evening. We’ve covered the past, the path, and now the principles. As we close, I want to just again leave with a word of encouragement, and especially to the women here this evening on Mother’s Day. I want to remind you that if you have trusted in Jesus Christ for salvation. Let’s zoom out and consider the over-arching principle here. If you have trusted in Jesus Christ for salvation, you have been redeemed, and washed, and renewed. You’ve been saved by the curse-reversing, head-crushing God-Man, the Lord Jesus Christ. You can claim what it says in Titus 2:11-14. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.” While you might still live in this sin-cursed body in this sin-cursed world, and live in these sin-cursed relationships, make no mistake, in light of who you are in Christ you do have the power and the ability to live the way God has called you to live as revealed in His word. Not only do you have the ability to but you absolutely need to commit yourself to living the way God has called you to live. I can assure you and this is not a promise based on any authority I have; this is promise is made on the authority of the word of God that we’ve worked through today. That the greatest source of blessing you will ever experience in this life, ladies, will not to be to hold some important position or title. Or to climb some corporate ladder. Or to make widgets, or to work a desk job, or to serve on the school board. No, the greatest source of blessing you will ever experience in this life will be to live accordance with God’s grand design and purpose for you as women. To manifest the fruit of the Spirit. To live upright and godly lives in Christ Jesus. To see your home as your haven. To set your family as your focus. As we’ve heard many times both this morning and this evening, to watch your heart and love your home.

Let’s pray. God thank you again for a chance to spend time with these dear people, the body of believers here at Indian Hills Community Church. Thank you for Your word and the truth it contains. The timeless truths of the passage that we have spent all day working through, Titus 2:3-5. Thank you that Your word is truth. That it contains all that we need pertaining to life and to godliness. Thank you that Your word is fixed forever in the heavens, that it is sure, that it doesn’t yield or bend in light of what’s happening around us in the culture. That the media can’t change it, that Hollywood can’t change it, that liberalism can’t change it. That secular philosophy can’t change it. It is fixed. It is clear. It is sure. It is timeless, and it is good. God, I do pray for the women here especially on Mother’s Day who are going through this text, a text that I’m sure they’ve gone through before for most. I pray that they be encouraged in those areas of their Christian walk where they are walking worthy and growing in sanctification and overcoming sin and temptation and striving for holiness and joy and satisfaction. But I pray there would also be conviction in those areas brought about by Your Spirit where there is a falling short, where there’s a discontentment, where there’s a tendency to drift in the direction of the world and to listen to the siren’s song of the culture. I pray that You would grab a hold of those hearts and convict those hearts and continue to strengthen those hearts as those women go to the Word and live accordingly as godly faithful women. I do pray for us men in the room and those listening online that we would come alongside those women in our lives, our wives, our mothers, our daughters, nieces, grandmothers, and encourage them, to spur them on in their faith. To point out for them where they are really running the race well and to commend them for that. But also, to encourage them, gently, lovingly in those areas of their lives where greater growth is needed. I pray that this would be a church for a long time that is a bright and burning lampstand for the Gospel and one of the outworking’s of our gospel commitment, our commitment to the Word would be a church full of women who are committed to living according to these principles. Committed to living according to Your word. God, we thank you for this day. We thank you for the time in the Word. We thank you for Your Son Jesus Christ and His saving Gospel through which we have our ultimate hope. It’s in His name we pray. Amen.