Calvary Road Baptist Church

“THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST:

WHERE YOUNG WOMEN ARE PROPERLY TRAINED”

Titus 2.4-5 

I bring this message from God’s Word to you because of the devastating spiritual assault leveled against those most cherished among us, our young wives and mothers.

When the Apostle Paul was converted to Jesus Christ, he was saved out of first-century Pharisaic Judaism. Pharisees were a strict sect of Jewish men who took the Word of God seriously and were dedicated to obeying the Law of Moses meticulously. Yet, to a man, they were dead in trespasses and sins, just like every Gentile in the world. Paul the Pharisee, just like every other sinner who ever lived, needed Jesus Christ as his Savior.

The advantage the new Christians who were saved out of Judaism had over new Christians who were Gentiles in the first century was almost 2,000 years of culture and history that had instilled into them, even before their conversion to Christ, a God-consciousness and an awareness of God’s nature and will for His creatures. After all, they had the Hebrew Scriptures that contained the Genesis account of creation. They had the Law of Moses that ordered the lives of the Jewish people and the Jewish nation before the Babylonian captivity and dispersion. And they had a good understanding of the roles of men, women, and the family structure that God had ordained and blessed with the wisdom contained especially in the books of Deuteronomy and Proverbs.[1]

This brings me to a problem the Apostle Paul faced when he began his ministry in Antioch with Barnabas, where he may have encountered for the first time in his Christian life a considerable number of Gentile Christians who came to Christ without any awareness of God’s will for men and women’s respective roles, or the cultural heritage of family structure that the Jewish converts to Christ already enjoyed.[2]

How are men with sins forgiven and possessing new life in Christ to learn how to be Christian fathers and husbands? How are women with sins forgiven and possessing new life in Christ to learn how to be Christian mothers and wives? You are on your way to heaven after being reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ, so what is the best way to make that journey as a man, as a father, as a woman, or as a mother? Ephesians 4.11-12 is key to understanding what is generally involved: 

11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. 

Equipping believers to live the Christian life is a responsibility assigned by Christ to those gifted men who are in pastoral ministry. That said, the remedies to the two problems faced by the Gospel minister are not the same. Men and women are different, and the way each sex is brought to an understanding and practice of their different roles in both the Christian family unit and the Church congregation is somewhat different.

How did the Apostle Paul address the problem he faced in Antioch, and in every other Gentile city where he traveled to establish Christian congregations? How does a Jewish man engaged in Gospel ministry relate to newly converted women without violating cultural mores and, at the same time, take sensible precautions? Before we turn to the text of my message from God’s Word, let me bring to your attention two Christian women who played vital roles in Paul’s ministry, Priscilla and Phebe.

Priscilla was a Jewish Christian woman married to a Jewish believer named Aquila, Acts 18.2. Apparently born and subsequently converted to Christ in the city of Rome, Priscilla and her husband were forced to leave Rome by Imperial edict.[3] They settled in the thriving port city of Corinth, where they plied their trade as tentmakers, providentially meeting the Apostle Paul, who was also a tentmaker. They took Paul in to live with them and threw themselves into his effort to establish the Church in Corinth.

It takes little imagination to envision Priscilla’s role in the young congregation filled with Gentile women, some of whom had never experienced life in an intact family unit. Being a Jewish Christian with 2,000 years of heritage undergirding her, and possessing generations of accumulated wisdom passed down from her mother, her grandmothers, and aunts and great aunts, who else would the Apostle Paul have turned to? Priscilla was well prepared to guide the Gentile women and girls who had come to Christ with no concept of God’s will for them as women, as wives, and as mothers. How else were young women to learn how to serve more than opinions and impulses with their children and their husbands? It could only be Priscilla, and other Jewish Christian women like Priscilla, who could provide the hands-on guidance that Paul and other Gospel ministers could not.

Priscilla ministered to those new Christian women with not only her example of Christian womanhood and wifeliness, but she no doubts also regaled those new Christian women with Bible stories about Eve and Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel, Rahab and Ruth, Deborah and Abigail, evil Michal and Jezebel, and Bathsheba and Esther. It may even be likely that one of those women Priscilla ministered to was a new Christian Gentile gal named Phebe. Priscilla was so crucial to Paul’s ministry and is shown to have had an impact on the ministry of Apollos as well, until the time when she and her husband were allowed to return to their home in Rome.[4]

We learn of Phebe in Paul’s letter to the Romans, where we are told in Romans 16.1 and 27 that she was the courier who brought this longest letter ever written at that time to the Christians in Rome. In Romans, we are informed that Phebe was a servant in the Church in Cenchrea. But Cenchrea was the Eastern port suburb of Corinth, so it could be that Phebe was reached for Christ by the Corinthian Church and that she later moved to Cenchrea when that congregation was founded. If she was a Gentile convert to Christ, and it seems that she was, then she was likely discipled by Priscilla or another older Jewish Christian like Priscilla. Was she married? Did she have children? We have no way of knowing.

It might seem unlikely for her to be asked to travel alone to Rome or in the company of men as a single woman, so she may have been married without her husband being mentioned by Paul. Whatever her marital status, it would be most reasonable and likely that Paul and the pastor were not alone in molding her Christian life and service. An “aged woman” in the Church was necessarily involved.

Thus, from almost the beginning of the Christian era there was a crying need for both men and women to be schooled in matters that were foreign to them, such as how a man who is a Christian is to become, first, a Christian man, and then a Christian husband, and finally a Christian father, with the same set of issues needing to be addressed by Gentile women recently come into the faith. Just because one’s husband is happily married, with children that love her dearly, does not mean a woman has any notion of Christian wifeliness or Christian motherhood: 

“There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.”[5] 

The standard is not any husband’s or wife’s happiness, but God’s will as revealed in Scripture and as applied to daily living by wise Christians.

Of course, the problem in our culture is very similar to that faced by the early Christian congregations with both Jewish and Gentile converts to Christ, with one notable exception: When was the last time you knew of a woman who recognized she had no idea how to be a Christian woman? Or a Christian wife? Or a Christian mom? I promise you such things are not learned from YouTube videos or contemporary Christian literature.

We live in the age of high self-esteem in which everyone thinks themselves competent in every area of life. Not so. Just because you feel good about yourself does not mean you know what you are doing. In Paul’s day, Greek culture was so obviously dysfunctional that most Gentile converts to Christ readily admitted that they had no idea how to live the Christian life, conduct themselves in marriage, or properly raise children. So, in that regard, first-century believers were somewhat more realistic than so many 21st century converts to Christ.

In my text for this message, the Apostle Paul reminds his colleague Titus to apply the same lessons in the Churches on the island of Crete that had been used so successfully throughout their ministry together. These valuable and important young wives and mothers who come to Christ must be trained to maximize their potential as women, as wives, and as mothers. The lessons taught so long ago are lessons we would do well to emulate here at our Church. Why so? Our young women, young wives, and young mothers are too important to leave to their own devices. Titus 2.4-5: 

4  That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,

To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. 

There are three significant truths established by our text that are of special importance to women as we approach Mothers Day: 

First, IT IS ESTABLISHED THAT YOUNG CHRISTIAN WOMEN NEED TO BE TAUGHT  

Verse 4 begins,

“That they may teach the young women.”

The pronoun “they” has an antecedent in the previous verse that tells us who “they” are. “They” are “aged women,” translating the Greek word presbứtidas, which is the feminine word for elder and is found only here in the Greek New Testament.[6] Thus, there is something that Paul, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, directed “aged women” in the Churches on the island of Crete to do, which was what Paul had found in his experience such “aged women” had done very well in other Churches.

What are “they,” the “aged women,” to do? Teach. So many of our older Christian women think that because they don’t have expertise as Bible teachers, they cannot exercise the kind of ministry spoken of here. Many young women are of the same opinion, sorry to say. But if you will circle the word “teach” in verse 4, you’ll see differently. This is not the ordinary word for “teach” that is so common in the Greek New Testament. Rather than referring to the imparting of facts, information, and doctrine, as a school teacher would do, this word has in mind the idea of training, much as a coach would do when training an athlete to exhibit self-control in preparation and competition.[7]

Ladies, a successful coach does not need to be an orator. And she rarely functions by standing up in front of a large number of people. Think of a track coach who performs her function by watching her athlete work out. Then she approaches her athlete and comments on her form and technique, makes a suggestion here and there, and oftentimes demonstrates the proper technique that should be used instead. This is how an aged woman should be permitted to deal with a young Christian woman, wife, or a young mother: “Honey, I’ve noticed that you’re having difficulty with your daughter. I want you to take heart and remember that I’m praying for you. But I would like to ask you something. Why do you accommodate your child’s preferences when you should be training your child to accommodate your choices?” Then when the young mother says, “Well, I think she is a special child who needs to be treated differently,” the “aged woman” should have the liberty to say something like, “Dear, though every child is unique, it is imperative that they are trained to cope with the same spiritual issues everyone must learn to address. Would you like me to suggest to you the proper way to discipline your daughter? And remember, your daughter doesn’t need you to be her big sister or to function as her enabler. She needs you to be her mother.”

See? No oratory. No public speaking required. Just one-on-one attention from one who knows, to one who doesn’t ... even if she thinks she does. And the result is that the young mom or the young wife is trained to be sober, is given the path to discipline. This method is the Biblical method. Where is the husband in all this? The husband is the leader of the family unit and may find it necessary to sit his beloved wife down and tell her, “Honey, I love you. But you don’t know what you are doing. So I want you to begin meeting with Priscilla regularly to address these issues.”[8] If the wife has any pretense of being a Christian, she will yield to her husband’s leadership.

Who are the “aged women” to teach? Though I’ve gotten a bit ahead of myself, they are to teach “young women.” May I suggest to you that the need for young Christian women to be taught by older Christian women reveals a need in young women’s lives that is not addressed by their mothers or grandmothers unless their mothers or grandmothers are mature, godly, Christian women who are well-versed in the Bible? If you think your mother or grandmother, who professes to be a Christian (but does not presently attend Church faithfully, know God’s Word well, or engage in real ministry to other young women) is the qualified “aged woman” who should influence you, then perhaps we should meet privately to review what’s at stake. I am not suggesting that you should dismiss mom or granny, or dishonor them in any way. I am only presenting you with the opportunity to become the best possible Christian woman, Christian wife, and Christian mother, you can be, by God’s grace. Where is the husband in all this? He is providing godly leadership throughout, with the aged women complimenting his leadership role in his wife’s life. The Christian leads his wife, and she follows him as unto the Lord. The Christian father raises their children, making full use of his wife as his helper in this grand enterprise. 

Next, IT IS ESTABLISHED WHAT YOUNG CHRISTIAN WOMEN NEED TO BE TAUGHT 

I will not take the time to review these items in detail, but will only clarify the issues and challenge anyone who doubts that these things need to be taught because the time required to figure these things out on her own is time a young woman simply does not have.

As to what young women need to be taught by “aged women.”

This refers to teaching someone self-control.[9] Rarely is there a person who has no room for improvement in this area. The greatest athletes employ coaches to hone their skills and to encourage them to improve. The same need exists with every Christian woman, especially the younger ones. Tiger Woods hires a golf coach (as does every other golf pro), and NBA players routinely employ professional coaches in the offseason, but some woman thinks she is so on top of her game she needs no advice from experts? That, my friend, is arrogance.

This translates a single word meaning “husband-loving.”[10] I have been in the ministry a long time. Do you have any idea how many men’s mothers-in-law have called me up to complain about their daughter’s husbands while giving me no evidence that they are doing anything to encourage their daughters to love their husbands? In contrast, their husbands sit at home like well-behaved pets? Most women have not raised daughters who are skilled at loving their husbands, as evidenced by the number of young women who think love is a feeling and not an activity. Manipulating and controlling where to live and where to go on vacation is not loving your husband. Sadly, most husbands quietly put up with a wife who does not Biblically love them, rather than risk a disturbance at home. If any man is afraid of angering his wife, we already know that she does not know how to love her husband.

If love is understood correctly to be the meeting of the loved one’s needs, then many moms these days are clueless. How many women who do not know what they are doing turn glassy-eyed whenever someone who does know what she is doing tries to help her. It is just so much pride that insists on reinventing the wheel, not recognizing that by the time you realize what you have done wrong, it will be too late to correct. Oh, for an old hand whose grown children are well-occupied, well-married, and well-churched to school young mothers. Here is a test to reveal when a young mother does not love her child. It is when her child does not fear displeasing her: 

“Ye shall fear every man his mother.”[11] 

This word refers to being prudent and thoughtful.[12] I am reminded of the Virgin Mary, who pondered the things she was made aware of without immediately reacting to things emotionally or wrongly.[13]

Some women don’t seem to grasp the concept of “chaste.” The Greek word is ἁgná½¹s, and signifies moral purity and pious wisdom, which avoids all self-seeking.[14] Yet how many professing Christian women are bound and determined to get their way with their husbands no matter what, and no matter who is watching? Godly “aged women,” if they are given the opportunity, will show younger women such an approach is wrong on so many levels.

“In a Jewish household the married woman had to grind flour, bake, launder, cook, nurse children, make the beds, spin wool, keep the house, and was also responsible for hospitality and the care of guests.”[15] I know some modern women insist on redefining husband and wife roles, but there is no hint in Scripture of husbands functioning as keepers at home.

Sometimes girls are not raised to be good girls, but grow up to be bad girls. They look trashy and act trashy because they are trashy. When a bad girl comes to Christ, she is especially in need of an older Christian woman to help her become a good girl, by God’s grace.

Women who push their husbands around, women who flout their husband’s will when he is away, women who disregard the crucial importance of showing respect for their husbands at all times and under every circumstance, not only do not understand men at all but run the terrible risk of becoming Jezebels in their own homes. “But the idea of submitting to him is repulsive.” You should have thought of that before you married him. If you are not going to submit to him, and you will not learn from an “aged woman,” you are doomed to decades of misery, if not divorce.

I know that many women think they are Christians and also think they need no coaching or help with the difficult task of functioning as a Christian woman, a godly wife, or a wise and spiritual mom. However, I beg, for the most part, to differ. I beg to differ because of what I see as I move through life, and I beg to differ because of what I see in God’s Word. As an observing man moving through life, I have noticed that the vast majority of wives and mothers haven’t a clue about what they are doing, choosing to believe that a happy husband and happy kids mean they are fulfilling their role as a Christian wife and mom. Not true.

Too many of such women unconsciously operate under the delusion that their job is to enable their children to get whatever they want, just as they work to get what they want. That is the very opposite of what God wants mothers to do with their children, and with their husbands. I also notice in God’s Word, and not just in our text but also in other passages, that every one’s life to live for God is not intuitive, cannot just be figured out. At least not in the short term. And by the time most women figure out how to be a wife or how to be a mom, their marriage is either over or permanently ruined, and their kids are just about raised. You need to learn before you marry and bear children, or as soon after you come to Christ as a wife and mother as possible. There is simply too much at stake to do things any other way, and time is very rapidly running out. 

AND IT IS WITH THAT IN MIND THAT WE CONSIDER THE FINAL POINT: WHAT IS AT STAKE 

Paul writes, “that the word of God be not blasphemed.” Your kids’ lives are at stake. Your marriage is at stake. But even more is at stake than most people realize:

The word “blasphemed” refers to slandering something, to speaking lightly of that which is sacred.[16] One day my wife and daughter and I were with a guy for a couple of hours. As things were wrapping up, he suggested that we pray, and I agreed. His prayer began, “Hi, God.” Then he immediately changed into a more reverent tone, perhaps sensing that I did not appreciate being included in that slaphappy and irreverent approach to God. That is the essence of what the word “blasphemed” refers to. Sacred things should not be treated in a disrespectful manner, with a flippant attitude, or with a slanderous air. Some things are so important that they should never, ever, be the brunt of a joke or a disrespectful comment or attitude. Such a thing is God’s Word, the Bible. That is why it is referred to in Psalm 34.11 as the “fear of the LORD.”

Incredible as it may seem, there is only one demographic group in all the Bible upon whom is laid the challenge to prevent the Word of God from being blasphemed. That group is not Jewish people. That group is not all Christian people. That group is not pastors, theologians, missionaries, preachers, Sunday School teachers, or husbands. Of all the identifiable subgroups of Christians that might be referred to, it is only young Christian women who are tasked with the holy duty, obligation, and responsibility of protecting the Word of God from blasphemy, doing their part to prevent anyone from slandering or disrespecting the Bible. What a burden that is. What an awesome responsibility. And it is a responsibility laid only on young Christian women, wives, and mothers.

The Apostle Paul did not lay that responsibility on young Christian wives and moms. He only declared the truth; he did not make it so. God made it so. How did He make it so? By giving to young Christian women the most difficult challenge that can be assigned to any group of believers, spirituality, and godliness while occupying roles that are both profoundly difficult and extremely vulnerable. That is why Paul directs women who have already run the gauntlet with demonstrable success to coach those about to run the gauntlet or coach those who find themselves in the gauntlet. As seasoned gladiators are the best coaches of gladiators, and old athletes are the best coaches of athletes, so aged Christian women, especially those who have met with success in marriage and child-rearing, are the best qualified to coach young women who need to get it done, no matter the cost. 

Young wives and mothers are profoundly important for every congregation. As we approach Mothers Day, my focus is on moms and the successful rearing of children, despite it never being suggested in God’s Word that moms are the final authority with their children. For that reason, and to emphasize the apparent truth by not referring to it, Paul leaves that obvious truth alone.

If young women are not taught how to love their husbands and love their children, they risk making a terrible mess of both their marriages and their children. Though there is not a 100% correlation between good Christian wifing and mothering and how marriages turn out and how children turn out, if a woman’s efforts were irrelevant, there would be no Scripture addressing such issues. But there is.

Can a woman do everything right and watch it all turn out so very wrong? Yes, she can. Some wonderful women, in my estimation, have. That is why you need to be so prayerfully committed to Christian obedience that if things go South with your marriage or with your children, you can rest in the assurance that you did what you were supposed to do and that your husband or your child simply chose to reject the Savior.

Hear me well. There is no more difficult and challenging ministry in all the world than that of a Christian wife and mother seeking to glorify God and exalt Christ. That is why God brings to bear in the Church congregation both the ministry of the pastor and the expertise of “aged women.” They have successfully negotiated their marriages and child-raising years to help young women accomplish this astonishingly difficult task.

Imagine submitting to a man, even a Christian man. In the best of worlds, it is a daunting undertaking. Then, on top of that, there are the difficulties of childbearing and child-rearing. And while those tasks are being performed, onlookers evaluate by that young woman’s life whether they will respect the Word of God.

Who would the onlookers be whose opinion of the Bible is so affected? The young mother’s own children. The young wife’s own husband and in-laws. The young woman’s friends and her own relatives. That is why no young Christian woman can accomplish these tasks by her own devices. That is why reinventing the wheel is not a viable option, and why doing things your way rather than God’s way is invalid.

A woman needs God’s grace utilizing her entire Church congregation praying for her and supporting her efforts, employing her pastor’s ministry, and perhaps as importantly employing the godly “aged women” whose success in such desperate endeavors qualifies them to coach her in her own Christian life, marriage, and motherhood. The woman who thinks she does not need such ministry from others is so naive. The husband, who does nothing in the face of his wife’s folly, is a coward.

Young woman, we want God’s best for you. Our goal is to be here for you to help you in your struggles and to encourage you onward to victory prayerfully. That said, the responsibility to trust Christ is yours and yours alone. The responsibility to make the best use of the means of grace is yours and yours alone. It is in your best interest to seek and then employ God’s wisdom to avoid poor decisions while making the right decisions. But the environment where God planned for that to happen is in your Church, in submission to your husband, under the ministry of your pastor, and with the wisdom and coaching of godly “aged women” who stand on God’s Word.

Are you ready for that? Good. The process begins by you reaching out to me with an e-mail directed to Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church

__________

[1] Deuteronomy 6.4-7; Proverbs 1.8ff

[2] Acts Ac 9.1-30; 11.22-26; 12.25-13.1

[3] Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1990), page 403.

[4] Acs 18.18, 26; Romans 16.3

[5] Proverbs 14.12; 16.25

[6] W. F. Moulton and A. S. Geden, A Concordance To The Greek New Testament, (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, Fifth Edition, 1978), page 848.

[7] Fritz Rienecker & Cleon Rogers, Linguistic Key To The Greek New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Regency Reference Library, 1980), page 654.

[8] 1 Corinthians 11.3; 1 Timothy 2.9-15; 1 Peter 3.1-7

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Leviticus 19.3

[12] Bauer, Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), page 987.

[13] Luke 2.19, 51

[14] Gerhard Kittel, Editor, Theological Dictionary Of The New Testament, Vol I, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1964), page 122.

[15] Rienecker, page 654.

[16] Ibid., page 654.

Would you like to contact Dr. Waldrip about this sermon? Please contact him by clicking on the link below. Please do not change the subject within your email message. Thank you.

Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church