Titus 2:4-5

Paul’s teaching for younger women is lengthy and very home-centered.  While this is written against the backdrop of Cretan society, it is also a presentation of a Biblical patter of life for the daughters of Eve.

v The spiritual wardrobe for younger women, 1:4-5.  Younger women were to:

·        Love their husbands: Love here is a phileo term, the Greek word for love that emphases affection, friendliness and a family-relationship.  It speaks of a woman whose husband enjoys being with at home; home is an easy place for him to be because she pursues friendship with her husband.

·        Love their children.  Again this is a phileo term, an older Greek word (perhaps Paul had to reach back in his Greek for the way it used to be).  Children are not to be considered a difficulty but should experience affection; again, they like being home.  And perhaps that means they like to have their friends there too.  A. T. Robertson in his Word Studies thought this exhortation was still needed where some married women preferred poodle dogs to children.  He wrote in the first half of the 1900’s.

·        Be temperate.  She needs to be under control in terms of her temper, her daily schedule and so forth.  She should be disciplined in terms of how she cares for herself, not always neglecting herself because of her duties.

·        Be chaste.  She is pure, not mixed with evil.  This is not needed for the unmarried woman; the wife as well needs purity of life and thus the term is also used of them in 2 Cor. 11:2 (the bride of Christ) and 1 Peter 3:2 (the wife of the unbeliever).

·        Be keepers at home.  Strong’s definition is caring for the house, working at home.  For husband and children this is of inestimable value, having a clean house, decorated to honor Christ and done with a good attitude.  

·        Be good.  She brings what is pleasant and honorable into the lives of her family.

·        Be obedient to their husbands.  This is translated obedient here and in 2:9; but it is the word commonly translated submissive in the New Testament.  It speaks of an attitude of a woman who desires to do all she can to make her husband successful in what God has given him to do.  There is an interesting thought here.  Men are called on to rule or manage their own houses well (1 Tim. 3:4,12).  But this passage makes it clear that they are dependent on a special person to make this happen, the person given to them by God.  

You can see why younger women need the encouragement of older women in this.  They don’t get much help from the world around them.  Rather they are encouraged to be just the opposite.  And let us remember, this is necessary that the word of God may not be blasphemed!