WWUTT 743 Being Mature Women of God?

You know, it's often said that men are supposed to be the teachers in the church, and that is true, but women have a role to teach also. They're supposed to love the gospel and sound doctrine and teach other women how to live according to that when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty. Visit our website at www .utt .com.

Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.

Thank you, Becky, who is my wife, for those of you who are not aware. She opens and closes every episode of When We Understand the Text, and when she is able, joins me on Friday for the Q &A. If you would, please say a prayer for her today.

Our kids are going back to class today, back to school. We homeschool our kids, but we had the target date of beginning the next school year on August the 1st. And Becky's been kind of stressed out leading up to this day.

Yesterday was especially a difficult day for her. So if you would pray for peace upon her and that God would just give her some comfort in her spirit and in her heart, I know she would greatly appreciate that.

Today is also our anniversary, and we're not going to get the chance to have a date today, I don't think, because of all the stuff going on with the kids. So that'll have to wait until another time. But I know that she would appreciate your prayers for her today.

Women in the Church and Sound Doctrine

Just so happens we're talking about women in the Lord in our study of Titus chapter 2. And my wife is indeed a great woman of God and it means a great deal to me and teaches me on a daily basis. So we're going to talk about how the more mature women in the church are supposed to help the younger women be faithful women of God as well.

Let's come to Titus chapter 2, starting in verse 1. Paul says to Titus, but as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and instead fastness.

Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands that the word of God may not be reviled.

Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Boy, if this isn't countercultural, right? Men, you need to be men of God. Women, be women of God and teach younger women how to submit to their husbands and care for their homes, put their homes in order, take care of their children.

There are professing Christian women today who are opposed to these clear instructions. I don't have to submit to my husband. Ephesians 5 .21 says, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. So he has to submit to me as much as I have to submit to him.

I don't have to be the primary caregiver of my children. My husband is just as responsible for putting our home in order and taking care of our kids as I am. It's the women's liberation movement in our culture today that has given women this idea that they can do everything a man can do and do it just as well as they can do it.

You know, there are some occupations that women can do better than men, but it doesn't mean that they should. There are also things that a woman can do that a man cannot do at all. As a matter of fact, a woman has been given a wonderful gift of God to be able to have children.

Those that are those that are given that blessing who are married and start families, they can have kids. And yet that is seen as some sort of biological burden upon women in our culture today. How can we possibly get rid of that gift of God that has been granted to women?

How can we not have it anymore? Because it's the thing that keeps me from being who I want to be. I want to do all the stuff that the men are doing. I want to be a career woman. I want to get out there and I want to make a difference.

And I can't do that if I'm having kids and stuck at home taking care of my children. That's the toxicity of our cultural philosophy upon women, getting them to believe that being a stay at home mom is weakness and you are not being productive in the culture and in society if that's who you are.

My friends, your children are not a burden to you. And this goes as much for men as it does for women. Your kids are not keeping you from doing the thing that you want to do. And if you think that's what's going on, you need to repent for your children are a blessing from the Lord.

It says that in the Psalms, children are a blessing from God. And the way that you can change the next generation is more by how you raise your kids than anything else. If you don't like the direction that the culture is headed in, go home and love your family.

You may not see change happen in your lifetime, but you consider it for a future posterity and it may happen in a future generation. I've heard Kevin Young talk about this, that the direction that our culture is headed right now happened very quickly.

It happened in a span of like 40 to 50 years, and it can go back the other direction just as quickly in a span of a generation. But that's going to require us to be good spouses and love our kids and raise them up in the training and the instruction of the Lord, according to what we have written in the pages of scripture.

And then we might change a future generation for our children, even though the culture that we see around us right now is pretty dirty and rotten. Now overall, things are just going to get worse up until the time that Jesus Christ returns.

But nonetheless, you can make an impact on the world by loving your family. I think of great people in world history whom we look at as being the movers and the shakers. These are the people that have made the biggest cultural impact.

And a lot of times when you look into that person's personal life, you actually see somebody who did not love their family and the people that were closest to them really were not affected as much as we think that person has made just a huge impact on the world.

One of those persons that I think of is Martin Luther King, Jr. He is one of the most celebrated Americans in history, and yet he did not love his wife and he did not love his kids. His insatiable appetite for women in his extramarital affairs are well documented, and even his greatest apologists agree and understand this man was not a faithful husband and he is not a person whose behavior should be emulated.

Boy, he could give a great speech. He sure could do that. But he couldn't love his wife and kids couldn't do the most basic things that as I had talked about yesterday is the family unit is the most basic building block of community.

If you're not getting that right, the entire community is going to fall apart. So it really doesn't matter what Martin Luther King, Jr. was able to preach in his lifetime. The way that he loved his wife and his kids would have had far more impact on the culture than any sermon that he preached.

Here we have instructions that are given in Titus chapter two about doing that very thing. Loving a spouse, raising up children, and these instructions in particular are given to older women. Titus two verse three, older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior.

So what does it mean to be reverent in behavior? Well, first of all, notice that it's being said to women here. The first thing we have is older women likewise. So just as we have these instructions that are given to men of being sober minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love and in steadfastness, that that applies to older women as well.

Ladies, you also have to follow those same instructions we talked about yesterday related to men. They were being addressed to the older men first because, as I said, no one is going to have a greater impact on the spiritual condition of a church congregation than the older men will have.

But then older women likewise following these characters, characteristics that mature men of the faith are supposed to have. So older women are supposed to have them, too. And they're to be reverent in behavior.

Now, to be reverent, we often look at that and we think of a person needs to conduct themselves in such a way that is worthy of honor or worthy of being imitated. But that's not necessarily what that means.

That's being dignified. The instruction we had given to older men in verse two. But to be reverent in behavior actually means that you are respectful, not that you're somebody who's worthy of respect, but that you show respect to other people and that you are devout.

You are dutiful. You understand that it is your duty to do this. You have an obligation to keep and you do it. And in this case, you do it joyfully to the praise of God, because you have been bought with a price by the blood of Jesus Christ, who has died on the cross for your sins.

The most humble act that has ever been done by a human being ever. And it was done by Jesus Christ, God in heaven, who took on human flesh, lived perfectly, died for us, rose again from the grave, did all of this for us to the praise of his glorious grace.

And yet we are partakers in the divine nature because of what Christ in his love and his mercy has given to us by his life and his death and his resurrection on the cross. So in light of these things, we are humbly submissive to the will of God doing whatever he asks of us because we know what he has paid for us.

Older women are to be reverent in behavior. They are to be dutiful. They understand a duty that is upon them that has been commissioned by God because of his great love for us. And they are proud to step into that role and do what it is that God has designed them for and called them to, even if that means they're supposed to be the model of submission.

Men are supposed to be a model of leadership. They need to step into those leadership roles and lead men. You've been called to do that. And there are men with, you know, we often talk about type A and type B personality.

Well, type A is a born leader and a type B is a just kind of a person that follows. They're not necessarily a leader. And for some men, that's certainly going to be the case. There are men who are going to be called to positions of leadership that other men are not being called into.

But even men with type B personalities are leaders. My dad was that way. My dad's a type B personality. And yet he was a president and CEO of a Christian radio organization. There are going to be men that just do not have that much of an assertive personality.

And yet they're supposed to be godly men leading their wives and their children. Sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness for the benefit of the entire church, of all of the people of God. So women are supposed to be a model of submission.

Men need to fulfill that calling to step into those roles of leadership. Women are a model of submission, the way that the church is to submit to Christ. So we have wives in particular modeling that in their submission to their husband.

They are to be reverent in behavior, devoted, devout, desiring to follow God and worship him in their conduct, in their behavior. And if they do this in such a way, they they show their beauty by their works and not by their outward adornments.

Well, they're like daughters of Sarah, Abraham's wife. Here's what Peter said. First Peter three, verse one. Likewise, wives be subject to your own husbands so that even if some do not obey the word, some husbands don't obey the word.

They're not believers. They may be one without a word by the conduct of their wives. When they see your respectful and pure conduct, do not let your adorning be external. The braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing that you wear.

But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves by submitting to their own husbands as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord.

And you are her children if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening. Peter has instructions for husbands too. In verse seven, likewise, husbands live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life so that your prayers may not be hindered.

If there is strife in your marriage, your prayers are being hindered as we have been instructed to consider others needs ahead of our own. For those of us who are married, that starts at home, considering the needs of your spouse before you consider your own needs.

It's often said you need to meet each other halfway, right? You know, I give 50 percent. My spouse gives 50 percent. What's 50 percent? Where is halfway? Can somebody tell me where that marker is in a marriage?

You give all of yourself to your spouse and you love your spouse expecting nothing in return and they likewise love you the same way. You've got a good and functional marriage if that is the case. If you are fulfilling the roles that God has given to husbands and wives, husband to be the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, wives to submit to their husbands as the church is to submit to Christ.

If you are doing that first and foremost in worship to God, but then also in consideration to one another, then you're going to have a good marriage. And I like I said, today's my anniversary. I've had a wonderful marriage.

It doesn't mean that Becky and I agree on absolutely everything. We don't and we even had disagreements yesterday, but we understand that I'm a man and she's a woman and God has called me to do certain things as a man and has certain roles for her as a woman that she needs to fulfill.

Again, that's countercultural. There would be people today who would be throwing fits on the floor because I just said such a thing. But nonetheless, that is what we have given to us in the pages of scripture.

It's the natural order of things. You can just look at biology and you can see men or men and women are different. That's the way God has designed them to be. And so likewise, he has called us to different things, but we complement one another in our strengths and our weaknesses and we become a functioning unit.

As Peter has said here in first Peter chapter three, men and women are co-heirs of the kingdom of God. We are going to receive the same reward if we continue in faithfulness in Christ Jesus. But while we are here on this earth and in these bodies, we are different and there are different things that God has called us to.

And there are ways in which a husband needs to encourage and help his wife fulfill those things that God has called her to. And likewise, a wife does this for her husband here in the in the roles in the church that we have explained to us in Titus chapter two.

The older women are reverent in behavior. They're willing to step up to those duties that God has called them to, and they do it with joy to the praise of his glorious grace. And they're not enslaved by anything.

There is nothing that has control over them like gossip, for example. They're not slanderers and they're not slaves to much wine. They have control over their tongues and they're able to encourage other women in the Lord rather than gossiping about one another behind each other's backs.

And I get the impression that that is a problem among women more than it is among men. Men certainly can fall into that problem as well. I've been somebody who has gossiped about somebody else and I've also been the victim of gossip.

But it's more common among women than it is among men. This is something that Paul had confronted, that women wouldn't wag their tongues so much, but that they would control their speech and say what is honorable and and for the building up of fellow believers.

So this is the kind of example that an older woman, a more mature woman in the faith, is supposed to have in the body as well. They're not supposed to be slanderers and not supposed to be controlled by anything being slaves to too much wine, which, by the way, when you get drunk, that also causes your tongue to wag a little bit.

So I get the sense that those two are supposed to be interconnected. And then Paul says they are to teach what is good. And then we see the responsibilities upon older women to teaching the younger women.

Often when we talk about women teaching in the church, it immediately goes to, well, they're not supposed to be pastors. And then the women fire back with, so that's it. So the men are supposed to run everything.

They run the show. I can't do anything. No, as a matter of fact, your women are told specifically that they are to teach what is good to the younger women. See, there are certain things that an older woman can teach a younger woman, that a man can't teach a younger woman.

And by the way, should not be teaching younger women. There are certain conversations men and women simply should not have with one another. A man should not be talking about certain things with a woman who is not his wife.

And so this is how older women are supposed to lead in the teaching of younger women. Women are going to be taught by men as well. But there are certain things an older woman teaches a younger woman that a man cannot teach a woman.

Man can teach younger men certain things that a woman shouldn't be teaching a younger man. And so this is yet another way in which we, as the body of Christ, have different strengths and weaknesses and we work together to become a functioning body.

So we have an instruction that's given here explicitly for women to teach. Women are to teach what is good and train the young women to love their husbands and children to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands that the word of God may not be reviled.

Yet there are going to be even professing Christian women today who are going to dig in their heels and say, not the kind of teaching that I want. I want to be the person that's standing in the pulpit.

I want to have authority over men, even though the Bible says that I'm not supposed to. But again, a woman of God, a mature woman of God, if you are maturing in the faith because you are a lover of the gospel and sound doctrine, then you are going to be reverent in your behavior.

You are going to submit to the duties that God has called for you to do as a woman and you will do it with joy. I want to conclude here with Proverbs 31, the Proverbs 31 woman and this who we read about here in Proverbs 31 starting in verse 10.

This is a mature woman of God, an excellent wife who can find she is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not harm all the days of her life.

She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands. She is like the ships of the merchant. She brings her food from afar. She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and portions for her maidens.

She considers a field and buys it. With the fruit of her hands, she plants a vineyard. She dresses herself with strength and makes her arms strong. She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp does not go out at night.

She puts her hands to the distaff and her hands hold the spindle. She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of snow for all her household is clothed in scarlet.

She makes bed coverings for herself. Her clothing is fine linen and purple. Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them. She delivers sashes to the merchant.

Strength and dignity are her clothing and she laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and she does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also and he praises her. Many women have done excellently but you surpassed them all. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

Give her of the fruit of her hands and let her works praise her in the gates.

You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hubes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.

On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an Old Testament study, When We Understand the Text.