Women of Godliness

INTRODUCTION

In light of Mother’s Day, I want to deviate from our study in 1 Peter so we can talk about things that speak of characteristics that should mark every woman

To do that, let me invite you to take God’s Word and turn with me to Titus chapter 2

Titus 2:3-5, “3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, 4 so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.”

Godliness is the by product of being in Christ, of being a Christian

Another of way of saying this is being holy

God has called His people to holiness…godliness…righteousness

It doesn’t matter who you are or what your vocation in life is, God has called you to godliness

Today I want us to see those godly virtues in Titus 2:4-5 as they apply to both married women without children and married women with children

The list that Paul gives in this text is part of a larger command that he gives to Titus in verse 1

He tells him to “speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine”

This is his ministry

He is to keep on “speak[ing]” (laleo, pres.act.imp) what is always “fitting” (prepo, pres.act.ind.) or “right, suitable, appropriate or proper” for “sound” (hygiaino, pres.act.part.) or “healthy - that which promotes spiritual well being” doctrine (didaskalia, noun) teaching

And he is to give it to the 6 groups mentioned in chapter two

He is to give it to older men (v.2), older women (v.3), young married women (vv.4-5), young men (vv.6-8), leaders (v.7), and bond servants (vv.9-10)

The healthy teaching he is to give each group is found in its respective address

So let’s see what he says to the young married women in verses 4-5.

First...

I. They Are to Love Their Husbands (v.4a)

This is not speaking of romantic or sexual love

It’s speaking of committed love

This is the kind of love each spouse chooses to have toward each other

The word Paul uses for “love” is philandros which refers to “willing, determined love”

It’s not based on a husband’s worthiness

Even unloving, uncaring, unfaithful, and ungrateful husbands are to be loved

This kind of love involves unqualified devotedness

It is a friendship that is strong and deep

If a wife does not truly love her husband, she must, in obedience to the Lord, train herself to love him

Training yourself to love involves doing things for the other person, whether or not you feel like doing them. It involves putting their interests and welfare above your own. It involves sacrificial giving of yourself to others for their sakes, not for the sake of appreciation or returned love or favor” (MacArthur).

So it’s based on God’s command

It comes from the wife’s affectionate and obedient heart

The word could be translated “husband-loving” (Rienecker) or “husband-lovers” (Vincent)

Marvin Vincent notes an inscription found at Pergamum which shows this kind of love and affection: It says, “Julius Bassus to Otacilia Polla my sweetest wife, who loved her husband and children and lived with me blamelessly for thirty years.”

Not only they to love their husbands...

II. They Are to Love Their Children (v.4b)

Paul uses a different word for “love” when referring to a mother’s love for her children

It is philoteknos (adj) which literally means, “children-lovers” (Vincent)

As with their husbands, loving their children is not an option

It’s not based on their physical attractiveness or personalities or intelligence but on their need (MacArthur)

Mothers are to love their children in every way possible

They are to love practically, physically, socially, morally, and spiritually

They are to love with no conditions and no limits

The great way she can love her children is by leading them to Christ

Children today are seen by many as a burden not a gift from the Lord

Just listen to the response from the Supreme Court leak this week about overturning Roe vs. Way

Abortionists are adamant about having the right to kill their unwanted babies

Congress is about to vote on whether a baby can be aborted 28 days after their born!

This is the most extreme attempt to destroy the family

Another attempt is with homosexual marriages and a confusion of genders

If that’s not enough some just abandon them at home while they seek their career

According to David Elkind in an article in Psychology Today, “One major change is the form of middle-class mothering. For a mother to work voluntarily while her children were young was once seen as a sign of bad parenting, a rejection of the maternal role. But today, going to work and placing a child with a caretaker or in a day-care center [or at a preschool] is accepted practice. For many children, that means coming home to empty houses after school and tending to their own meals, clothing, hygiene” ("Growing Up Faster" [Feb. 1979]: 41). And, as one woman added, it also includes locking doors on school holidays and having the children sit in front of the TV (John MacArthur, The Fulfilled Family, Study Notes, 73).

Dr. Walter Menninger, a psychiatrist connected with Topeka State Hospital, said we are raising a generation of violently aggressive women who are being formed through children's exposure to TV's fantasy female super-heroes ("Effects of TV Aggression on Girls Worry Expert," Los Angeles Times, 22 Feb. 1979).

Some TV shows are shoving girls outside a normal understanding and comprehension of God's role for women (MacArthur, 73).

According to Ben Stein in The View from Sunset Boulevard, interviews with the forces behind television (executives, producers, writers) reveal that they are systematically attempting to overthrow traditional American values (New York: Basic Books, 1979). That is accomplished primarily through the situation comedy: you can get people to buy a whole new philosophy if you can get them to laugh with it. If you question the reality of this, then consider that “TV characters consume ten times more alcohol than coffee,” and “according to the National Federation of Decency (Fall 1978), 88 percent of all sex depicted on TV is outside marriage” (MacArthur).

What do you get from all of this? A break down of the traditional family as we know it from the Word of God. F. M. Esfandiary, quoted in an article in the Los Angeles Times, said that he looks for a world where there will be no schools, no families, and no parent-child relationships ("Utopia Without Families," 20 Mar. 1978).

To free the child, he says, we must do away with parenthood-marriage must go. We must settle for nothing less than the total elimination of the family. That philosophy is being propagated by many humanists-and their arguments are effective.

The Bible gives an entirely different picture of children---they are a gift from the Lord

Psalm 127:3, “Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward.”

After Hannah prayed for a son, 1 Samuel 1:19-20, “19 Then they arose early in the morning and worshiped before the Lord, and returned again to their house in Ramah. And Elkanah had relations with Hannah his wife, and the Lord remembered her. 20 It came about in due time, after Hannah had conceived, that she gave birth to a son; and she named him Samuel, saying, “Because I have asked him of the Lord.”

After the child was weaned she went to offer a sacrifice to the Lord in Shiloh and told Eli in 1 Samuel 1:27, “For this boy I prayed, and the Lord has given me my petition which I asked of Him.”

So Paul tells Titus these godly women are to be devoted to their husbands and their children. This is their greatest ministry and it brings God glory when it is lived and obeyed.

Paul now adds...

III. They Are to Be Self-Controlled (v.5a)

“to be sensible”

The Greek word for “sensible” (sophron) is speaking of a “sound mind” (Kittel)

This is “strictly having a sound or healthy mind”

It’s having the ability to curb desires and impulses so as to produce a measured and orderly life self-controlled” (Friberg)

This is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal.5:22-23)

This is a needed aspect of every day life

This word appears in the list in Titus 1:8 for the qualification of elders in the church

Paul also mentions it in Titus 2:2 for older men translated “temperate”

Paul mentions it a third time in Titus 2:12 for all believers to live as a result of the grace of God that “instruct[s] us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age,”

Next Paul says...

IV. They Are to Be Sexually Pure (v.5b)

The word “pure” (hagnos) means “holy” (BAGD), “pure from every fault” (Vine)

In this context, it refers “to sexual purity, marital faithfulness” (MacArthur)

Craig Keener says, This was “one of the central Greek virtues; when applied to women, it meant ‘modesty’ and hence indicated virtuously avoiding any connotations of sexual infidelity. In the Greek ideal, women were also to be secluded in the privacy of their home, because they were supposed to be the visual property of their husbands alone” (IVP Bible Background Commentary).

Sexual purity is required for all believers

1 Thessalonians 4:3-4, “3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,”

In the letter sent to the Gentiles, Acts 15:20, “but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood.”

Ephesians 5:3, “But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints;”

Colossians 3:5, “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.”

Fornication and adultery is a characteristic of an unbeliever

1 Corinthians 6:9-11, “9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”

Galatians 5:19-21, “19 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, 21 envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Ephesians 5:5, “5 For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”

So these young married women are to be “chaste, pure, holy, free from sexual immorality, and committed to their husbands in marriage

Notice the 5th virtue in verse 5...

V. They Are to Work at Home (v.5c)

“workers at home”

This is the Greek word oikourgos which comes from oikos, “house” and ergon, “work” (Vine)

It means “working at home” (Rienecker) or “to work at home” (MacArthur) or “caring for the house” (Wuest)

The Greek word for “work” (ergon) refers “to work, but the emphasis in the NT is that it involves a job or a task, and in some cases it is translated ‘employment.’ It is not referring to the quality of work, it is referring to an assigned task.

A woman is to be employed in the assigned task of working at home” (John MacArthur, The Fulfilled Family, Study Guide, 20).

Nancy DeMoss says, “One of the things the feminist movement has done so successfully is to stir up discontent in women with being homemakers and to convince them that other pursuits can increase their sense of self-worth.”

Paul says essentially the same thing in 1 Timothy 5:14, “Therefore, I want younger widows to get married, bear children, keep house, and give the enemy no occasion for reproach;”

Fritz Rienecker tells us what a wife did in a Jewish household. He says, “In a Jewish household the married women 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” (The Linguistic Key to the Greek NT, 654).

John MacArthur says that women who forsake their responsibility of the home by seeking a career outside the home “contribute to lost children, delinquency, a lack of understanding of proper God-ordained roles in the home, the decline of the next generation, adultery, fornication, and divorce...so do women who stay home and do nothing but watch soap operas and behave like unfaithful busybodies. She might be worse off than the woman who works.”

Nancy DeMoss adds that “The greatest spiritual, moral, and emotional protection a woman will ever experience is found when she is content to stay within her Godappointed sphere. This does not mean that she never leaves the house, but rather that her heart is rooted in her home and that she puts her family’s needs above all other interests and pursuits.” If you want to understand this more fully and you think that a women is stifled in her God-ordained role, you’ve totally missed the point. Look at the Proverbs 31 woman [prov.31:10-31: her value (v.10), her trustworthiness (v.11), her supportiveness (v.12), her productiveness (vv.13-14), her sacrifice (v.15), her enterprise (vv.16-19), her priorities (vv.20-24), her reward (vv.27-28)].

Next Paul says...

VI. They Are to Be Kind (v.5d)

“Kind” (agathos) describes that which, being good in its character and constitution, is beneficial in its effect (Vine)

One commentator says, “Because the ‘worker at home’ is under temptation to be unsparing of her household as of herself; and so St. Paul adds agathos (kind) rather than ‘good’ (AV).

Young women who are married are to be “gentle, considerate, amiable, congenial, and sympathetic, even with those who are undeserving and unkind to them.

To be kind is to be godlike, ‘for [God] Himself,’ Jesus said, ‘is kind to ungrateful and evil men’ (Lk.6:35 NASB).

In a similar way, all believers are to “be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you” (Eph.4:32 - NASB).

Next he says...

VII. They Are to Be Submissive to Their Husbands (v.5e)

“Being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored”

This is a call to be submissive

The word “subject” (hupotasso, pres.pass.part.) is used in a military connection of a general arranging soldiers under him in subjection to himself” (Wuest)

Ephesians 5:22, “Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord.”

Ephesians 5:24, “But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.”

Colossians 3:18, “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.”

1 Peter 3:1-2, “1 In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, 2 as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior.”

The reason for their submission

“So that the word of God will not be dishonored”

“dishonored” (blasphemeo, pres.pass.subj.) “to slander” (Rienecker), “to speak reproachfully, to revile, rail at” (Wuest)

William Kelley translates this “so that God’s Word may suffer no scandal.”

“This is the purpose of godly conduct—to eliminate any reproach of Scripture...The issue is that God wants His Word to be glorified, and when we don’t live by His Word, it is dishonored. We are in effect saying, ‘Who cares what the Bible says?’” (MacArthur).

“When Christians claim to believe God’s Word but do not obey it, the Word is dishonored. Many have mocked God and His truth because of the sinful behavior of those who claim to be Christians” (John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible).

CONCLUSION

This is God’s design for you!

If you are married you are to love your husband

If you also have children, you are love them too

You are to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind and subject to your own husbands so the Word of God will not be blasphemed

Just as God has designed a role for men, He has also has one for women

Glorify Him in this!

But for you to be this kind of woman, you have to know Christ

You have to have a relationship with Christ

If you have come to realize this morning you need a relationship with Jesus Christ, that indicates He is drawing you to Him

Repent and believe the gospel as we pray

Let’s pray