Rare Words for Rare Women

These older women then have lived long enough to figure out the lie of Madison Avenue. They know, as one man said, the dead end of despair of women who are all about high fashion on the outside and bargain basement on the inside. And by the way, men, it would probably help our sisters and our mothers out tremendously if we honored them, not so much because of the condition of their face, but the condition of their faith. The world is constantly trying to press young girls and young women into its mold.

And the world's model for women is often based on appearance. God's Word presents a completely different standard. In God's economy, a beautiful heart is infinitely more important. The Apostle Paul opened the second chapter of his letter to Titus by challenging older men to be godly leaders in the church. Now he moves on to urge older women to do the same. This is wisdom for the heart.

And today, Stephen Davey has a message for you called Rare Words for Rare Women. In our last study, we began to explore one of the most significant family talks recorded in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul is encouraging Titus to gather the church family together and to effectively have a family talk with all the older men, all the older women, all the young women, and all of the young men and even the household servants.

And the reason is clear. Paul wants to make sure that the culture of the church is not dictated by the lifestyle of the Cretans, those who lived on the island of Crete, but that the Cretans are impacted by the lifestyle of the Christian. And isn't that really in every generation the desperate challenge of the hour? Ringing in my ears is still the comment of George Gallup who said over 25 years ago, never before has the Christian church made such inroads into society while at the same time making so little difference.

And that was 25 years ago. What Paul is doing in his family talk is not telling Christians how to fit into their culture or how to be appreciated by their culture. He's telling them how to radically create a new culture with new relationships and new objectives, new goals, new distinctives, in fact, a new lifestyle. And this text becomes and still is today one of the most politically incorrect chapters in the New Testament because it flies in the face of everything culture says we are to pursue.

Everything older men ought to be, everything older women ought to be, everything young mothers ought to be, and everything young men ought to be and strive for. In fact, if you want to carve out sort of the key verse of Titus, it's found in chapter 2 down at verse 14. We'll look at it more carefully, closely later, but this is it. Jesus Christ gave himself for us, and now we're given two reasons why. First, to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a possession, a people of his own possession, who secondly are zealous for good deeds. Now the church tends to stop with the first reason. We've been redeemed. Great. Let's put a period there and wait for the rapture.

No, keep going. We've not only been redeemed, we have been assigned to a totally different way of living. In our last study, we noted first and foremost the challenge given to older men, verse 2, to be temperant, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, in love, in perseverance. Now Paul is going to move on and begin to address another part of the family, verse 3, and that is older women. He's going to tell Titus, look, I want you to tell older women what to do. Now it's one thing to tell an older man what to do. It's another thing entirely to tell an older woman what to do. And to make matters even more challenging, Titus and Timothy are both young pastors. This would be quite an assignment to challenge the older men and the older women.

I mean, basically, he's telling Titus to have the audacity and the courage to go into an existing church, and after being there for a while, establish those men who will be elders, leaders in the church. And then, without even a breather, tell the older men how to live. And now, by the way, don't leave them out, tell the older women how to live, how to act. Paul told Timothy, in fact, earlier to treat younger men like brothers, younger women like sisters in all purity, to treat older men as fathers and older women as mothers, 1 Timothy 5, 2.

And there's great insight in that text for every one of us. If you want to know how to treat the person around you in the family, if they're older, treat them like a father or mother. If they're younger, treat them like your sister or your brother. Titus, no matter how old you are, deliver to them this message. Tell the older men that they need to model what matters in life. Their perseverance and faith and love needs to spill over into the lives of others, certainly younger men. Older men, don't be ashamed of acting your age.

We need more of that, not less. Show, if you were with us, we studied the dignity of your station in life. And now, Titus, talk to the older women. The word, by the way, likewise in verse 3, older women likewise, does not mean that older women were to act like the older men, and now he has a few more things to add to them. The word likewise actually points back grammatically to Titus, and he's being told, teach older men, and just like you teach them, make sure you don't leave older women out, likewise teach them too. Teach the old women. Don't leave them out of this family.

So here's the same critical question we faced last time. Who qualifies to be an older woman in the church family? Who classifies here as an old woman?

I'm not answering that. If Paul doesn't have the guts to clarify it, why should I, okay? The context here actually reveals that Paul is focusing on married women who may be actually younger than you might think. She's only old enough as it relates to the fact that she has raised her children. She's older in that, in our modern vernacular, we'd say she's an empty nester.

She could be anywhere from her early 40s to her early 60s. And frankly, in the mind of Paul, I think that he would say the older is better than she's referring to women who've lived long enough like older men to know what matters. The church, frankly, in every generation, in a variety of ways, is incredibly blessed by the effort and the energy, the passion, and the service of older women. They have earned the right to turn around and teach the younger women who are right in the middle of raising their family.

And they know better than anybody else that the challenges and the dangers and the discouragements and the pitfalls of being in that stage of life experience. But they have earned that right only if these four distinctives are part of their lives. The first distinctive basically covers all the rest. Paul writes in verse 3, Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in their behavior.

Two of these distinctives, by the way, are positive, two are negative. First, they are to be reverent. And let me put it this way, this first distinctive, there is a sacredness about her.

They're to be reverent. One author asks the question, and what is Paul expecting mature women in the faith to project through their posture, their personality, their deportment, their demeanor, in a word, holiness. That just serves as a categorical description of this older woman. These older women then have lived long enough to figure out the lie of Madison Avenue. They happen to know by now, in fact, they've grown concerned enough to get involved in the lives of younger women because they've learned by now that younger women are in the process of being ripped off and left empty.

They know, as one man said, the dead end of despair of women who are all about high fashion on the outside and bargain basement on the inside. By the way, men, it would probably help our sisters and our mothers out tremendously if we honored them and respected them, not so much because of the condition of their face, but the condition of their faith. That will take great courage and great encouragement. I got an email several months ago from an older woman in our congregation. I've edited her note just a little bit to read some of it to you. She writes, as I've been reading Titus to get ready for our series, I note that godly character must be lived out in godly conduct. I need this reminder, all capitalization. When I step out of my domain, I become a counterfeit message and not a complimentary message.

I'm praying that our study of Titus will help me become a more godly, older woman for the Lord. She gets it. This is the first distinctive. There's something sacred about her. With that, Paul adds the first of two negative distinctives which would disqualify a woman from mentoring younger women.

Look at verse 3. Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips. If I could put this distinctive in a positive frame of reference, which I want to do for all four distinctives, there's not only a sense of sacredness about her, there is a sweetness about her.

The opposite of which is described here as a malicious gossip. Simply put, she is going to, as a godly older woman, refuse to tear someone down. She's focused on building someone up. She refuses to be a grape on the grapevine. And if she hears a story, the story stops with her. She refuses to keep the story going. What happened to that story?

Well, I told so-and-so and it just stopped there. Literally, Paul is saying that she's not to be among the older women who are malicious gossips. And I got to tell you, Paul, again, doesn't pull any punches here. In fact, the word he uses for gossip can be literally translated she-devil. Titus, go tell those older women to stop being she-devils. The masculine, singular form of this word is always used in the New Testament for the devil himself. So Paul is saying older women shouldn't talk like the devil. Well, how does the devil talk? He's always running you down.

He's always accusing you. Third, there is also a sobriety about her. The third distinctive is equally negative. Paul writes, they should not be malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine. In other words, they should be in control of what comes out of their mouth and what goes in. Frankly, we could broaden alcoholism to any addiction that masters life, a habit that puts a distance between yourself and wholesome relationships and ministry and godly living. It might even be something good that you've just allowed to grow in excess. It just dominates your life now.

I found it interesting in reading some of the biography of John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim's Progress, that on one occasion he wrote that he stopped playing cricket because he found he loved it too much. What have we allowed to get in the way of holy living, good or bad? Here's a rare woman then who is not dependent on a substance to face the day. She is dependent upon the spirit to face the day. You see, this rare Christian woman of Crete, there's a sacredness about her. There's a sweetness about her. There is a sobriety about her. Number four, there is a seriousness about her.

Notice what Paul writes in verse three teaching what is good. This is why she's living this kind of life. So that, there are four purpose clauses, this is one of them. So that she can teach what is good.

And what would that be? That young women love their husbands and their children. You see, this is the ripple effect of a godly woman's life. And this kind of teaching he's referencing here is both formal and informal. Both by word and by deed, by example. Paul isn't really talking about teaching here as a matter of a position, like a professor.

He isn't talking so much about a position as much as he is about a pattern. These older women have earned the right to speak, to mentor, to disciple, to pattern. What it means to follow Jesus Christ in their particular world or their particular sphere of influence. For the last several years my wife has developed and worked with the mentoring process of our seminary wives. Even less mentoring is available for them, these who will become pastors' wives and missionary wives. It's been a real delight to watch our women's programs here at church develop tremendous outlets for discipling and mentoring and evangelizing the women of our church. In fact, I got an email just a week or so ago from one of our women's ministries leaders telling me of an event where they had it to not only teach younger women, but they invited unbelieving women to come. And at the end of the program they delivered the gospel of Jesus Christ and seven women accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The curriculum now for what happens next in their lives is rooted in Titus chapter 2 where women are going to be given seven disciplines of a godly young woman.

That will be our focus next time. But for now Paul asks and answers the question, where does a younger woman look to find a model? They're not going to find it in Crete. Where are the people they can look up to and say, you are the kind of woman I want to become? In our culture, ladies and gentlemen, the pedestals are virtually empty. Who out there is worthy of admiration?

It's got to be in here. I find it interesting to see in this text a disconnect in Titus' pastoral ministry. Did you notice it? He is to teach and preach obviously to all ages as I am doing today. But you'll notice in this chapter with these categories of people, he is to directly teach older men, older women, young men, and bondservants, but not younger women. In fact, the word Paul uses here in verse 4 for older women encouraging younger women, I think is best translated training. It's a Greek word that translates in a different form to self-control. In fact, it could be woodenly translated to bring her back to her senses.

Interesting. Older women are to bring younger women to their senses. This requires up-close personal life-on-life training, and it would be very improper to tell Titus, a young pastor, to do that with younger women. They need up-close training.

Why? Because their culture in Crete has totally messed them up. They have been saved by the grace of God, and they have no idea what it means to live for somebody other than themselves because that culture and ours is teaching young people to love who? Yourself. To believe in who? Yourself. And now they're married, and now they have children, and guess what?

That doesn't work. According to a recent study, I found this interesting. There's a computer program the guys developed to evaluate song lyrics over the past 30 years.

Some guys just have a lot of time to develop programs, but I'm glad they did this one because this is interesting. Count the percentage of words in songs which refer to first-person plural pronouns like we, us, and our. Compare that to first-person singular pronouns like I, me, and mine.

They did this. They just kind of dumped music over the last 30 years into this program, the lyrics, and they found, and I know you won't be surprised, that over 30 years we and us and our have declined dramatically, and I, me, and mine has increased dramatically. One reviewer summed up the study by writing this rather bluntly.

We might as well face it. We are addicted to self-love. And the first thing older women are to train younger women to do who are married is to live a life that is not about self-love. It's about self-sacrificing love, which ultimately brings fulfillment and joy in a marriage and a home. It takes an older woman to have lived through that kind of realization as she's grown in Christ to be able to turn around and say, That doesn't work. It won't. This is hard. But it pleases Christ, and you'll find strength in him.

You see, the fact that Paul tells older women they needed to teach younger women to love their husbands and children is because there comes a point in that younger woman's life where she realizes both of them are impossibilities. I remember my wife and I pushing that twin stroller. We decided to go to the mall. Nice sanity break. No money.

Just go to the mall. And we were pushing that twin stroller. Back then, they didn't have a lot of equipment for twins.

Now they've got all kinds of stuff. But side by side, just to get through doors was quite a challenge. And coming out the door was an older woman who stopped us. She said, I've raised twins.

They're now in their 20s. And she looked at my wife, and she said, You'll make it. We just floated on just that one word of encouragement.

That was wonderful. See, these young women have been married also just long enough to learn the fact that, I mean, they've learned how stubborn and difficult and insensitive and hard-headed her husband can be. This is not a personal illustration, by the way. She's come to the conclusion that she married the only man God made that way. It takes an older woman to come along and say, They're all that way.

I didn't hear any men laughing at that point. It was all women. That's how men come out of the box. God's got to do a lot of work on them as he purifies them and makes them energized for good works, and he's going to do a lot of work on you too to do the same. Who's going to qualify to be this kind of older woman?

These are the four distinctives. But you discover in this that these are also women who are submitting daily to the purifying work of Jesus Christ. These are not perfect women. They are progressing women that he is making zealous for good deeds.

I close with this testimony. For nearly 20 years, Elisa Morgan served as the president of MOPS, Mothers of Preschoolers International. It's a wonderful mentoring program.

We have it here at Colonial going full speed. Elisa writes, I'm probably the least likely person to head a mothering organization that impacts thousands of mothers' lives for the gospel because I grew up in a broken home. My parents were divorced when I was five. My older sister, younger brother, and I were raised by my alcoholic mother.

The only mentoring she would receive was in the church. While my mother meant well, most of my memories are of my mothering her rather than her mothering me. Alcohol had altered her love. I remember her weaving down the hall of our ranch home in Houston, Texas, a glass of scotch in hand. I would wake her up at seven each morning to try to get her off to work.

Sure, there were good times like Christmas and birthdays when she went all out and celebrated with us children, but even those days ended with the warped glow of alcohol. When I was asked to consider leading MOPS International, a vital ministry that nurtures mothers, I went straight to my knees. How could God use me to nurture other mothers?

The answer came. My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. 2 Corinthians 12.

God would take my deficits and make them my offering, and I would find his grace to be sufficient in my weakness. What kind of woman God can and will use in this ripple effect of godly living? She has about her a sense of seriousness, a sense of sobriety, a sweetness, an overall demeanor of sacredness. Her lips and her life are a testimony, not to herself, by the way. In fact, a godly older woman will never see anything in herself worthy of imitation.

So if you meet one of them, you'll know immediately she's qualified. She will ultimately testify to the sufficiency of the grace of God. And that's who you want to grow up to be like. Ladies, I hope that as you age, you're looking for opportunities to invest in younger women, and you're committed to helping them grow in godliness by your teaching and your example. You've tuned in to Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey.

Stephen's in a series from Titus 2 called Family Talk. Today's lesson is called Rare Words for Rare Women. Here at Wisdom International, we have additional resources besides this daily broadcast to help you grow in your faith and in your understanding of God's Word. One of those resources is our monthly magazine, Heart to Heart. Each month, the magazine provides you with a daily devotional guide to help you start or end your day in God's Word. If you've never seen Heart to Heart magazine, give us a call today. We'd like to send you the next three issues as our gift to you. Call us at 866-48-BIBLE or 866-482-4253. And of course, join us tomorrow for more wisdom for the heart. .