A Model for Married Women, Part 1

By the way, that word translated to encourage, that verb never appears anywhere else in the New Testament in that form. It literally means to bring young women to their senses, to train their pattern of thinking. You see, their culture had turned everything upside down.

Now, go and turn everything right side up. And what Paul is going to do in these next few phrases, he's going to provide the curriculum for mentoring young wives and mothers. If a young couple wants to start their marriage in a way that pleases God, they need to build their marriage on a biblical model. Today we're looking at women in particular. The secular model for womanhood and motherhood is drastically different from the biblical model. But sadly, the lines are becoming blurred in our American churches. God's plan for solving this is for the older women in the church to come alongside the younger and mentor them.

Stephen explores this today in a message called, A Model for Married Women. According to an article in the U.S. News and World Report, the aging of the American population has been a factor. They're saying it's going to affect every corner of society.

It already is. In the last 25 years, the 50 and older group grew by 20 percent, while those under the age of 50 grew by 4 percent. Estimates are suggesting that the median age of our nation, which was 33 years of age in 1989 and the next decade or so, is going to reach the mid 40s. A journalist put it this way, that this shifting in age is to be considered one of the most significant culture shaping forces that we have ever seen.

And frankly, that can be a good thing, can't it? We're studying a passage that tends to endorse those in the congregation that are older. I mean, by the time you reach 50, most adults have recognized there's more to life than a car and a closet full of clothes and cash and maybe a credit card with a high limit. That used to be a good thing, right?

By the time you've reached 50, you've discovered that relationships mattered more than they used to. In fact, you find yourselves at restaurants, and I guess I've reached that point, you know, but you look at families with little kids at the table and you start conversations with them, uninvited. And I remember as a parent thinking, why are these old people talking to us? And now I know.

I'm wondering, do they know the treasure they've got at their table? What a delight. When you're young, you want time to fly. I mean, just please get on with things. I want to graduate, I want to get my driver's license, I want to go to college, I want to get a job, I want to buy the first house, I want to land, whatever. When you get older, you don't want time to fly. You've realized it did, right? You want it to slow down.

That's why you love taking pictures and looking at pictures, because it's like, okay, that moment can't get away completely. See, by the time you've reached 50 and up, you now understand that your days are numbered. This is a depressing sermon here. Listen, I'll turn the boat around in a minute here, but I want you to understand that from God's perspective, age is a good thing. In fact, numbering your days brings a level of discernment. The psalmist wrote, oh God, teach me to number my days so that I may present to you a heart of wisdom.

There's something related to wisdom and knowing time is flying by. That kind of wisdom and perspective is needed in the church today. In fact, like our culture around us, the older believers can become the most significant culture shaping force in the body of Christ.

If you've been with us, you know Paul told a young pastor by the name of Titus to go around the island of Crete and put the churches into good order, make sure they're well led and well fed. He was to find and ordain elders to shoulder the responsibility of spiritual leadership and then immediately goes into telling older men and older women how they can make a difference in the lives of those who are younger, and he sort of tasks them with modeling it. The older men were to model maturity, dignity, remember, they were to be healthy in faith and in love and then pursue it with all perseverance. He tells older women to model holy living, reverence, as a sacred duty with a sweet demeanor. Now he's going to shift and he's going to tell the older women, interestingly enough, that it is their distinct responsibility and a hands-on way to mentor younger women.

In other words, then older women are not to regard their lives as less valuable as they grow older, but more valuable. They literally represent a culture shaping force within the body of Christ. Let's pick up our study where we left off at Titus chapter 2 and at verse 3 where Paul is challenging the older women to train the younger wives and mothers to love their husbands and children. Now keep in mind that Paul is dealing with the normal patterns of life experienced by the majority of people, not only in the world but in the church, those who choose to marry, those who have children or choose to adopt children.

Let me just kind of insert this quickly here. We know from 1 Corinthians 7 that Paul has a very high view of singleness. In fact, he didn't consider singles less than complete in Christ. In fact, if because you are single, you are somehow incomplete in your relationship and life in pursuing the will of God, then Jesus Christ was incomplete as well, for he never married. Paul will stress in other passages the unique responsibilities and focus for Christian service for those who are single. In other words, what he'll say, if you put the body of Scripture together, married, unmarried, children, no children, divorced, widowed, whatever, make the maximum opportunity of whatever state you're in for the glory of God.

Don't waste it. Now what Paul does in his letters and will do here to Titus is he's gonna deal with God's pattern for marriage and family and this time he focuses on the woman. God's plan for motherhood and marriage is going to continually receive less and less appreciation from our culture as our culture moves away from God's design and it chooses its own depraved, self-gratifying, self-fulfilling desires. Frankly, we're seeing that marriage as an institution in our culture is actually fading away. And I remember growing up, pastors and evangelists would say, you know, the greatest danger to the institution of marriage is easy divorce. We've lived long enough to know that it isn't necessarily true.

Certainly didn't help, but it isn't true. The greater danger to the institution of marriage is that it virtually ceases to exist. Couples are now simply living together. According to one recently released analysis by the Pew Research taken from the most recent US Census, barely half of all adults in the United States are now married and many more than that number are living together. To put that into perspective, in 1960, 72% of all adults in America were legally married. Today, only one out of two couples who are living together are married.

Why? Well, for several reasons, you're probably way ahead of me. One, obviously, as we've already discussed, is the failure or perhaps the inability of young men who weren't raised by mature men, who were raised by men who refused to abandon adolescent behavior.

They've never had it modeled. They don't know how to accept and embrace the responsibilities and the rigors of married life. In fact, in one of my earlier messages, I mentioned that the National Academy of Sciences has already redefined the length of time for male adolescents. That period of time between the onset of puberty and adulthood and they've redefined it for men to begin at age 12 and not end until age 30, which has implications for the church and all of culture. One secular journalist put it this way, we are simply surrounded by grown-ups who will not leave childhood. But a greater reason, I think, for the lack of marital commitment in the 21st century is the moral digression of our culture. Couples are living together. They're rapidly outpacing or outnumbering couples who are getting married.

Of course, they are. Why bother with a covenant and a commitment for life when you can have the physical benefits, the financial benefits of marriage and even a child or two without ever closing off all your other options? Why choose wed lock? One statistic from the same Pew Research Analysis revealed now, this is startling that nearly five out of 10 Americans, when asked, are saying that marriage as an institution is obsolete. But none of this really surprises us, does it? I mean, for somebody to say, yeah, marriage is obsolete. Well, that's not necessarily a surprise. We're simply observing the natural effects of a culture which has resisted and now, over the last 40, 50 years, now has successfully banished the Bible from the public square.

And when the Bible is exiled, what has also disappeared is any kind of stigma related to any kind of lifestyle or choice that the Bible refers to as sinful. It's just not a problem anymore to live with a guy or a girl you're not married to. There's no stigma related to that anymore. In fact, I've actually had a couple, several in my office who talk about with any embarrassment how it's not wrong for them to live together. I had one not too long ago tell me there was nothing wrong with it and he sat there with his girlfriend telling me all the things that were right about it.

It made sense financially. There were the benefits of getting to know each other before they married and who was I to tell them they were living in sin, which I did, by the way. In fact, before our meeting ended, the guy told me, look, I don't know what you have to think about it, but we have never felt closer to the Lord.

And I said, enjoy that feeling while you can because it'll one day be gone. One secular author, not a Bible commentary or a pastor, but a secular author wrote that we are watching today what he called a tectonic shift in the sensibilities within our culture. What's right is now wrong. What's wrong is now right.

Welcome to the island of Crete. This was their lifestyle. Older men were immature and self-centered, refusing to grow up and accepting the responsibilities of their age. Paul says through Titus, older women were gossiping drunkards, speaks very bluntly to every age group. Younger men, we're going to find out in another session, are all about themselves and younger women are abandoning their husbands and their children for their freedom.

Welcome to the 21st century, right? Like Titus and these churches on the island of Crete, I want you to think about it this way. I've said this before, but I want to continue to reform your vocabulary and your thinking. Don't think of us living in a post-Christian world. It is true, but I don't want you to think that way. I want you to think that you're living in a pre-Christian world.

What that means is a couple of things. For one, when you go out there, they don't know what God you're talking about. You got to define that God. They don't view the Bible any more sacred than the Quran or the Bhagavad Gita or the Book of Mormon. They consider Jesus' words like any other good man's words. He's just another prophet and a long line of other prophets. That's pre-Christian.

So do you know what that means? That means this is the perfect time to be living with the gospel message. I mean, the light can really shine now. We're living in a phenomenal age when we can display the gospel of Jesus Christ and the kinds of relationships within the family at home and in the church that mankind has abandoned but still desperately wants and knows intuitively in his heart that they're right because it's been stamped on his heart, the law of God has been. Paul wrote, we're living in a day now where the light can really shine. So we don't spend our time cursing the darkness. Look how dark it is out there. Great.

The darker it is, the brighter one little light can be. And so Paul does reveal the depravity of the Greek and culture. He talks about it. Chapter one. And then he gives his divinely inspired solution. Verse four informs us that a big part of God's solution for transforming lives was older women encouraging the young women.

You notice that? Verse four, so that older women, here's how you live, reverent in your behavior, not malicious gossips were enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good. So that, here's the purpose clause, so that they may encourage the young women to do a number of things. By the way, that word translated to encourage, that verb never appears anywhere else in the New Testament in that form. It literally means to bring young women to their senses, to train their senses, to train their pattern of thinking. One translator put it this way, to wise them up.

You see, their culture had turned everything upside down. Now go and turn everything right side up. And what Paul is going to do in these next few phrases, he's going to provide the curriculum for mentoring young wives and mothers. And he's going to give effectively seven attributes, or six, we'll pair them together.

In fact, for the sake of outline, you might have a pencil or something and you can circle. But Paul, for the most part, delivers in the form of pairs. The first pair has to do with relationships within the family. They're to love their husbands and their children. The second pair, in verse five, has to do with their reputation in the world. First, their relationships in the family.

Secondly, their reputation in the world. They're to be sensible and pure. And the third pair refers to their role in the home, workers at home and kind. The final phrase in verse five basically provides this mindset and an ultimate motivation.

Now we're not going to get to all of that today, I'm sure that shocks you, but we're going to get to just maybe the first two pairs of attributes. All right, now for the first pair, the model for the wife's relationship in the family. He writes in verse four, so that they, that is the older women, may encourage, literally train the senses of the young women to love their husbands and to love their children. The word for love here is a compound word, first part, philos, philia, philo, which means to have affection. It is the love of befriending. It is an emotional affection and commitment to another. It's the only time this particular compound word appears in the New Testament.

And I was surprised to find it. I was surprised that this would be the word used. It means to befriend.

That just kind of sounds odd, doesn't it? To show affection. How can you command affection? How can you command emotion?

What Paul then is implying here is that love can be learned. In fact you can so think and so live that emotions evidently, according to the command of God, are eventually corralled and governed by right thinking and not the other way around. And by the way, God does this to all of us, often in the Bible, doesn't he? He commands emotion. He tells us to rejoice evermore.

I don't feel like it, doesn't matter. I'm to obey and that should be my disposition. First Thessalonians 5 16. He commands us to respond to trials with a settled, resolved acceptance of joy.

I certainly don't feel like that, but I'm commanded to respond that way. James chapter one. He commands us to give thanks and then he adds that in everything. For this is the will of God.

First Thessalonians 5 18. They're all commands that all involve emotions, which we might not have at the moment, but we obey the commands and our biblical actions pull along biblical emotions. You see we happen to be living in a fallen culture and we're walking around in a fallen body and a fallen mind.

That's turned everything the wrong way. It tells us that our actions should be the result of our emotions. However you feel, then act. That's what we're told and we like that message. So we're going to live however we feel and we're going to treat everybody else how we feel about everybody else. That's what our culture says and that's what our flesh says. God reverses all of that.

He says here through Paul basically submit train your senses that is act according to his commands and your emotions then follow. By the way if you have young children that's exactly how you're raising them. Get out of bed. It's time to go to school. I don't feel like it.

Well when did that matter? The bus will be here in 15 minutes. I want candy for breakfast. That's how I'm feeling. I don't care how you're feeling. You're not going to have that. But I'm 53.

Remember my mother bless her heart. I never did like vegetables. And I know a lot of you were the same way. That never mattered. It was never a matter of emotion or feeling.

I didn't get a vote. And it took most of my life before my feelings began to change. I happen to feel differently about fruit. I happen to feel differently about fiber. Let me tell you I feel very differently about fiber.

You know everything I buy I'm looking on the thing how many grams of that stuff man. You got to get a little older to appreciate all of that. That's what's happened. See I see value in certain things now and because of that I act differently no matter how I feel and I retrain my feelings. The command of Paul for Titus is for women to act in such a way that they train themselves in obedience and ultimately it retrains their feelings. Let me paraphrase the verse Paul writes younger wives and mothers allow yourselves to be trained to love by acting toward your husband and children with the affections of love.

Now I got to tell you this. This is especially profound and all the more difficult. It's difficult. In fact it's impossible apart from the spirit of God to do what we just said Paul said to do. But especially for them and those in the Jewish community and for first culture you see you have to understand their traditions of marriage and parenting would make this command difficult in America.

I mean illustrate it this way. In America we learned as kids and I don't know if they still teach it now but this little rhyme say with me if you know it Johnny and Susan sitting in a tree. K I S S I N G first comes love then comes marriage then comes baby in a baby care. This is deep I know but you remember that don't you. Did you notice that first comes love then comes not for them first came marriage because it had been arranged and they'd met each other maybe 12 months before the wedding then after marriage came love. Maybe that's why he says this here. Wives learn to be a friend to your husband.

I mean you really don't know him learn to be his friend learn the affection of friendship. Philea marriages were arranged betrothed set. In fact I've met several couples from other nations and they still do it to this day around the world. In fact the predominant culture is the arrangement of marriage not so much in the Western world. I met one couple from Africa not too long ago who were introduced to each other the day before their wedding.

I met a couple in fact one of our deacons and his wife originally from India met each other before their marriage. They just celebrated I think their ninth or tenth anniversary first comes marriage then learning how to love each other. Now let's add on to that another cultural challenge for these women bearing children in the first century was quote a duty to provide the heir for the estate. In other words children were considered the duty of a wife to bear and raise on her own whether she wanted to or not.

With little help by the way from the husband she could easily resent him and transfer it to them. So be a friend and affectionate toward your children. So these wives these mothers are getting saved by faith in Christ. You know they're introduced to a new family called the church. This is a fellowship of redeemed sinners.

They hear about new relationships and new priorities. The Christian home is something totally new way of thinking. And Paul is not saying now that you've accepted Christ here's how you can get out of all of that.

No he's saying here's how you go back into all of that here's how you act as you return to that. Here's your new way of thinking. It's tough sometimes to live out our Christianity in the context of the marriage relationship. But God's Word does not leave us without help or hope.

God gives us both. This message is only halfway done but we're close to the end of our time so we're gonna stop right here for today. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Today's message is called A Model for Married Women. Friends how would your life be impacted if you set aside one year to study God's Word, experience authentic community, grow in discipleship, take a trip and do some study in Israel, and earn your master's degree in theological studies all in one year? The seminary Stephen Leeds offers a special program called Shepherd's Institute where you can experience all that I just described. This unique one-year program offers a life-changing opportunity to believers no matter your vocation. We've had men and women join us right out of college and before entering their career. They spend one year in God's Word, earn their master's degree, and then enter the workforce better equipped to serve God in their church and community. Whatever God has called you to, investing one year like this will help you. Learn more at shepherds.edu. I'm Scott Wiley and I thank you for joining us today. Be with us for part two of this message tomorrow here on Wisdom for the Hearts.