Happy Mother’s Day, moms! We hold motherhood in high regard because we honor what God honors. In that spirit, my goal is to hold out to you a vision of God’s high and holy calling to be women of the Word in all seasons of life, whether in the active parenting years or beyond.
We have a dire need today for mature, godly women to embrace God’s call to mentor younger women by modeling transformed lives that feast on God’s Word, rest in God’s sovereignty, pursue God’s wisdom, depend on God’s grace, delight in God’s love, revere God’s justice, fear God’s holiness, reflect God’s compassion, imitate God’s mercy, extend God’s generosity, model God’s kindness and patience, demonstrate God’s forgiveness, and promote God’s kingdom through the gospel—in all things submitting themselves in obedience to the loving authority of Jesus.
How much better is this kind of God-centered living than just aimlessly perpetuating a life of independence which can easily become marked by a critical spirit, sharp tongue, lack of teachability, and a lust for control that struggles to live under proper authority. These things come all too naturally to women (and men) in our sinful flesh, as opposed to a God-entranced vision in all things. Yet through the transforming power of the gospel, you can…
- Exchange an independent spirit for a grace-filled life
- Exchange a critical spirit for a ministry of encouragement
- Exchange a sharp tongue for words of healing
- Exchange proud resistance for a teachable spirit
- Exchange a desire to control for rest in God’s sovereignty
- Exchange a resentment toward authority with humble honor
Consider: What kind of older woman are you becoming? Let me encourage you to roll the tape of your life ahead and see where today’s thinking, living, and decision-making will lead to in your later years. Who you will be in 20-30 years is determined by how you live in the ordinary moments of today.
This Mother’s Day challenge is not only to encourage you to be faithful in the parenting years, but to take advantage of these years to become a Titus 2 woman in your older years who can effectively encourage younger women in the Lord. This requires seeing the heat of marriage and the pressure of parenting today as God-given opportunities to be molded by the Word into the image of Christ. Marriage and parenting will demonstrate your need for the gospel and give you opportunities to grow in grace.
Younger moms, I realize that these are busy years; but these are also the shaping years. So, I urge you to be thinking a generation ahead for the sake of the kingdom of God. Older women, your years of influence have not ceased. Consider God’s specific calling to both older and younger women in 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.
God has given women a significant calling to honor God’s Word through life-long transformation.
Following Titus 2:3-5, let me address older women first and then younger women.
- Older women, God has called you to mentor younger women through transformed lives (Titus 2:3-4a).
Paul draws out four examples of mature, transformed lives:
- Reverent behavior (vs. 3)
This is a call to holy living—a life set apart to reflect the likeness of Jesus Christ. The Greek word that we translate “reverent” carries a sense of being “priestlike”—one whose life is fit for temple service; a life that is uncommon, set apart, designated for serving Christ. The lives of older women are to be marked by the fear of God and shaped by the Word of God.
- Not malicious gossips (vs. 3)
Why does Paul issue this specific caution to women? Here’s my suggestion: Generally speaking, God has blessed women with a relational keenness that is meant to reflect the relational richness of God Himself (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) in compassion, love, purity, etc. But when the relational element is tainted by sin, estranged from God, and lacks the guidance of God’s Word, it becomes corrupt. If you give a child a million dollars without the wisdom of restraint it is likely to do him great harm. God has given women relational wealth that must be excised with the careful stewardship of godly living and pure hearts.
Women who have sunk into the role of a busybody are especially vulnerable to the temptation of malicious gossip. Let me tell you how you can become a busybody: Just invest yourself heavily in socializing without investing yourself heavily in God’s Word for the purpose of transforming your heart to be like Christ. How will you prevent yourself from becoming a busybody and instead prepare yourself to be godly mentor to other women?
Older women must speak the truth in love from grace-filled hearts that have been purified by the power of the cross and transformed by the renewing of their minds in the Word.
- Not enslaved to much wine (vs. 3)
Drunkenness exhibits a lack of self-control that can result in a serious compromise of reverent behavior. Women, I would urge you to guard yourselves against any kind of addictive habits. Generally speaking, women have a need for security in their lives that ultimately can only be filled by putting their trust and hope in God’s sovereignty and sufficiency rather than the smoke-screen of vain substitutes.
- Teaching what is good, encouraging younger women (vs 3-4)
God has entrusted the encouragement and instruction of younger women in the church to the nurture of older, godly women. They have a responsibility to teach and encourage younger women to “love their husbands, love their children, be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the Word of God will not be dishonored.”
The way in which you honor God’s Word is by yielding your life to its transforming power, allowing it master your thoughts, heart, choices, and actions. The skill of applying God’s Word to your life is best done with the help of someone to disciple you and encourage you to keep moving forward in this work of transformation.
- Younger women, God has called you to maturity through ongoing transformation (Titus 2:4b-5).
This involves the benefit of nurture from older, godly women who can encourage younger women in numerous ways:
- Love their husbands & children
It’s’ one thing to fall in love; It’s quite another to learn to selflessly, sacrificially love your spouse and children like Christ when it requires the surrender of your self-centeredness to the Lord. Marriage is hard because it exposes our need for God’s grace to change us. Parenting is difficult because it requires wisdom, courage, humility, and grace. Younger women need the modeling of older women along with their encouragement and prayers.
- Be sensible
The idea here is good sense or sound judgment. Younger women are blessed when they have an older, godly woman walking alongside them, modeling good life skills and spiritual discernment that comes from mining nuggets of wisdom from God’s Word and polishing them with life experience.
- Be pure
We live in a culture where moral and sexual purity is devalued. Our culture is so immodest that younger women need the help of mature godly women in honoring the Lord with their bodies, thoughts, and desires. We need older women who can mentor younger women in the pursuit of internal beauty: to nourish the hidden person of the heart with “the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit which is precious in the sight of God” (I Peter 3:4).
- Workers at home
Younger women need the example of older women in nurturing their primary ministry in the home. My main concern here is not a list of jobs like keeping up with piles of laundry and dishes. Women, you have a unique, God-given ability to bless and encourage your husband more than anyone else on the face of the earth. You have the God-given ability to nurture your children more than anyone in the world. You have a critical role, along with your husband, of providing spiritual training for your children. Family life is your greatest ministry!
- Kind
It’s especially vital for younger women whose primary ministry is to model godliness in their home to imitate God’s kindness. Kindness should set the tone in your home. Your family should be the first and greatest beneficiaries of your kindness.
- Be subject to their husbands
God has a specific design for marriage and family as well as manhood and womanhood that is meant for our blessing. That design is for husbands to humbly and lovingly lead their families with sacrificial servanthood, and for wives to support and encourage the godly leadership of their husbands by taking upon themselves the honor of imitating Christ in their marriage.
We need older women to be modeling and encouraging younger women in nurturing the disposition of a submissive life to God as they live under the loving authority of their husbands. Marriage was meant to reflect Christ and the church (Eph 5) and to be a display of the gospel so that the Word of God will not be dishonored.
FINDING A MENTOR
Let me encourage younger women to consider the following seven questions in search of a Titus 2 mentor:
- Does she display reverent behavior by exhibiting a consistent, humble distinctiveness in godly living and attitudes?
- Are her tongue and desires subject to God’s Word? Is Scripture the main food of her mind and soul?
- Does she demonstrate Christlike love, servanthood, and honor toward her husband?
- Do her children bear the marks of godly nurture and training?
- Does she model good sense and purity?
- Has she embraced God’s priorities of ministry in her home?
- Does she have a disposition of living under the loving authority of her husband (or does she respond to an ungodly husband with wisdom and grace)?
Take a few minutes to prayerfully make a list of qualities that you want to be true of you as an older woman. Which passages of Scripture support that desire? How can you begin to pursue those qualities in your daily life?
Women, the responsibilities you carry are often overwhelming. But be encouraged to live each day in the power of the Gospel. Christ not only died for your sin and rose triumphantly, but He also ascended to the Father where He intercedes for you and has sent His Spirit to empower you for godly living. May God bless you with abundant grace for each day to have a Spirit-filled influence that echoes for generations to come!