By Mary Van Nattan
Titus 2:3 The aged women
likewise,
that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness,
not false accusers, not given to much wine,
teachers of good things;
4 That they may teach the young
women to be sober,
to love their husbands, to love their children,
5 To be discreet, chaste,
keepers at home,
good, obedient to their own husbands,
that the word of God be not blasphemed.
A Plea to the Aged Women
First of all, the place for young women to learn to be virtuous women is under the teaching of the aged women in the local church, not at a college (Bible or otherwise). Christian mothers should be teaching their own daughters. Women that do not have children at home should be helping to teach the younger women and especially the ones that do not have saved mothers to instruct them.
It is blasphemy against the word of God (read it!) when the aged women are all out working and don't have time to teach the younger women how to be virtuous. It is a shame to the name of Christ! They are partly responsible for the failures of the younger women if they have not obeyed the scripture in trying to teach them.
An older woman who is out polishing up her career, or even "just helping out" cannot teach the younger women to be keepers at home (she's not there), discreet (she's away from her husband's protection), chaste (she's more than likely having to deal with flirtation or freshness in men around her), obedient to their own husband (she's more than likely obeying another man or woman). And then, the older women so often have the nerve to complain and gossip about the younger women. My dear older sisters, YOU are the ones falling down on the job! (1Timothy 5:1 Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father...2 The elder women as mothers...) Have you given a young woman godly, biblical counsel today? This week? This month? Even this year? It is not "the pastor's job." It is yours! Read the verse.
Please, Please fulfill your Biblical calling! We need you! There are many young women who crave the knowledge and wisdom that God has put at your disposal and all too often you will not make it available to us! You are too busy volunteering at some community service, or working at the church building, or working at some job, or reading romance novels. Alas, do ye not know that you too shall answer to God? Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. 7 As they were increased, so they sinned against me: therefore will I change their glory into shame.
Now, back to the matter of young women going to college.
Long ago, Bible colleges and seminaries were forced to take women because of pressure from the world and worldly-minded Christians. Eventually, in order to be accredited with the government and have their degrees acknowledged, they had to offer courses for girls and also have co-ed campuses. The courses for the young women had to be promoted to attract them to the colleges, so it was made to seem godly and "necessary" that they get training like the men.
Mission boards and other Christian organizations encouraged this disobedience by requiring varying degrees of "training" for those that worked for them. All too often, young person, male or female, had to have college or Bible school training of some sort. It was not "acceptable" nor "adequate" to have studied at the feet of a godly pastor or aged woman (for the girls). (Judging by some of the people that ended up on the mission field and in positions in Christian organizations, this plan did not do anything to keep the unqualified out of the work. In fact, in many cases it promoted the unqualified and crippled the true servants.)
Thus, today we have literally generations of people thinking that education is utterly important and that somehow, everyone, boys and girls alike, has to have a college education to be really "completed." Never mind what God says; And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power: Colossians 2:10 You won't find a verse in the Bible to prove that a woman has to have a college education to be a virtuous woman. (In fact, you won't find a verse in the Bible that proves anyone has to have a college education to do the Lord's work. There is actually more to prove that the knowledge and wisdom of man will get in the way of serving the Lord! Acts 7:22-30, Colossians 2:8, Pilippians 3:4-8)
So, the "well-rounded" young ladies "have to" go to college to be really worth anything according to this myth. How are they going to pay their way through? By getting a job, of course, just like the boys. So, the folly perpetuates folly. Often they start working outside the home while in high school either to save for college, "to learn to earn" (which is allegedly good for them), or "to have some spending money." Don't ask for a chapter and verse from the Bible to support going out of the home to do this. There isn't one!
Often the Christian colleges will "help" the young women get jobs on campus, as if that makes it all right with God. Well, the environment may be better, but it does not excuse disobedience to the word of God!
A friend of mine spent half a year or more at a Bible college and then had to go home for some reason, perhaps financial difficulties. She had been studying for a degree in "Home Economics." As she pointed out to me after she came back, she finally realized that the best place to study "Home Economics" was under her mother who is a godly woman. What a novel idea! Who would have ever thought of that? The LORD, that's who! My friend, Pam, was thankful and blessed to have figured it out before she paid for 4 years of college!
Another ugly aspect of the college folly is that the young lady generally has to leave home to acquire this "necessary" schooling. How is she learning to be a keeper at home by doing that? Is it right to do wrong to do right? Never!
The Bible presents a clear warning on girls leaving the protection of their fathers and/or brothers before they are married. Genesis 34:1 And Dinah the daughter of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land. 2 And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her.
You mothers will run your daughters out the door into the world to work or to go to college far from home; and then will be horrified, shocked and dismayed when she gets into fornication or is raped. WAKE UP! She belongs at home with you! Nobody loves that girl like you do! They are not going to watch out for her best interests like you and, even more so, your husband will! Oh, there may be rules by the ton at the college and there may be consideration in miles at the work place she's in, but when you trot her out where "Shechem" can see her and get close to her, you are inviting this trouble upon yourself, your daughter, your sons, and your husband! And remember, there are many "good, godly" "Shechems" running around the campuses of the very best and narrowest colleges. Ask any God-fearing young lady that has had to dodge them! We have heard about them.
You young ladies and girls that think it is necessary for you to go away to college or out to work -- why do you think that God gave you a father? He is there to protect you and look out for your heart as well as your virginity and your physical needs. You should rejoice in that protection as a Christian should rejoice in God the Father's protection over His children. Wouldn't you think a Christian was crazy who didn't like the fact that God was watching over them all the time? Go read the whole story of Dinah in Genesis 34 and see what trouble she made for her dad because she was not content with his protection. Notice also the mess that her brothers made in trying to vindicate her stolen virginity.
The solution? It's simple. Stay home!
[By the way, there is no reason for an aged woman to go to college either. Again, if they are not keeping at home, how can they teach the younger women? It is generally, perhaps always purely a matter of pride and/or love of money that prompts this. I can think of only one case where it was really useful, and that was a highly limited and unusual case in which it actually made the wife more useful to her husband's ministry, and that is very rare. They happened to be Bible translators who worked only as a husband/wife team, and she needed to brush up on her Hebrew.]
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The Question of Working Outside the Home
