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.
Are You Really Keeping at Home?
There is a common problem particularly among the wives and daughters of pastors, missionaries, and others in full time Christian service. It occurs in many other woman as well, but is too often excused in the former.
They do not work outside the home, they are certain not to do that, but they are not at home either. They are out "helping" with the work so much, that they cannot keep at home. Now, there are certainly times for a women to go somewhere with her husband or father to help in the work. In fact, an evangelist that travels without his family is highly questionable. That is another matter. But we are speaking here of wives and daughters that spend much of their time away from home on invented errands and jobs, or ones that are not rightfully theirs.
Teaching at the church school is all too often made to look spiritual and good because, after all, it is for the church! But, if the school cannot be run without taking the women out of their homes, then it is wrong. Remember it is not right to do wrong to do right! It does not matter what some great Christians did or says. It is what the Bible says that counts! God says "keepers at home" which excludes the women teaching at the church school, being the full time church secretary, running a church daycare (which wouldn't be needed if the other women were not working).
There are many other excuses for not being home. Missionary women too often must have their own ministry, or just "have" to be with their husbands all the time. The kids are off at boarding school, so they feel justified and often pressured to go out and do something.
Missionary moms, have you ever read what the Bible says about raising your children? One thing is certain, it says that the parents of the child are to do it, not a bunch of half disgruntled "dorm parents" who were sent to work in a missionary boarding school, too often against their will! If you are not allowed to keep your kids home with you and teach them, you had better find another mission to work with! Boarding school has ruined many missionaries' kids. We have seen it!Ephesians 6:4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
When my Mom was in boarding school there was a man in leadership at the school who would actually threaten kids that if they did not behave he would send them home to their parents. He told them, "Your parents are too busy to have you around!" (The ungodly wretch!) If my grandparents had known he was saying that there would have been some real trouble and they may well have taken their kids home to prove to them that they did not think that way!
Is that what your kids are being taught at boarding school? Worse still is that what you are letting your kids think by your behavior and actions? God forbid! But, there are too many missionaries who do think that way. Their kids are just "in the way" of their ministry and they are more than happy to get them off to boarding school. They have "great things to do for God" that do not include bringing their children "up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." God help you if you are a mother that thinks that way! You are going to pay.... Galatians 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. There is not a responsibility that you have that is more important than seeing to it that your children hear the gospel and are raised to be useful Christians to the Lord! (Billy Sunday will receive his rewards for all the souls he won to Christ, but there may be more wood and stubble than some people think, for he will have to answer to God for why his own abandoned children ended up drunkards!)
Now, this is not to say that it is wrong to help clean the church building, or to have a Bible study, or to go on visitation with your husband, or on an evangelistic trip with him. That is not wrong in moderation. The point is, there are women (you know who you are) that spend most of their time gallivanting around "doing the Lord's work" in every place but their home. Their kids are neglected, their houses are empty and lifeless and sometimes even a mess. But, they are "doing the Lord's work" so no one durst question them. This is wrong! You cannot do "the Lord's work" properly when you are abandoning the charge that He has given you and thus blaspheming His word!
God tells us Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Are you there to train your children? Proverbs 29:15 The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.
One young lady told my Mom about how another local pastor's wife "went everywhere with her husband." She thought that was really neat. Needless to say, my Mom was not too impressed. She knew how much work it takes to run a home properly, and she also knew that pastor's wife had two children who plainly needed more attention.
Now there are other women, who find ways to stay out of the home even though they are "not working" either. The possibilities are numerous: attending home schooling meetings and functions, competitions, community service, women's clubs, craft clubs, going to the mall/shopping, "yard saling"; or even just visiting other ladies in the church, community or family. Whatever the case, the question is, are you out doing other things more than you are at home?
There is nothing wrong with many of these things in moderation, but sadly there are women who give themselves to these things and end up blaspheming the word of God because they are not "keepers at home".
The world will think we are crazy when we obey God's word in this. Let them! 1Peter 4:3 For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries: 4 Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you: 5 Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead. If other Christian women want to go running around fulfilling the will of the Gentiles, let them too! We give account of ourselves to God, and He is not going to accept excuses that others were doing the same thing. He will want to know what each of us did with His clear will. Romans 14:12 So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.
[Please see note at bottom of Page 2.]
Keeper OF the Home?
Now I have heard it said that "A woman is be a keeper of the home. If she can be a keeper of the home (or a builder of the home) and work outside the home too, well then fine." (Emphasis added] Please notice how the word of God has to be mangled to make this point! It is an ungodly lie, that's what it is!
The scripture says a keeper AT home. You cannot be a keeper AT home and be working part time nor full time. Nor can you be a keep AT home and be running all over the place to various functions and activities. Most of the time the weekly church meetings with maybe a Bible study or music lesson, the weekly shopping for the family and the occasional doctor's appointments will keep you away from home enough, or more than enough, in one week.
Now there is a time for a lady to get away once in a while to have a date with her husband, to visit a friend, or to just be alone with God and meditate. (Genesis 24:63 And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide...) But the fact stands that for hundreds of years mothers and wives got very few "breaks." Frontier women spent almost all of their time at home with very few "breaks" and yet somehow they managed to raise men like Abraham Lincoln, Peter Cartwright, etc. and be content while doing it. They did not know that they "deserved" anything better.
Too often we are tempted to think like the wimpy, soft worldlings that view children as inconvenient. They feel "saddled" with marriage, "burdened" with children, "weighed down" with all the responsibilities of being a home maker. (Listen to them talk. You will hear it.) We tend to pick up their commercialized "values" that we "need a break"; or even more, that we "deserve" something better or a "reward" for our trouble, that we deserve an "easier life."
A friend of mine has expressed her struggle with feeling like her kids are so much trouble instead of the blessing God intends them to be. That is the world's thinking. That is what the devil wants us to think. He hates children! (Just see how many he has killed in the womb.) 1Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: 9 Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.
Is the serpent whispering lies to you as he did to Eve? Remember that two of the main lies Satan implied in his conversation with Eve in the Garden of Eden are 1) God is not good, and 2) God is not enough.
Are you going to let Satan influence your thinking toward your children? Are you going to let him cast doubt upon the joy in obeying God's word as a woman? Are you going to let him convince you that God's requirements for a godly woman are "unfair"? What is "fair"? Who are we trying to please, anyway? Whose rules are we following? Is there "Joy In Serving Jesus"? By what measure are we judging ourselves and our families? If it is this commercialized, deformed culture of the present - invented by the devil - then no wonder we are discontent. We cannot serve two masters. Matthew 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
This is a war and either God will get you, or the devil will. You may be saved and go to heaven when you die, but if you give place to the devil (Ephesians 4:27), he will use you up. 2Timothy 2:3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. 4 No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. 5 And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.
So the choice is ours. Will we live by the world's and the devil's standards of materialism and carnality? Or will we live by God's standards of holiness and godliness? Will we be sloths or will we be soldiers? Will we choose to be blessed by the things that God intends to bless us? Will we rejoice that we can serve in our homes as we are called to do? Will we choose to be content with the state that He has chosen for us? Will we feel the privilege of serving the men that God has placed over us? Everyone of us must choose for herself.
Philippians 4:11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. 12 I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
1Timothy 6:6 But godliness with contentment is great gain.
Being a servant is the greatest position we can have in the Lord's work. Jesus will not ask us to do more than He did Himself, and He came to be a servant and to suffer for others. Mark 10: 42 But Jesus called them to him, and saith unto them, Ye know that they which are accounted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and their great ones exercise authority upon them. 43 But so shall it not be among you: but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: 44 And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. 45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
Philippians 3:12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. 13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. 16 Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.
