Women who teach women
A teaching for wives · Titus 2:3–5
3Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in their behavior, not slanderers or addicted to much wine, but teachers of good. 4In this way they can train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5to be self-controlled, pure, managers of their households, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be discredited.
Context
Titus was caring for the churches on Crete, an island with a bad reputation even among Cretans themselves (Titus 1:12). Paul asks him to guide each group in the community: older men, older women, young people, slaves. The older women receive a precious mission: to be teachers of good for the younger ones. The stated goal is that the church’s life not discredit the Gospel before a culture that was watching everything.
What the Bible teaches
Notice: Paul doesn’t tell Titus to teach the young wives directly; he calls on the older women to do it. The Bible values wisdom passed from woman to woman, in the kitchen, on the phone, over coffee after church. Every wife needs someone further along the road, who has already gone through the first year of marriage, the postpartum months, the kids’ teenage years, midlife crises, and can say: this will pass, and God is faithful.
The list in v. 5 needs to be read in context. Managers of their households doesn’t forbid work outside the home; Proverbs 31 praises the woman who buys fields and sells garments. It describes caring for the home in a society where the household was also a place of production. And submissive to their own husbands is tied to the reason: “so that the word of God will not be discredited,” that is, so the Gospel isn’t brought into disrepute. A submission that covers up violence would do the opposite: it would shame God’s name.
The list begins with loving husbands and loving children. That isn’t learned by instinct alone; it’s learned from examples. If you’re an older woman, someone needs you. If you’re younger, look for a mentor.
In practice
Invite an older woman in the faith whom you admire for coffee and ask what she learned in the hard seasons of her marriage. If you’re already the older one, offer yourself to a younger woman.
To talk about
Who was the woman who taught me most about faith and marriage, and what did she do differently?
Prayer
Lord, thank you for the women who walked ahead of me. Give me humility to learn and generosity to teach. May my home honor your word and may my life show that your Gospel is good. Amen.