Bible Teaching for Women Titus 2:3-5 - younger women and older women

Titus 2:3-5

 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things;

That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,

 To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

The portion of Scripture that we want to study today speaks to how a woman should conduct herself, and some character traits that God expects of women. The passage first speaks to older women and then follows with clear teaching for young women. As you read this portion from the book of Titus, you may feel like it is old fashioned, maybe it was good for our mothers and you may question if it applies to your life today. May I remind you that God does not change, He is the same yesterday and today and forever, His values do not change with the changing culture and His truth and Word do not change. Therefore we know that this applies to each of us today. So with that in mind, let's take these verses one at a time and see what God is calling us to do.

Verse 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;

This verse is speaking to the older women among us.

God is calling older women to live holy lives. This means to be completely dedicated to the Lord in mind, body and soul. Some translations use the word "sacred", so it is my understanding that the Lord would have the older women to demonstrate what it looks like to be completely surrendered to the Lord, in words and in actions. 

The verse goes on with the instructions for older women to not falsely accuse others, to not indulge in wine. God does not want anyone to be enslaved to alcohol or other addictive substances and He is calling on older women to set the example here. Older women are teach others, able to give counsel and answer questions. As we grow older, we have already experienced many life situations, many disappointments have come our way, and we have grown closer to our Lord through these hard times. Therefore we can encourage others who are going through tough times now. God our heavenly Father is faithful, He will never forsake His own, He loves us dearly.

Verse 4- That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children,
Now in verse 4, the older women are instructed to teach the young women. It begin with the teaching to be sober. An explanation for this word sober is to be sober minded, this would include abstaining from alcohol and other mind altering drug addictions and substances. After all how can one manage a household if one is not clear minded. Young women are to be disciplined in mind and body. One example of this is in how we dress. You are not honoring the Lord Jesus when you expose your breasts with the low cut clothing that is so modern today, or when you wear figure revealing jeans etc.  God is honored when we dress modestly and discreetly and keep ourselves for our husband. It is not right to dress provocatively to be sexy, or to be flirtatious. Your body belongs to the Lord and to your own husband and is not for every man on the planet to gaze upon.

Next we read that the young woman is to love her husband. A good practical definition of love is "you before me, your needs before mine". This is pretty self explanitory. You put your husband and his needs before your own. This does include being a loving and willing partner with your husband in the bedroom. You keep yourself for him alone, he is the one you love, the one God has brought into your life. Do not go outside of your marriage for affirmation or any thing you think you should be getting from your husband but are not. God will fill the gap and meet your needs. You speak well of your husband,you encourage him in the good he does for you and the family. Let him know that you are proud of him and appreciate him. The husband is to be the spiritual leader in the family, God expects the husband to lead the family. The husband must always remember that his wife is a gift to him from the Lord and he needs to show her love and appreciation as a gift from the Lord.
The young woman is to love her children - As mothers we know this to be so true. A young woman will spend countless hours and energy with the children, loving them and meeting so many needs. Many times a mother is so tired from being on duty as mom 24 hours every day, 7 days a week. The needs of the children are never ending and yet being a mom is one of the greatest joys on earth. God will surely bless each mother who so diligently cares for the children that God has given. Each child is a special gift from the Lord above and must always be treated kindly and lovingly and as a true gift.

Verse 5 -To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.

To be discreet, chaste - we have already touched on the topic of being discreet and chaste. This certainly does refer to how a woman dresses. As I wrote earlier, God is not honored by low cut revealing and tight clothing. This also refers to good decision making in other areas as well. We should not be extravagant and spend money unnecessarily. It is so very easy to spend more than we should, so we must always be on guard in our spirits to not allow the devil to mess us up in this area. We must be careful what we watch on TV, or the internet and we must be careful what we allow our children to watch. We must be careful of our friendships including those on Facebook and guard against gossip, we must be careful of who are children are spending time with. There is much to be cautious about and we must give ourselves to prayer and the study of the Bible in order to hear the Holy Spirit whisper words of guidance into our hearts throughout the day.

Now we come to "keepers at home" - some translations say " keepers of [their own] houses",  some say "homemakers" or "good housekeepers." The woman's first place is in the home, caring for the family and taking care of the home. These are her main responsibilities. God has created the husband and the wife with roles that compliment each other and that bring blessing and peace to the family unit. We need to trust the Lord to provide the strength needed to carry out the role that He has ordained even if it is not glamorous.

Now we come to the word "good" - this means good and kindhearted, tenderhearted - doing good from within your heart, not because it is expected of you but because in your heart you want to do that which pleases our loving heavenly Father.

Next we come to "obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed" , now you probably have questions! What does this mean? This is written as a protection for the family unit. Someone has to be the person to make the final decision in a matter, and God says it is the husband's job. This does not mean that a woman in under the authority of every man on the planet, only her own husband has authority. This type of authority is not demeaning or like a ruler, or a "do as I say or else type of authority". Not at all!!  This is a loving response on the part of both husband and wife to accomplish that which is in best for the family in the eyes of the Lord. The husband will someday give account before the Lord as to how he has lived and how he has lead the family in the role of lover, provider, spiritual leader, guide and the one who has the final word in the bigger decisions of life. There must be respect and the husband must allow his wife to give input and her perspective in these bigger family life decisions. A man and woman will see things differently and both perspectives are important, so there needs to be good constructive conversations. God wants each of us to live so as to bring glory to His Name. It will build the family life and those around us will be drawn to seek the Lord. 

Grace To Forgive Others

2 Corinthians 12: 8-9 For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Forgiving the person or persons who hurt us deeply is hard work - it is a process and takes time. I say this from personal experience. Some time ago I wrote a blog post discussing forgiveness  - link to the post here - http://sharingthefaith-northernsparrow.blogspot.ca/2012/06/forgiveness.html

If you are like me and have been working forgiveness through your mind and focusing on getting it to completion, you will agree that as much as you want forgiveness toward that person to be complete, you feel inadequate in getting it done and in the depths of your heart you wonder if there is more "forgiving" to do in order to feel that completeness in your heart.

Since I have been in process of forgiving for a few years now, and I really want it to be complete, God has been gracious to me and revealed to me that I need His grace to do the rest of the work in my heart. I have come a long way but I am weak - He is my strength and He assures me that I can leave it to Him to complete the work of forgiving my offender in my heart and I cannot reach that point without His intervention of grace in my heart. With His grace He covers my weakness with His strength. Then in Him and through Him I am made complete. 

In my mind I see giving forgiveness as giving a gift to a person. I want to give the gift ( with my whole heart I want to give this person this gift) but the gift is not ready to give until it is wrapped in beautiful gift wrap. Grace is that gift wrap which provides completeness to the gift that I am giving that is I am extending forgiveness.

After the Lord had revealed this lesson in grace to me, He affirmed it to me again through the teaching of one of my radio Bible teachers. I praise the Lord for this! The radio Bible teacher said that sometimes the sin done against us by our friend (or whoever the offender might be ) is so huge that forgiveness is not humanly possible. The pain from a deep hurt can resemble post traumatic stress disorder with similiar symptoms ( nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, sadness, fear, loneliness). It is at such a time that we need Jesus to help us and He will! Jesus experienced extreme betrayal and from the cross and in Luke 23: 34 it says Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. When the pain is so huge, Jesus comes and takes over and carries the pain for us. He does the work of forgiveness through me in a miraculous way. Every time the pain surfaces and reoccurs in our heart we must turn to the Lord in prayer again and again and leave ourpain and hurt with the Lord.  His grace is sufficient for me.
1 Corinthians 12:9 And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.
It is so important to be able to forgive completely since to live with these burdens of pain and hurt in our hearts are dangerous to our own health. Jesus wants to take all of our burdens and anxieties and replace it with His peace. He is the Healer of our broken hearts. In Luke 4:18 Jesus says - he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,
Lets remember to constantly bring our cares to the Lord in prayer.
Phillipians 4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;

What a friend we have in Jesus!

Church at Ephesus ( the church that doesn't love Jesus ) Revelation Series

Psalm 147:11 - The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.

The seven churches addressed in the book of Revelation represent the churches of John's Day but they also represent the churches of history and today. There are also personal lessons to be learned from the study of the messages to these seven churches. Sometimes the question is asked - " Which of the seven churches represents your church?" so that is an interesting thought to keep in mind as we study each of the seven churches. Today let's look at Ephesus.

The Message to the Church at Ephesus
Revelation 2: 1-7
Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks;
² I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:
³ And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.
⁴ Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
⁵ Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
⁶ But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.
⁷ He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.

In our previous study - (the Introduction study link to the study here:    http://livebyfaithonlinebiblestudies.blogspot.ca/2012/12/revelation-message-to-churches.html we studied what John saw when he looked behind him.  John ( being in the spirit )  saw Jesus standing there in the midst of the candlesticks and he goes on to describe Jesus as he saw Him there.  As we move through our study of each of the seven churches we will notice that those very descriptions of Jesus come up time and again.

So here in verse 1  it says These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; which is parallel to what we find in Revelation 1: 12 and 13.  Here in verse 1 we see that Jesus is present in our churches. He walks about within the church. Imagine that for a minute - you are in your church sitting in the pew you always choose, standing now and singing - the worship band is playing - Jesus walks up and down the isle- what does He see and sense as He walks those isles?  Are we singing and doing what we do in our worship services for Him?  really?  or are we doing what we do because it makes us feel good? or because this is what is expected of us and what everyone else is doing? Again are we doing what we do in worship to our Savior? He is present there and He sees what is going on. He knows what is in our hearts.

Verse 2 -   I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, Jesus sees what is going on. He has seen the work that has been done for Him, the patience that has been shown. 
Jesus acknowledges the fact that the church at Ephesus rebukes those who are evil - how thou canst not bear them which are evil  It is impoartant that we pray against evil, that evil will not be present in our church.
 And now He commends the church at Ephesus for calling out those people who say they are Christians but in reality are not. and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars These people are "fake Christians"  - the term liars is used.

Verse 3 Jesus again points out that He has seen the hard work that has been done for Him and the patience that has been displayed among the church members. The church has shown perseverance and endurance.  And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.

Verse 4 - But Jesus points out a problem with in the church - Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. What does it mean that they have left their first love? I believe that our first love belongs to Jesus. He needs to have priority in our lives and in our churches. It is very easy to become distracted and not give Jesus the first love that belongs to Him even while keeping very busy doing work for the Lord. Jesus want us to love Him first, then everything else comes after that. This means that we don't just love what He has done for us but that we need to actually love Him - spend time with Him alone with preferrably no distractions. Get alone with God and love Him! Bask in His presence...talk with Him friend to Friend!
Jesus reaffirms the fact that we are to love God first and foremost and with all our being in Mark 12:29-31 and reads as follows: And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

Verse 5 - This verse has a very serious message - repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
Without repentance, the church of Ephesus is done. Jesus says unless they repent, He will come quickly and will remove them. The candlestick represents the church as we learned in Revelation 1:20 in our first study. Wow! Jesus is not playing games here - if we are not giving Him our first love, we need to repent - We need to take care of business!

Verse 6 - But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate
The Nicolaitanes were followers of a man named Nicolas. This was a group of people who promoted loose living among Christians - it reminds me of the present day teaching of hyper grace which is basically suggesting that Christians have a license to sin and live immorally because hey - God's grace covers all our sin. Nothing could be further from the truth. God hates this "grace/license to sin" kind of teaching. The church of Ephesus hated this kind of hypergrace/license to sin kind of teaching also and Jesus commends them for it.

Verse 7 - To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.
What is the reward for being faithful to the Lord and our obedience to His voice?  will  I give to eat from the tree of life! 

This is a message for every true Christian - Jesus Christ our Saviour will be the One who gives us the fruit that we may eat of the tree of life! He says it here Himself! What could possibly be more exciting news than that? Eating from the tree of life means we have eternal life and we will live eternally with our Lord in Heaven! Hallelujah!!