Day 2 Biblical Womanhood "The Why"

The Why of Biblical Womanhood

In Titus 2:3-5, Paul calls for the older Christian women to teach the younger Christian women in how to live. These verses are instruction for all Christian women about Christian womanhood. We are not born knowing how to be a biblical mother, wife, and woman, it is not a matter of inclination . Biblical womanhood is developed through biblical teaching and training. It is something that you are trained in by those who have done it before you. Training in womanhood begins with sound doctrine.*1 
    Christian instruction does not begin with what you ought to do, but with what you ought to believe. Sound doctrine will always bring us to what our lives should look like in Christ. Gods word trains us how to live. A mind full of Gods word should result in a life that manifests Gods Word in our daily lives and actions. Titus's task as an elder is to teach sound doctrine that calls the older men and the older women to live godly lives. They then are to teach the younger men and women, respectively, how to live godly lives. Mature, godly women are called  to teach the younger women, training them to embrace biblical womanhood. In our verses, the older women are to be deliberate in encouraging and exhorting the younger women by setting an example in word and in deed of what it means to be a biblical woman.  This will mean an older Christian woman investing herself in the lives of younger Christian women with the intentional purpose of helping them to apply the Gods Word to their lives as women.
So, let me ask you:

• As a mature Christian woman, are you deliberately  teaching and training the younger women in what it means not only to be a Christian, but also to be a Christian woman, wife, and mother?
  
• As a younger Christian woman, are you actively  seeking out teaching and training from a mature Christian woman in what it means not only to be Christian, but also to be a Christian woman, wife, and mother? *2

Join me tomorrow as we start examining and applying Titus 2:3-5. 

End Notes

 *1The use of the term "doctrine" in Scripture is important for at least three reasons. First, it affirms that the primitive church was confessional. The first generation of believers confessed apostolic teaching about the significance of the life of Christ. They delivered a body of information that included facts about Christ with interpretation of their importance. Second, the use of the term reflects development of thought in the primitive church. Didaskalia [didaskaliva] is used in the Pastorals with reference to the sum of teaching, especially of that which had come from the lips of the apostles. Doctrine plays a small role in Judaism and in the New Testament apart from the Pastoral Epistles, and yet is very important in the latter. By the time of the Pastorals the apostolic message had been transformed into traditional teaching. Third, it affirms the indispensable link between spirituality and doctrine. Christianity is a way of life founded on doctrine. Some disparage doctrine in favor of the spiritual life. Paul, however, taught that spiritual growth in Christ is dependent on faithfulness to sound doctrine, for its truth provides the means of growth ( Col 2:6 ). The apostle John developed three tests for discerning authentic spirituality: believing right doctrine ( 1 Jo 2:18-27 ), obedience to right doctrine (2:28-3:10), and giving expression to right doctrine with love (2:7-11). Faithful obedience and love, then, are not alternatives to sound doctrine. They are the fruit of right doctrine as it works itself out in the believer's character and relationships.

Sam Hamstra, Jr.

Bibliography. J. G. Machen, Christianity and Liberalism; D. F. Wells, No Place For Truth: Or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology; TDNT, 2:160-63.

*2  This Introduction  has been adapted  from a sermon given on Titus 2:3-5 – Biblical Womanhood
by Eric Schumacher