Sermon Tone Analysis

March 16, 2012

By John Barnett

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For the past 20 centuries God has offered to every married woman the privilege of turning each moment she spends in her hut, tent, cave, flat, apartment, or palace--into eternal crowns to cast at Christ's feet.

Since Paul sat to pen one word “homemakers” (NKJV) [“keepers at home” (KJV); “to be busy at home” (NIV); “workers at home” (NAS)] to his young son-in-the-ministry named Titus, every grace-energized homemaker can offer in worshipful service to God-- each dish that she washed, each towel she folded, each diaper she changed, and each weary day she spent with self-centered family members.

Titus 2:5 promises each grace-energized homemaker that they can redeem every moment they spend in the endless duties of the home into worship offerings of obedience to God.

*Redeeming The Time*

One word, chosen by God is this word homemaker.

One word, designed by God as the role-specific ministry that pleases Him, is what He wants for godly women who offer their lives to Him through their ministry to their home.

As we open to this next virtue that God desires to be cultivated in the lives of grace-energized women—the very concept is increasingly offensive to our 21st century world.

“Admonish the younger women to be…homemakers”.

The verses of this chapter were sent as a call to First Century men and women energized by grace to live an extraordinary spiritual life in a very unspiritual culture.

The Cretan church was saved, bought from the slave market of sin (redeemed), but still had clinging to their lives the garbage of their culture.

They had generations of bad thinking, false thinking, and warped lives.

Of all the godly traits older women of the faith were to exhibit and train the younger women to embrace—this is the most controversial.

In our liberated women, egalitarian society nothing riles modern women more than the image of a home-bound-slaving woman that this passage seems to portray.

And even in the church of today nothing seems harder than to convince wives that their primary ministry ordained by God is to be their husbands; and mothers that their primary calling is to disciple and nurture their children.

The lesson of this verse is not so much that a woman’s place is in the home as it is that *her priority is for her home*, and that calling from God becomes evident by her choices.

It is not whether she works outside the home or not--just being in or out of a building that you live in, is not the measure of this virtue.

God explains that her home is a wife and mother’s special domain; and must always be her highest priority.

It is within the home that a woman can provide the best ways to express her love for her husband and children—by obeying the Lord and following His plan!

*God’s Plan is Always Best*

Paul is explaining that by God’s design a woman who is a wife and mother finds her greatest fulfillment in obeying this priority from God.

A married woman who is a believer must make a conscious choice to obey the Lord and make her priority of life to be her home.

Marriage for a believer brings men and women into definite God-ordained roles.

Whether our culture agrees or not, whether it is easy or hard, whether others obey or not—God is looking for women who see their home as His priority for them.

They are to first focus upon loving their husbands with an emotional, intimate friendship.

And then to love their children with a love as we have already seen, is always kind.

Such a woman as Paul says in I Timothy 2: 11-15 will never be second-class in her accomplishments for Christ's glory, nor in her reward.

You can be as great a servant of the Lord as is possible to be in this life by living out your God-given priority of loving your husband and your children in a home that is your priority!

The term “workers at home” in Titus 2:5 is from the compound Greek word *oikourgos* which is built from *oikos* (house) and a *ergon* (work).

The Greek word *ergon* isn’t just about general work but a specific job focus.

That is why in the New Testament it is used of strategic spiritual ministry.

When God asks a grace-energized woman to focus on their God-ordained role as a homemaker, He is asking them to join in with a ministry strategic to the plan of God.

A grace-energized woman believes that she has been called of God to do the work of homemaking for the Lord Himself.

• Jesus declared his focused ministry when He said, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His *work*” (John 4:34, emphasis added) and, on another occasion, “I glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the *work* which Thou hast given Me to do” (17:4, emphasis added).

• The Spirit of God clarified the focused ministry of the church at Antioch “set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the *work* to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2, emphasis added).

• Paul explained the focused ministry of Epaphroditus, who “came close to death for the *work* of Christ” (Phil.

2:30, emphasis added), and Paul says that the faithful leaders in the church of Thessalonica shared that focused ministry (1 Thess.

5:13).

Think of the joy it can be to go through life doing exactly what God designed you to do, wants you to do, and walks through life giving His grace to help you succeed.

That is what a grace-energized homemaker has to look forward to—loving the focused ministry God gave her to do.

Paul told Titus to speak these virtues because--

*God Has Given His Plan*

In our culture there is probably no distinctive of the Christian life that is more derided than this one.

In our liberated-woman-individualistic-independent-culture a grace-energized homemaker sounds like a dinosaur or worse.

Even among Bible-believing Christians there are many that want to relegate Paul’s instructions to Titus and Timothy concerning the God-designed roles and responsibilities to being cultural instructions for that locality only—and not supra-cultural Biblical commands from an unchanging Lord of His Church.

If we make Paul’s Scriptural instructions to women as being biased because of his Jewish upbringing and culture and no longer binding, authoritative, or relevant we come up with huge problems.

This position opens up the entire Bible to being questioned as to being authoritative, inspired, and trustworthy.

If Paul can’t be trusted and erred in his teaching on women, did he also get other parts wrong of the half of the New Testament that he wrote?

If Paul was mistaken about women, who knows if what he said about how a man is saved is correct?

I firmly believe that all that Paul wrote was under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit—and thus totally trustworthy.

And even though there are some issues that Paul addressed that were possibly local and cultural such as head coverings in Corinth, there is no way a good interpreter of God's Word can say that about his instructions regarding the role and priorities of women.

To do so seriously questions the authority of God's Word.

One of the clearest Biblical teachings directed towards godly, Spirit-prompted women of all times is that they, if married, are to be “busy at home”.

This desire of God is seen consistently in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

*What God Does Not Say*

When Paul wrote the Holy Spirit’s instructions that said married women are to be homemakers *he was not saying that they could do nothing else.

*This instruction does not mean that they can never leave the home, be active outside the home, and never have a career.

Proverbs 31:10-27 clearly shows the many facets of this wise woman’s life and among them were real estate investments (v.16) and a small manufacturing business (v.

24).

Another misapplication of God’s instructions are to take them to mean that a woman is to do all the work at home.

In fact, as the God-ordained “head of the house” the husband is actually to lead by Christ's example; and Jesus came not to be served but to serve (Mt.

20:28).

So a godly husband will lead the way with a servant’s heart (Phil.

2:7) and all the time give honor to his wife (I Peter 3:7) by assisting her in every way he can.

Paul never taught that women were any sort of “second-class” to the men because of this role responsibility.

In fact God's Word clearly teaches gender-specific roles in the home (Ephesians 5) and the church (I Timothy 2)—but just as clearly declares absolute spiritual equality in Christ.

The same Paul who God led to write 1 Corinthians 11:9:

Nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man.

NKJV

Also wrote Galatians 3:28:

/"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."/

NKJV

In God’s sight the spiritual standing, access, and position of a woman is not different than that of any man.

God has no sexual distinctions when it comes to spiritual access.

*What God Does Sa*y

Now that we have established that Titus 2:5’s “homemaker” role is authoritatively from God, and that it is not imprisonment, slavery, or second-class citizenship to men.

What does God say and mean when He says that some women have a God-ordained role to serve Him through?

First this role is defined in Titus as being for married women.

This admonition to be taught comes to a woman who is a wife who loves her husband, and a mother who loves her children.

So she is obviously to be married.

When Paul was guiding Timothy concerning young widows in the church at Ephesus note what he says in 1 Timothy 5:13-14:

/"And besides they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house, and not only idle but also gossips and busybodies, saying things which they ought not.14 Therefore I desire that the younger widows marry, bear children, manage the house, give no opportunity to the adversary to speak reproachfully."/

NKJV

Paul clearly defines a woman’s priorities in order for her as a believer to have spiritual and eternal significance.

This is the context of I Timothy 2:11-15 which says:

1 Timothy 2:11-15/" Let a woman learn in silence with all submission.12

And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence.13

For Adam was formed first, then Eve.14

And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.15

Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control."/

NKJV

Paul says that a woman’s role in the church is as a learner and not a leader or teacher—that is the gender specific role of the godly men; but her God-ordained gender-specific role if heeded and pursued keeps her from being second rate to the men.

If she spiritually follows God’s desire to manage a home built around “faith, love, and holiness” she finds her greatest blessing and complete fulfillment from God; and she gets the privilege of rearing children who are God-hearted, useful servants.

Any married woman who resists being a grace-energized homemaker works against this divine plan established by the God of the Universe.

Any married woman who wants to do God’s will makes her home her priority.

That was God’s Word, through Paul, to Titus—and by the authority of Scripture to us today.

That is what God means by “homemaker”.

God demonstrates that He allows a great deal of freedom in how this is done (as Proverbs 31 records), but what is vital is that this priority of the home is heeded.

Any marriage and home where this priority is neglected is headed for serious problems.

No one can violate a specific directive from God without incurring the consequence engine of Galatians 6:7.

*What about a Single Woman?*