Behavior In The Family And The Church

Titus 2:1-8 Behavior In the Family and the Church

In Titus 2, Paul deals with various roles and behaviors in the family and in a Church fellowship. False teachers are always a threat to individuals, families, and churches. Paul urged Timothy to speak out. “Speak thou the things which become sound doctrine.” Titus was being called upon to stand up in opposition to antichrist doctrine. Titus needed to speak out against the lies of men; he needed to preach holiness. He could not just sit back and allow people to say and do whatever they wanted to, and this started with the families who had united together in a local fellowship.

Paul began with the older men in the church. They are to be sober, grave, temperate.

They are to be sober, having self-control. They are to be grave, being serious and dignified. Young people need older people to be serious minded. This doesn’t mean that it is wrong to laugh or have fun, but it does mean that aged people should be dignified. We should not be making a joke out of everything; we need to behave in such a way that people will take us seriously when we speak. Being a jokester, or a “goofball”, is not befitting a Christian man. Older men need to teach younger men how to have a backbone, how to take the role of manhood in the home and in the Church, and how to treat people with respect. There is too much at stake for men to lack seriousness. Being temperate describes an attitude or a mindset. It means to be right minded or wise. It is the opposite of carelessness and silliness.

Titus was also to teach that the aged men should be sound in the faith. They are to be grounded in the Word. They should also be characterized by love. We are to love as God loves. God reaches out in love seeking the well-being of others and the aged men need to set an example to others by doing the same.

Older men are also to be characterized by patience. Most people want things done right now, but older men ought to have learned at their age that one must learn to wait. Patience is required in this life. We should not be pushy, hasty, or rash. This does not mean we should not act when we see it is time to act, it means we should not be hasty and take actions that go against the Word of God. (Read this post about "Open Doors."). Abraham’s impatience brought Ishmael into the world, and it caused trouble for his family. How much trouble have men brought upon their families for not being sound in the faith, for lacking love, and for not having the endurance to hold up under the load that has been on their shoulders?

Paul told Titus to teach the aged women to be holy. The behavior of women must always reflect holiness. The way a woman talks, the way she walks, the way she dresses, the way she acts - in all she is and does, she should reflect holiness. All the habits of her mind and body should reflect holiness. She should not be a false accuser. Slander is the work of the devil, so slanderous remarks being thrown around can destroy the harmony of a family or a Church fellowship. Aged women are to be teachers of good things. This does not refer to public teaching in the Church meeting – it does not contradict Paul’s teaching elsewhere on the role of women in the church.

1 Timothy 2:12-15 says: “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.”

1 Cor. 14:34-35 states: “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church."

The sphere of her teaching ministry is indicated in vs. 4-5. The older women are to teach the younger women, by example and by exhortation, how to fulfill their roles in the home and the Christian community. The older women must live disciplined lives, and they are to teach the younger women to do the same.

Older women in the church must teach the younger women to be devoted to their families. Paul said the young married women should be taught to love their husbands and to love their children. Why did this need to be said? Because some wives do not show love to their husbands and not all mothers love their children. Not with love as God defines it. They show it by their lack of respect for their husbands and lack of nurturing discipline for their children. God commands wives to reverence their husbands, and he commands appropriate discipline: “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.”

Such instruction should come from wise, spiritually minded women. Age is no guarantee of wisdom because many older women teach younger women just the opposite of what God has commanded. They teach them how to be independent from their husbands and how much of a nuisance and hindrance that children can be when they ignore them for their selfish pursuits.

Aged women should be teaching younger women to be discreet, sensible, and self-controlled. If a wife and mother doesn’t set her mind to holiness, she won’t be holy. If she isn’t holy she will be leading her children down the path of destruction.

God’s Word says that older women are to teach younger women how to be chaste. We live in the day of filthy movies, marching homosexuals, and demanding feminists. The Government controlled schools, media establishments, and entertainment industry, all pressure people to conform to the world's wickedness. Those who resist are branded as hateful and enemies of mankind, when it’s the opposite that is true. These moral relativists that want to be rid of the ways of God are the enemies of mankind. Christian women will resist the influence of an ungodly society by being chaste, and by being guardians of the home.

Christian women are to be keepers at home. An ungodly culture urges women to be career women. Enormous pressure is put on women to enter the workforce, and because of it, many marriages are wrecked because working wives and mothers become discontented with and independent of their husbands. Many children have strayed because their mothers have been off to work, shoving their children off to day care centers and Government schools so they can attend to their worldly pursuits. Mothers are needed at home.

The pressures of life notwithstanding, God’s way is always best because it is based on higher wisdom than human wisdom. The role of being a keeper at home is infinitely more worthwhile than anything a woman could put in its place. Susannah Wesley was a mother of 19 children. She homeschooled her children diligently, and her Christian character was reproduced in her children. Out of her home came John Wesley who was a powerful voice against sin and the false doctrines of Calvinism in his day. Thank God for her obedience. John Wesley said: “I have learned more about Christianity from my mother than from all the theologians in England.”

According to the New Age Philosophy, women are to seek careers and try to do everything that men do. According to God’s Word a woman is to guide the home. That is her calling. If she ignores this calling for worldly pursuits, more money, more security, more of anything, she may realize one day that the world has taken her family.

And by the way, men need to be men and fulfill their calling as providers and protectors and help their wives fulfill their calling. Many husbands and fathers have failed their families by disregarding the Word of God.

We must choose to have a Christ-ruled home.

Older women are to teach younger women to be good. A woman should make her home a refuge from all of the meanness, cruelty, and wickedness that her family encounters from the world. She ought to make the home a loving sanctuary for her husband and her children. Nothing else she could ever try to do can even compare.

Older women are to teach the younger women how to be obedient to their own husbands. Wives are to be in subjection to their husbands. There’s no need to try and take away from the meaning and apologize for it. God is a God of order and human “wisdom” disregards the wisdom of God. It is astonishing how many people claim to be faithful to God and yet they completely ignore this plain teaching in his Word. How many marriages have ended, how many children have suffered because husbands/fathers and wives/mothers ignore God’s Word on matters such as these? When these commands are ignored the Word of God gets blasphemed. People sneer at those who claim to follow the Lord but deny him by their works. It makes people feel like they too can ignore God’s Word, because after all, even professing Christians pick and choose what they will obey.

When God’s Word speaks, it comes from the highest authority, from perfect wisdom, and from selfless love. It must be accepted and obeyed.

Paul then gives Titus some instructions for young men. They too are to be known for their seriousness, and they are to have a pattern of good works in all things. They are to be sound in the faith. For men to lead their families they need to know the truth, and they are to live the truth without compromise.

If we find that we have been wrong in one of these areas, we should not make excuses. We should confess it to God and forsake it. We can’t change the past, but we can make a new start today. His mercies are new every morning.