Prayer and Practice: Putting Scripture to Work
I write so I can grow. The past few months in Titus 2:3-5 has been that for me.
This passage has always inspired me. There’s no shirking it: I am now the older woman! As I near my two-year writing anniversary, I realize I’m in a different season in my life than last year.
On the larger arena, I have a passion to make disciples. This call has been the motivation and goal of my life. In this way, I live out His Story. I’m convinced Paul’s charge applies in my own disciple-making efforts today, but how?
Vertical Application
I tend to think of application as action, but I believe our first line of response should always be in a vertical, Godward dimension.
One of those responses was one of thanksgiving.
Though I studied Titus 2:3-5, it is important to keep it in context. This passage is in the immediate context of what scholars call “household codes,” descriptions of how each member of the household (literally and in the church) should function. Older women are to be teachers of good not merely to train younger women but because God has called them to be different from the prevailing culture. We have been invited into a new family—God’s family—to be distinct and different.
Thank You, Father, for adopting me into your family as your daughter!
Another response is one of repentance.
How often have I grumbled about taking care of my family! My attitude towards housework and childcare, my lack of submission towards my husband—I have failed in those areas myself.
I admit that I feel guilty as charged—and a bit worried. How can I teach these things and train younger women when I am not doing them myself? Am I “fit” to even be an older woman? I often feel like I have failed.
However, repentance is not just about being sorry or feeling guilty. By using Scripture as a plumbline, I can more closely identify the ways I want to move and change to become more like Christ.
Father, I confess I have not taken my responsibilities at home seriously. I want to recommit to loving my own family well so that I might serve You and others in this capacity as an older woman.
Lastly, I can recommit to His purposes through prayer.
As verse 5 says, the purpose statement is “that the word of God may not be reviled.” Upon doing some further reading in a second commentary, I learned that the Cretan morals were “loose,” not unlike our day.
Paul exhorts the younger women to learn from the older women not just the traditional values for tradition’s sake, but for the sake of the purity of the Gospel. In order to teach this, my desire must be the same.
May the relationships in my home point to the truth of Your Word, not create questions or doubt.
Prayer is an excellent way to apply Scripture. Different passages will evoke different responses to the Lord, but all can provide us food for conversation with the Lord.
Horizontal Application
Sometimes heartfelt, Scripturally-guided prayer is all we can “do,” especially in what Mike Emlet, in his book CrossTalk, calls “canyon” passages. These are passages where the application seems like a stretch.
However, this is more like what he calls a “ditch” passage—that is, it is a small jump to apply to our lives today. The connection is clear, even if it isn’t easy.
Though we are children in God’s family, we are adopted children. Being the mother of an adopted child, I know how hard it is to adjust to a family’s way of doing things, much less feeling like you fit in. It takes a while for it to become natural—and even longer to internalize the purpose and vision.
It is easy for me to focus on “what” I am asked to teach, but in this season of my life, the “why” compels me. Perhaps it’s part of growing older. But I am challenged to invest in building a godly home for the sake of the testimony of God’s Word.
As I have spent more time checking my work with a commentary, I am reminded that there were opponents both within the church (in the form of teachers of a false gospel) and without (the prevailing Cretan society). These dangers still exist today as we have our own versions of the same.
Though the general principle is for the older women to teach the younger women, my personal and particular application zooms in on my own household. What kind of example am I setting? Are there places in my household that need some work or a tune-up?
Not that I need to be perfect in order to obey this verse, but I can read this passage in different seasons of my life and find entirely different applications every time, based on where I am at today.
This Season For Me
Today, I am in transition. I don’t have a group of younger women I am working with currently. So this makes it a good time for me to do some reflection and housekeeping of my own.
I know it won’t always be this way, but this is a good time for it. Therefore, my application may not come in terms of carrying this out directly.
As I evaluate the state of my household with the Lord, He focuses me in particular on the two remaining children I have at home, as well as the two young adults my husband and I have launched. There is a strong reminder that my days are short and limited. How am I using my time?
As I ask God to teach me how to “love my children,” I can discern different things to develop with each of them. But He also puts His finger on the general tone in my home. I am convicted once again that I have the tendency to elevate my work over the relationships, which affects the tone of our family.
This brought to mind Sally Clarkson’s book The Life-Giving Table, so I pulled that out again. I began to read it once more and through a mentor (now I am the “younger woman”!) I am discipled through reading of how she worked out this verse in her own family.
Out of Sally’s many ideas, I chose one to start with. To shift the direction of my interactions with my kids is not going to happen overnight. But instead of letting myself get overwhelmed, I can pick one thing I can do.
And my first step of faith is to have a family night, to gather all our kids together, to share what He has been teaching me, to seek my kids’ forgiveness in the ways I have failed, and to move forward in a new way.
This is the way horizontal application happens. This is putting Scripture to work in one very particular way in my life. It is not theoretical, but “boots on the ground” work.
Zoom Out Again
As always, whenever we zoom in to details, it is important to also put those details in context of the bigger whole.
As I had already observed, this command for older women to teach younger women had a greater purpose: so that the word of God would not be maligned. What I learned from Towner’s commentary is that this purpose clause was the first of three in this section (vv. 8 and 10 also had purpose clauses for young men and slaves).
Each part of the household—older, younger, men, women, slaves—were to stand in stark contrast to the prevailing culture. In doing so, they would not merely have a happier household but take part in testifying to the truth of the Gospel that is the ultimate transformation of their society and the world! What we do in the privacy of our homes—the way we love, serve, and work—is not separate but vital to the growth and testimony of the church.
This is so encouraging to me personally. I often am discouraged by the “ordinary” work of being a homemaker, wife, and mother. The work needs to be done over and over every day never seems to end.
But as I personally embrace this “good work” (a phrase repeated throughout Titus in 2:7, 14; 3:8, 14), God is equipping me to pass it on to the younger generation of women, to help them do the same. This is something that our flesh often resists and our culture disdains.
If older women can grasp this vision and work out in their own hearts a conviction to the contrary, how might it change how we view the home? How can this conviction be winsomely and faithfully passed on to the younger women? And in doing so, how might God use us, even in the challenging circumstances of home, to spread the gospel as powerfully as any pastor, evangelist or missionary?
The Cretan world in Paul’s day sounds like it was far more similar to our culture’s today. Zooming out helps us to grasp this and refresh our vision and give today’s temporal chores an eternal purpose. It provides a reason for doing what we do—being a godly testimony right where we are.
Conclusion
As we wrap up this study, I can see a few key specific ways I can apply this passage in my own life today.
It can be a cause for thanksgiving and rejoicing.
It can be a reminder to repent of my poor attitude toward this calling in the home.
It can be my prayer: that God’s Word might not be maligned or called to question by my behavior.
It can encourage me to examine my own household for ways that I can grow and improve in my own relationships with my husband and children.
It can prompt me to look around me for younger women I can draw into my home to disciple.
Application is both vertical and horizontal, and sometimes one more than the other. But whatever it is, it should come out of a desire to love God and to love others more like Christ.
How will you apply this passage today?
