Titus 2:3-5 The aged women likewise, that they be in behavior as becomes holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine… A delicate tact may be observed in St. Paul's management of the younger women. To them he does not bid Titus address himself at all. Although he thinks of them as already married, yet the admonitions of the pastor are to pass, as it were, through the lips of the senior matrons. Some of these may have been official "deaconesses" (like Phoebe at Cenchraea), but this is by no means essential to the spirit of his instructions. Whether officially set apart to minister among her own sex, as was the salutary habit of the early Church, or not, it is in the privacy of the home, or the retired gathering for prayer and female industry, that the wholesome influence of a Christian matron of experience and weight of character may most advantageously be exerted. And it is through the familiar intercourse of such "mothers in Israel" with their younger sisters that a Christian minister can most suitably and safely reach the maidens and young housewives of his flock. So at least St. Paul judged. The homely housewifely virtues which are here specified do seem to be best taught by female lips. In seven particulars has this unmarried old man succeeded in covering the circle of a young wife's duties. Her devotion to husband and babes, her discipline of herself into suitable decorum, her womanly purity, her household industry, her benign sweetness of temper, her due deference to her husband: such are the graces by which within her gracious realm of home the youthful matron is to glorify her Saviour and her God. What a surprising elevation did the gospel confer on woman at its first promulgation! The sudden discovery that "in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female" might have a tendency at the first to relax somewhat those restraints which sex and marriage impose on woman; but, if the wholesome influence Paul desired could be exerted by matrons of maturer character, it is plain that so far from the Christian wife giving her husband (heathen though he might still be) any cause to speak ill of her new faith — her chastity, her meekness, her diligence, her obedience, would be certain to recommend the gospel in which her soul had found the secret of a behaviour so gracious and so beautiful. (J. O. Dykes, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; |
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