Women in Scripture #3

Today, I will shift the focus a little from a particular woman in Scripture, to a passage in Scripture that I believe has been used wrongly to support woman "staying in the home." The passage is Titus 2:1-9.

In this letter, Paul is giving Titus instructions on how teaching to various groups. He tells Titus to teach the older men to be temperate, self controlled, sound in faith, etc. He then goes into what older women should teach younger women (we will come back to this), and then he tells the older men to teach the younger men to be sound in their speech so that when others speak against them, they will end up shaming themselves (Jesus said something similiar--"heaping coals on their head").

Now there is absolutely nothing wrong with the advice that Paul is giving Titus. There is absolutely a place for men to teach young men, and women to teach young women. There are things that my wife can teach (and should teach) a girl in our youth group that I can't (and shouldn't) teach her. Likewise, their are issues that young boys deal with that I can relate to and speak to that my wife has no experience with. So please do not hear me say that when it comes to discipleship issues we should mix genders. We shouldn't. The problem comes when people use this verse to say "women should stay in the home" (complimentarian camp) or when people use this verse to say "see women can only teach women and children" (sexist camp).

Here is what he says about women: " teach older women to be reverent, so that they can teach younger woman to love their husband and children, to be self controlled and to be busy at home...so that no one will malign the word of God."

Now at first glance this seems like an open and shut case that women should stay at home and love their husband and children. Now I do agree that women should love their husband and children (obviously!), just as a husband should love his wife and children(mutual submission--Ephesians). And I am not saying if a woman CHOOSES to stay at home and be a "stay at home mom" that she is somehow wrong or am I telling her to go do something else. I believe that is a calling just like any other. What I am speaking against is men who use this passage to make their wives stay at home in order to "live according to Scripture."

Here are a couple of reasons off the top of my head that this reading of Scripture is invalid:

1. Culture--To read this passage and apply it the way some people have is to take the reading completely out of its cultural context. In this culture, women were not allowed to work outside of the house. In essence they had to stay at home. So Paul here is basically telling Titus to train the older women so that they train the younger women to do their housework as if doing it for the Lord. (Col. 3:23). Also, in this culture it would be completely inappropriate for women to teach men. So Paul is writing within a cultural context and telling those who have become followers of the Way to live a life that is worthy of their calling. In other words, he is telling men and women to live in a way that brings glory to God within this particular culture.

It should be noted here, that when I speak of the treatment of women I am speaking strictly in the context of the country which I live. I am not saying we take these same principles and apply them to other contexts (i.e. Islamic countries). There should be different strategies based on whatever context ministry occurs.

2. Danger in "literalness"

I find it funny that men have used this passage in its most literal sense to "prove" that women should stay in the home. If we this passage is to be interpreted literally then the way this passage ends should be used to support slavery. Afterall, Paul does not say anything about releasing slaves or that slavery is wrong. Rather he simply tells them to embrace their life situation and be the best slaves possible. It seems to me that if one were to take this passage literal, that those men using this passage to keep their wives at home should also own some slaves as well. Yet, no one seems to use this passage to defend slavery (and they shouldn't, I am not advocating slave use. I am just pointing out the intellectual inconsistency). We cannt pick and choose which verses we want to take literally and which ones we don't within a particular passage. Either Paul is writing in a cultural context and we need to take principles from what he is writing and figure out how they translate into our culture. Or we take everything literal, which would mean that the complimentarian camp would have to take the slave verses literal as well.

There are other reasons that I believe the "literal reading" of this passage is off based, but I do not have time to go into them at this point. One final disclaimer. When referring to our picking and choosing of what to take literal and what not to take literal, I am not speaking about going passage from passage. In other words, there are places in the Bible that we should take literally, and there are passages that we should read as metaphors. All should be read with their context in mind, and understood in that context before applying principles to live by for us today in a different context.

This passage is not a passage that can be used to tell women that they can't teach men, or that they need to stay at home and take care of the house while the man works. If a woman feels called to be a stay at home mom, GREAT. However, if she is being forced to stay at home because of a horrific reading of this passage in Titus that situation is defined by one term: oppression.