biblical womanhood: did I get the balance right? (1)

Soon after my article Woman to woman: Answering the call of Titus 2 appeared in The Briefing, I received an email from Loretta reflecting on what I'd said about biblical womanhood. I wrote back, she wrote back, and it turned into an interesting and helpful exchange. Here's the first part of it, edited for brevity and clarity. I know some of you have been wanting to read this, so please tell me what you think!

Dear editor,

I’m not sure who the warnings against ‘household idolatry’ are targeted at (‘Woman to woman: Answering the call of Titus 2’), but for us younger women in our twenties, it is the idolatry of materialism that hinders us from the wholehearted application of Titus 2:3-5. We are under great pressure to establish fulfilling careers, earn lots of money, travel the world and live in luxury – and all this at the expense of staying at home to raise godly offspring.

Therefore, it would be great if older women could encourage us younger wives and mothers to find value in being busy at home and loving our children. It’s not glorious, the pay is dismal and overtime is a given, but what could be more important than training children to know and love the Lord? Rather than avoiding children until the last possible moment, we should seek to welcome as many as we can into our lives.

Motherhood may be tedious, exhausting and demeaning, but, as Titus 2:3-5 shows, it is also eternally worthwhile.

Loretta.

***

Dear Loretta,

I agree with you that young women, especially in our society, need to hear older women encouraging them to be whole-hearted as they love and help their husbands, teach and train their children, and stay committed to home and family. I agree that motherhood is a high calling. That's why, in my article, I said that home and family is “where her primary focus lies” for the young married woman with children, and that work should never undermine this. Motherhood is, indeed, “eternally worthwhile”, as you say – praise God!

The warnings against “household idolatry” in my article were directed at a certain kind of teaching on Titus 2:3-5 which idolises family and home so that single or childless women are made to feel that they are waiting for the significant part of their lives to start, and married women with children may become so focussed on their homes (in itself a good thing!) that they forget about serving in the church and reaching out to non-Christians in the community. I thought that both tendencies – the tendency to neglect home and family for career, and the tendency to idolise home and family – needed to be addressed.

I hope that clarifies things! Feel free to write back if you’d like to talk more about this.

In Christ,
Jean.

***

Dear Jean,

Thanks for your reply. I read through your blog articles and I agree with everything you say about motherhood.

I was wondering whether you can give me a few examples of people who use Titus 2:3-5 to promote the idolising of the home, such that single women feel left out? Would it be, for example, if people say things like, "There's nothing more valuable than motherhood"? Whereas what they should say is, "If you are married, then there's nothing more valuable than motherhood", because those who are not married can devote themselves to doing lots and lots of word ministry (a la 1 Cor 7:34-35). Are there any other examples of people/books that promote 'household idolatry'??

While I totally agree with what you said in the article, my first impression when I read the third section was that there were heaps of warnings against the misuse of Titus 2 but not much on how Titus 2 can apply to the lives of women. And that I found a bit unsatisfying, given the title of your article. And all these qualifications, I think, undermined your support for Titus 2:3-5. Your article used Titus 2 to prove that older women should teach younger women, and went into that in detail, but it didn't flesh out the more important part of the passage, which is the content of what the older women are to teach.

Argh I hope these thoughts made sense. Thank you for reading and thanks for all those blog posts that you sent me.

Cheers.
Loretta.

***

I think she's got a point. What do you think? Did I get the balance right? (Don't feel like you have to defend me: I found myself agreeing with much of what Loretta says, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.)

I'll share my response, and the rest of our emails, soon.

images are from DianthusMoon, nep and catface 3 at flickr