The Glory of Domesticity: A Gospel Counter-Culture Text: Titus 2:3-5
Introduction: The Ripple Effect of Godliness
We live in an age that despises distinctions, detests authority, and dismisses the domestic life as a form of cultural bondage. Our generation has been catechized for decades by a sour and resentful feminism, and the fruit of it is all around us: confusion, bitterness, familial breakdown, and a profound unhappiness that settles over everything like a layer of industrial grime. The world screams about emancipation and empowerment, but it delivers only chaos and misery.
Into this cultural maelstrom, the Apostle Paul, writing to Titus on the wild island of Crete, speaks with a calm, clear, and authoritative voice. He is not interested in negotiating with the spirit of the age. He is interested in building a healthy church, and a healthy church is the necessary precondition for a healthy society. What Paul lays out here is not a series of disconnected commands for various demographic groups. He is describing a covenantal ecosystem. The health and faithfulness of one part of the body directly impacts the health and faithfulness of another. The godliness of the older men provides the context for the godliness of the older women, which in turn becomes the curriculum for the younger women. This is a cascading, covenantal faithfulness.
The instructions given in our text are not quaint suggestions for a bygone era. They are not culturally conditioned relics that we can politely set aside. They are direct, apostolic commands that get right to the heart of our modern rebellion. And notice the stakes. The final clause of our text tells us why all this matters: "so that the word of God will not be slandered." Our domestic lives, the way women conduct themselves in the church and in the home, are a public testimony. Our homes are not private little bubbles; they are outposts of the kingdom, display cases for the gospel. When we obey God in these areas, we adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. When we disobey, we give the enemies of God an occasion to blaspheme. The culture war is not primarily fought in the halls of Congress; it is fought around the dinner table. It is won or lost in the discipleship that happens from one generation of women to the next.
The Text
Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may instruct the young women in sensibility: to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be slandered.
(Titus 2:3-5 LSB)
The Dignity and Duty of the Godly Matriarch (v. 3)
Paul begins with the older women, setting a high standard for their character and conduct.
"Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good," (Titus 2:3)
The word "likewise" connects them directly to the older men in the preceding verse. Godliness is not just for the men. The standard of holy conduct applies to all. Their behavior is to be "reverent." This means their demeanor, their way of carrying themselves, should be fitting for a temple of the Holy Spirit. It speaks of a gravity and a sanctity that comes from a life lived in the presence of God. This is the opposite of the flippant, trivial, and perpetually adolescent behavior that our culture encourages in everyone.
Then Paul names two specific temptations that can shipwreck this reverence. First, they are not to be "malicious gossips." The Greek word here is diabolos, the same word used for the devil. A malicious gossip is doing the devil's work. She is an accuser of the brethren. Gossip is not just idle chatter; it is the sin of passing on information with a sense of self-importance, often to the detriment of another. It is frequently born of idleness and envy. A woman who fears God will set a guard over her mouth, because she knows the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity.
Second, they are not to be "enslaved to much wine." Notice the realism of Scripture. In a world without modern painkillers, the temptation for an older person dealing with aches and pains to self-medicate would have been significant. The Bible is not prohibitionist; God gave wine to gladden the heart of man. But He warns us sternly against enslavement to it. Anything that masters you, other than Christ, is an idol. A woman who is controlled by wine cannot be controlled by the Spirit, and she certainly cannot be a model of reverence.
Instead of being enslaved to these vices, she is to be a master of a great virtue: "teaching what is good." The older woman's life is to be a curriculum. Her experience, her wisdom, her faithfulness over decades is not for her own private benefit. It is a trust, a repository of knowledge to be passed down. She is to be a teacher. This is not a reference to the formal, authoritative teaching office of the church, which is reserved for men, but rather to the informal, relational, and absolutely essential discipleship of the next generation of women.
The Curriculum of Feminine Godliness (v. 4)
Verse 4 specifies the students and the subject matter of this crucial discipleship.
"so that they may instruct the young women in sensibility: to love their husbands, to love their children," (Titus 2:4 LSB)
The goal of the older women's teaching is to "instruct the young women in sensibility." The word means to train them, to bring them to their senses, to make them sober-minded. This implies that, left to their own devices, young women might be foolish, flighty, and driven by emotion. They need to be trained. This is not an insult; it is a recognition of reality. Just as boys need to be taught how to be men, girls need instruction on how to be women.
And what is the first subject in this school of godly womanhood? "To love their husbands, to love their children." This might strike us as odd. Shouldn't this be natural? Yes and no. While a certain affection is natural, the kind of love Paul is talking about is a determined, covenantal, and sacrificial love that must be learned. The words here are philandros and philoteknos. We could render this as teaching the young women to be "husband-lovers" and "children-lovers." It's an orientation of the heart. It means they are to be "into" their husbands and "into" their kids. Their affections, their priorities, and their energies are to be directed toward the home.
This is a direct assault on the feminist ideal, which teaches women to find their identity and fulfillment anywhere but in their calling as wives and mothers. The world tells a young woman that being a wife and mother is a form of drudgery, a low-status occupation. The Bible says it is her central calling, the primary theater of her sanctification and glory.
The Manifesto of Domestic Virtue (v. 5)
Verse 5 continues the curriculum, listing the virtues that must be cultivated for the sake of the gospel's reputation.
"to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be slandered." (Titus 2:5 LSB)
They are to be "sensible," the same word as before, meaning self-controlled and sober-minded. They are to be "pure," which refers to chastity and sexual fidelity within marriage. A Christian woman's body belongs to her husband, and she is to keep the marriage bed undefiled.
Then we come to a phrase that causes our modern world to recoil in horror: "workers at home." The Greek is oikourgos, which means to be busy at home, keepers at home. This does not mean a woman is forbidden from ever leaving her house or earning money. The Proverbs 31 woman is a veritable entrepreneur. But it does establish her primary domain of responsibility. Her priority is the home. She is the executive officer of the household. She is to "guide the house" (1 Tim. 5:14), a phrase that literally means to be the "house-despot." She is responsible for making the home a fruitful, orderly, and life-giving center of Christian culture. Any work she does outside the home must be an extension of this priority, not a dereliction of it.
She is to be "kind," which is the disposition that oils the gears of family life. And she is to be "subject to their own husbands." Here is the great stumbling block for our egalitarian age. But this is not a call for wives to be mindless doormats. Biblical submission is the glad responsiveness to godly, masculine initiative. It is modeled on the relationship between the Church and Christ. The Church is not Christ's slave; she is His glorious bride. Submission is not an indication of inferiority; it is a divinely assigned role that creates harmony and reflects the order of the Trinity. A wife's submission to her own husband is her part in a beautiful dance, and when she does it joyfully, she images the gospel.
And why is all this so important? "So that the word of God will not be slandered." The logic is inescapable. When Christian women reject their God-given roles, when they are quarrelsome, lazy at home, unsubmissive, and worldly, they give unbelievers a reason to mock the faith. They make the gospel look ugly. But when a Christian woman joyfully embraces her calling, when her home is a place of order, warmth, and hospitality, when her relationship with her husband is one of respectful submission and mutual affection, she becomes a powerful apologetic for the truth of Christianity. Her life adorns the doctrine of God. She is a living, breathing demonstration that God's ways are good, right, and beautiful.
Conclusion: Adorning the Doctrine
The world is starving for what is described in this passage, even as it publicly reviles it. People live in the wreckage of the sexual revolution, and they are miserable. They see the chaos, the loneliness, and the confusion that our rebellion has wrought. And when they look at the church, what do they see?
Do they see a culture of life, where older women are revered for their wisdom and pour themselves into the next generation? Do they see young women who are joyfully and competently building fruitful homes, who deeply respect and love their husbands, and who are raising up a godly seed? Or do they see a church that has so compromised with the world that it is virtually indistinguishable from it?
This passage is a call to build a genuine, biblical counter-culture. It is a call for older women to reject the world's demand that they remain forever young and instead to embrace the dignity and duty of being a matriarch, a teacher of good things. It is a call for younger women to reject the lies of feminism and to see that the high calling of being a wife and mother is a glorious and strategic post in the kingdom of God.
When we live this way, we are not just checking off a list of duties. We are putting the beauty of the gospel on display. We are showing a dying world what it looks like when Christ is Lord over all of life, right down to the way we run our homes. And that is a testimony that cannot be easily dismissed. It is a light shining in a very dark place, and it is how the word of God is honored.