The Curriculum of Home
Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.—Titus 2:3-5 (emphasis mine)
Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.—Psalm 127:1
As I have been working through this series, I have been struck by how the very things we are to teach as older women are the very areas that are minimized in our culture.
And now, home.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, however. If God and the world are opposed, we should anticipate this onslaught.
And if we are believers, the call to love sacrificially and faithfully is then not merely a command to follow but a battle cry to take up arms.
When we commit ourselves to loving God first we battle against our innate nature to worship ourselves.
When we seek to humbly serve others, even if it means sacrifice, we battle against our self-seeking nature.
When we nurture friendship with our spouses so that we reflect Christ, we battle against the popular notion of marriage as a transaction.
When we faithfully disciple our children in the ways of God in ways that fit them, we battle against the tendency to prepare them only for life on this earth.
Today, we’ll look at Paul’s curious call for older women to teach the younger women to work at home (Titus 2:5). There are three things I believe we can teach.
The Importance Of Home
First, we need to pass on a vision for the importance and value of home.
Home is not a roof to shelter our heads. It is not just a place where we hang our hat. It is not a place to unwind at the end of the day.
This is what a house is and any place can do. But a home is more.
Home incarnates Scriptural realities. And that is what makes home so important.
Everything in Scripture speaks of the idea of family:
The church is God’s family.
God is described as our Father.
Christ is our Bridegroom.
The Holy Spirit dwells in His temple as His home.
Family images abound throughout Scripture because family here on earth is meant to help us to understand in part what God intends for us. Strong marriages and family life here can be the start of expanding the kingdom of God right now. They are foretastes that foreshadow the ultimate promise of family.
Even if you are single, finding a strong church family to root yourself into is vital. Each Sunday as we meet, we fellowship with brothers and sisters that we will spend eternity with. As we serve locally, the church becomes a beacon of light to the surrounding community. We become salt and light as we love one another (Matt. 5:16; John 13:35).
During the rest of the week, we take this to an even more intimate level as believers incarnate the realities of the spiritual family of God into our homes. What we are encouraged to do on Sundays find opportunity for expression in the daily life at home.
Husbands and wives mirror Christ and His church.
Parents mirror the parenthood of God through sacrificial love and wise guidance.
Everyday routines allow us to practice discipleship as Jesus did with His twelve: on the road, through everyday observations, slowly and personally.
This is the great vision of home that gives it such great importance. Our homes should in some way reflect the greater family of God that we experience each Sunday.
No wonder Satan is seeking to dismantle everything about the home. It means so much, and if he can break it down, it is a way he also breaks down the kingdom.
We need older women to speak of and plant this vision in the lives of our younger women. Just imagine: if they are able to grasp this vision and build it into their homes for their children, who will build it into their families, what a powerful way we can serve to build the foundations of the kingdom of God!
What is your vision of home?
The Rhythms Of Home
Second, as older women, we want to pass on the skills to create the rhythms of home. This refers to the routines and ways of the household. They serve to provide stability to the home.
Home has a grounding power. As a homemaker, I help to bring order into the lives of many through the rhythms I establish.
There are obvious rhythms of waking and sleeping, sprinkled in with meals.
There are rhythms of chores: taking out the trash, tidying up living spaces, and washing laundry
There are some rhythms that happen daily, like making the bed, and some that happen seasonally, like decorating the home for Christmas.
But besides functional rhythms, there are also relational rhythms that we can establish: starting the day off with a prayer before we separate into our jobs and work, daily moments to pause and connect as a family over a meal and thoughtful conversation, weekly moments to worship together, play games or watch movies.
There can be family celebrations like birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays with special traditions and meals or simply grandparents’ regular visits.
Besides these, we create rhythms of protection. We guard times to read Scripture with our children. We designate times to unplug so we can focus on each other. We limit screen time and replace it with times to read, converse, or play.
Children are not the only ones who love predictability and routines. A stable rhythm helps ground us so that when the winds inevitably blow and things start getting shaky, we still have rhythms.
Rhythms in a home are significant. Like God’s daily and regular rhythm of sunrise and sunset, these are new mercies every morning of faithfulness. A thoughtful woman will learn how to cultivate rhythms that help her family center around God and His kingdom.
What rhythms in your home can you establish?
[Note: If this idea intrigues you, I recommend Justin Whitmel Earley’s The Common Rule and his follow up, Habits of the Household. Both are highly recommended. Matt Chandler and Adam Griffin’s Family Discipleship explores discipleship in modeling, moments, and milestones. And lastly, Sally and Sarah Clarkson’s book The Lifegiving Home gives year-round ideas for nurturing rhythms of family connection.]
The Ministry Of Home
Third, home is a place of ministry, first to those who live in the home, but it doesn’t stop there. Our homes are meant to be havens: where the Gospel reigns and the Lord rules.
But more than that, the home becomes a place where His kingdom is established as an outpost. In it, the family becomes the place where the gospel is preached—first to our children, and then to the neighborhood we live in.
I believe that even as we enjoy the rest that home brings, we also want to be generous with that gracious gift. Unfortunately, this is not our natural tendency. In fact, it is usually the opposite. So home becomes a very special place for this is where we learn the heart and skills required to minister to others in Christlike love.
Home is a place where hospitality is extended through family dinners, meals around the table, celebrations to mark milestones. It is where we develop the heart of unfair love as we learn to give generously of our time. It is where we develop the habits of faithful service as we do chores on behalf of the family. It is where we learn to welcome and show hospitality to others as we share a meal or a room.
As we use our homes for ministry, we will find our faith tried and tested, renewed and refined. Sometimes the ones who are hardest to love and serve are our own family members. They see us without the makeup, the filters, the smiling face. But as we are trained to serve at home, we are also equipped and prepared with the heart and the skills to love others outside the boundaries of home.
Home is also an important place of ministry for children who have no homes of their own or international students who are missing home. With so many who are on their own or simply in transition it is easy to feel lonely and isolated. We live in a cultural moment where so much is virtual so the ministry of home is vitally important.
For many, the welcome they receive in our homes may be the most stabilizing force they experience. You don’t have to be homeless to feel like you’re wandering the earth. As families are broken by divorce, abandonment, or neglect, as the world becomes increasingly more and more virtual, a home with a heart to minister can bring a sense of family to these souls who are looking for home.
The heart of a home helps individual people belong. As we commune together, we fight the loneliness that threatens each of us. Instead of wandering around disconnected from each other, home gives us a chance to come together and connect. Our homes can minister and bless so many if we make this our intention.
How might your home be a place of ministry?
Conclusion
As parents, we want to not merely equip our children to know and love God but then stay to themselves. Or worse, we don’t want them to merely be people who can spout doctrinal truths but lack the heart of love for others that Christ calls us to exhibit.
The work of home and all its mundane glory is more than just a pit stop. Here, as we work and labor, it also becomes the launching pad for our children and others. We want to serve them well in our homes, but we also want to equip them well to serve others. In that way, like arrows launched out (Ps. 127:3), they can go out and reach people we may never reach ourselves.
But this requires that we train them to think beyond themselves, to have eyes to see those that are in need of such hope and connection. To do this, you don’t need a fancy home that is fitted out with the latest. You don’t even need a lot of square footage.
What you do need is a home ruled by and devoted to Christ. We need the Father to lead and guide us in His ways. We need the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with a passion to live out what God desires and empower us to do what is difficult.
This is what the older women need to teach the younger women: a vision for home, shaped by its rhythms of life and ministry.
May we be faithful to teach what is good, helping the next generation to incarnate Christ in our relationships and in our homes, that we might be another outpost for Him in our neighborhood for our generation.
