Training Love in Marriage
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)
So we’ve talked about the curriculum of love. In my last post, I also talked about the curriculum of kindness.
Kindness is one of those traits that does not exist in a vacuum. It is meant to be expressed towards someone.
While our culture has come up with catchy slogans like “be kind to yourself,” the Bible does not teach such ideas. Rather, in Scripture, kindness is always extended to someone besides yourself.
Though it is safe to say that we are to show kindness to all, there are two specific categories of people that our passage highlights in Titus 2: husbands and children. And for good reason.
Of all the people that we are to love, sometimes it is the ones that are closest to us that are hardest. Family is harder to love than friends. Kindness comes much easier to an outsider than it does to the ones who live in our home. (At least it is for me.)
In my personal experience, I know that when I’m at home, my guard goes down. It’s hard work maintaining that “front” in public, and it’s nice to be in a place where I don’t have to keep it up. Unfortunately, that also means that my family sees things about me that I would never do or say elsewhere.
But that should not be.
Instead of viewing my ministry at home as secondary, as a Christian woman, I want to live with integrity. One of my goals is to strive to be the same kind of person at home that I am in public. I don’t want my kids to be able to see a difference in me.
Of course, this is hard work. Because our husbands and children are home with us all the time, it means there is no break from love. We do not get a time out from kindness.
Which points us back to the importance of being connected with God as our power source. Our personal relationship with Him serves as the reservoir from which we draw to love, day in and day out.
From my own experience, I have learned that home and family are God’s tools of sanctification in my life. There is nothing quite like sharpening the rough edges through the daily challenges of loving my family!
Like many women my age, I was encouraged in my formative years to pursue my vocational dreams and career. Unfortunately, I did not get the preparation I needed for the struggles of marriage and family. Instead, I was trained in looking out for myself—something that does not bode well in marriage and certainly not in parenting.
As a young bride, and later a mother, I was so grateful to those older women who paved the way for me. They demonstrated for me, through their words and actions, what true love looks like. They shared their failures and weaknesses with me too.
Now, it is my turn to be the older woman. Over the next few posts, I’ll be sharing some of the things I learned and what God taught me in my own journey. By the grace of God, He has also used my imperfections and failures in these relationships to humble and refine me. I hope they will encourage you too.
A Note About Love in Titus 2
In studying the word “love” in this passage, I learned something new.
Interestingly, “love” in Titus 2:4 is not agape but philandros, which means “loving men.” It is made up of the word philos, meaning “loving friend” and aner, meaning “husband, the male companion of a wife.” Together, this is the special affection of a woman for her husband, “embracing him as her ‘calling’ (stewardship) from God.” (BibleHub)
When Paul writes to Titus, most marriages were probably arranged. Not only does agape love stand out, a woman who enjoyed a friendly affection for her husband would definitely be unusual (Robert Yarbrough, The Letters to Timothy and Titus). Today, in a world where romantic love (eros) is lifted up as the ideal, a woman who honors her husband as a friend and brother in Christ will likewise be unique.
While all our relationships in Christ, including the marital one, is to be characterized by the self-sacrificing, unconditional agape love of 1 Cor. 13, Titus 2:4 is the only verse that uses philandros love. This is the love of family and home (as it extends to include children as well), which sets it apart from the more general agape love we share in Christ.
Teaching What is Good in Marriage
As I mentioned, romantic love (eros) is the defining feature of marriage in our culture today. But interestingly, that particular word is not used in the New Testament to describe love. It is perhaps extolled in the Old Testament book Song of Solomon, but there are no mentions of it anywhere else.
So while romantic love is beautiful and acceptable, it cannot be the basis of marriage. The call for us as older women is not for our young charges to merely pursue date nights and romance. Those aspects of marriage certainly are fun and require effort, but let us not stop there.
When we teach what is good, we want to aim for something even more beautiful—the privilege each marriage has to reflect Christ (Eph. 5:22-33). From the beginning of time, marriage in the Bible means a man and woman becomes one flesh (Gen. 2:24), working through two people. It is ultimately pictured in the relationship of Christ, the Bridegroom, and His church, the Bride.
Being the self-centered people we are, this is going to be a challenge for all of us. It is hard for us to not swing to one extreme or the other.
On the one hand, we may want to erase all differences between men and women, as if we are equal. On the other, we may make our gender differences our defining characteristic, which isn’t true either.
Rather, each of us, man and woman alike, are both image bearers of God. We are equal in terms of value, equally guilty before God in our sin, and equally welcome into the family of God through faith in Christ. There is no difference in that way between us (Gal. 3:28).
Yet at the same time, we also play different roles in the body of Christ. Again, neither is more important than the other. Just as the body is made of many parts, so men and women are both required.
To cover the vast needs of the garden, Eve was created to be Adam’s helper and companion in the work of tending the new creation God set before them. They were created to exercise dominion together, with specific spheres of focus.
This is not to say that women cannot garden nor that men cannot work in the home. There are times when it’s all hands on deck, and we need to help wherever it is needed. But in general and ordinary life, it is a lot easier for my husband and I to know where to focus my efforts so we can work together to spread our energies out in different domains to cover all the needs in our family.
To teach women the beauty and goodness of caring for the home is not trying to make a bad thing sound better or see the bright side of things. It truly is a good thing. Unfortunately, as marriage and family become the casualty of an increasingly hostile culture, it is easy to view the home as something less than good.
Older women need to be convinced in their own hearts that their roles at home are a wonderful gift, that it is a beautiful thing to be a partner in marriage. It is to be convinced that cohabitation or children out of wedlock are not just as good as they fall far short of God’s intention for the family. This is why we need to champion God’s way to the next generation of younger women.
Training to Love in Marriage
Not only are we to teach what is good, we need to train women to love—not merely as lovers but as friends and brothers and sisters in Christ.
Because true love (as spouses and friends) is others-focused, we will be going against the grain of our original nature. However, because we are new creatures in Christ, God the Holy Spirit now lives in us, and He makes it possible to love as Christ does.
What are some things to train in younger women so they can love their husbands? We can train them in:
Faithfulness: commitment to marriage till death. Help her to stick to her vows when it is tempting to give up.
Seeing the good: every Christian husband is a saint in the biblical sense. Help her to be quick to see the evidences of God’s hand in his life, not just focus on the irritations, disappointments or difficulties.
Appreciating the differences: men and women are not the same. Help her to understand how these differences can turn selfish, but also how they can be complementary and work well together.
Unfair love: sometimes there will be seasons where it is difficult for our spouses—seasons of schooling, unemployment, burnout, etc. Help her to give generously and sacrificially even when it feels like she’s giving more than she’s getting.
Of course, this implies that we have also wrestled with these things in our own lives—which again reminds us that we need to be actively working with God to change and grow in faith.
The Blessings of Loving Our Husbands
Proverbs 31:11-12 describes a husband who is blessed by a good wife. He trusts her and has no lack of gain, for she does him good, not harm, all the days of his life. He delights in her and praises her for her excellence (v. 28-29).
This all seems rather old-fashioned and perhaps even sexist to some. Perhaps that is more of a statement of how far we have strayed from God as a culture than anything else.
But what if what God’s Word says is true? What if His vision for marriage, family, and home are meant to be blessings? What might happen if we believed it and helped the next generation to embrace that vision as well?
I cannot say what will happen, but my guess is that there will be more stability in a rapidly unstable world. There will be rest in the restlessness. There will be goodness and peace for our children.
And ultimately, God will be glorified as we picture in flesh and blood the love of Christ for His church.
