Keepers at Home

We are studying Proverbs 31: where it tells us that a virtuous woman's husband trusts in her. In order to find out what we can do to make our hubbys trust in us we are reading Titus 2 where Paul tells older women to teach younger women and what they should teach.

Titus 2:5 [To be] discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed

What does this scripture mean to you? What do you think Paul was telling the older women to teach the younger women here? 

Some say that Paul said this because Greek society insisted that any decent woman had to stay, literally, in the house at all times (Their “houses” had courtyards in the middle that were considered part of the house so she did go outside, just not outside the walls.) 

I do not believe this to be true. Paul was writing to a group of people that had been under Roman rule for more than a hundred years by this time. Yes, the Romans adopted the Greek society as their own, but they changed it in places to meet their own tastes. Roman women were actually “liberated.” They were free to come and go as they pleased, run businesses, participate in politics (though they couldn’t hold office or vote), own property, picked their own mates, etc. No, Paul wasn’t telling them to obey the dictates of Greek society. There would have been no point in that. 

 Others say he was just saying she should make sure the home was taken care of. Others, she should be what we call a homemaker.

I looked the words “keeper at home” up in Strong’s.

oikouros {oy-koo-ros'}

1) Caring for the house, working at home

a) The (watch or) keeper of the house

b) Keeping at home and taking care of household affairs

c) A domestic

“Care for the house, work at home, watch (guard) the house, take care of household affairs, be domestic.”

Does this mean a woman can not work outside the home? 

 Well, most single women would have a little weight problem if they did not. 

An under weight problem, that is. They need the money to survive. But even then, I think it is God’s will that their heart is home. Many single women even find work they can do at home to support themselves, though God doesn’t lead most in this direction.

What about married women? My research on the benefits of children being cared for by their own mothers, plus my observations about what has happened to our society since women have gone into the workforce, have led me to believe that God wants most women to be homemakers.

This verse doesn't say for the aged women to teach the domestically inclined to be keepers at home. It says to teach the younger women to be domestically inclined.

 It doesn't say for the aged women to teach those that want to to be to be keepers at home. 

 It doesn't even say for them to teach those with small children to be keepers at home. It says for the aged women to teach the younger women-period- to be keepers at home.

The story that really set me on the path of studying this issue was one that took place in a church with 200 members. One member had a miscarriage. She, of course, was grieving the loss of her baby and needed a time of physical recovery. The secretary of the church called every woman in the congregation. NO ONE could go care for and comfort this woman. They were all too busy with their jobs. (One woman, a school teacher, finally was able to arrange a couple of days off.) How many ministries within our own churches and communities are being left undone?


Instead of a child being cared for by his loving mommy that thinks he is the most beautiful thing on this earth, he is cared for by minimum wage child care providers and nannies. Hirelings. People who care for a child because it is a way to get a paycheck, not because they love that child.

But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them (the sheep), and scattereth the sheep.

Instead of a child being taught at the feet of their mother, who has known him since birth; he is educated at the government schools by some one who doesn't know him from Adam and won't know him a few months from now.

Our houses are cleaned by maids, or not at all, making them no more homey than a hotel, for it is the investing of self into the home through cleaning, caring and decorating that makes it a home.

Our food is cooked by McDonald's and Swanson and lacks the flavor, color and nutrition of a meal prepared by loving hands. People eat too much and too rich of foods trying to satisfy that hunger for home. It will never be found in a hamburger wrapper but in the arms (and frying pan!) of a loving woman.

Our babies are brought into this world in cold, sterile hospitals delivered by “professionals” instead of in warm loving homes “caught” by grandmother-midwives (which is statistically safer, by the way.)

Our sick are cared for by dedicated, but generic nurses. In times past the sick were cared for by their own loving mothers, sisters, wives and daughters. Hirelings can't compare to the care given by your own family. (There are, of course, times when illness is so severe that professional nursing is the only answer. That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about women intentionally letting strangers do what they are perfectly capable of doing themselves; everyday elder care and low level nursing.)

Speaking of surrogate wives, the feminists (who appear to abhor anything feminine) are generally for legalizing prostitution. It only makes sense to farm out this part of womanhood to a nameless, faceless body just like any other part.



We have lost all that is clean, orderly, beautiful, gentle, caring, nourishing, and secure of the image of God. We no longer experience these traits of His in the cradle, at the kitchen table, nor in the school room at the hands of our own mother. Nor in the sick bed at the hands of our sisters, mothers, wives and daughters. We still have the strong, just, and logical image of God through our men, but this makes the view of Him so lopsided. Without both we have an inaccurate picture of God. Without both, we can not know God completely.

This and other scriptures have led my husband and I to decide for me to stay home. We made this decision before we married. In fact, I was a homemaker four of the six years we were married before having children. We feel this is God’s call for our family. Yes, we have had to choose to do without a lot of frills and toys, to live at a lower standard of living than many others, but it has been more then worth it.

I do have to admit I was not the most “domestically inclined” when I first married. My time at school taking “college prep” courses plus extra-curricular activities, and the prevailing notion in schools that domestic skills are not important (like, “everyone will need to go to college but everyone will not need to make dinner.”) and thus not taught except from an institutional/career point of view, did not leave a lot of time for me to learn to cook, sew or keep a decent house. 

 

I have strived over the years to learn everything I possibly can in every area of my chosen vocation, Homemaking. I can honestly say I have gotten better. I still have a long way to go, but I have not messed up dinner so bad I had to cook hamburgers for desert in a long time. God has blessed me with an “Older Woman” in my life, my mother, who has helped me to learn HOW to be a “Keeper at Home.” 

 

Yes, “Keeping at Home” is a learned skill. That is why Paul had to tell Titus to tell the older women to teach it. It doesn’t come naturally anymore than brain surgery does and I think it is more important that brain surgery. Not everyone needs surgery, but everyone needs good nutritious meals, loving hands when they are sick and a clean comfortable base from which to launch themselves into the world.