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Christ’s church was born into a sin-warped, sin-darkened world of mixed-up marriages, sin-scarred lives, and confused families.
But men and women who were gloriously saved did not automatically become great wives and mothers, or husbands and fathers. When they came to Christ and were forgiven, God graciously gave them everything they needed to become godly wives, mothers, husbands, and fathers. But, they needed something else. They needed worship services that taught them to believe correctly, and then they needed small group discipleship times to learn how to behave correctly.
These new believers needed coaching, training, modeling, and encouraging in a one-on-one relationship. Godly behavior is a series of choices, and those men and women had to be nurtured in daily skills that would lead to loving marriages and families.
And that is the vital ministry which we find captured for us in Titus two.
Christ’s Church Used Coaches in Godly Living
Christ’s church grew into the potent force for changing the world in the quiet nurturing sessions that Titus two men and women performed in practical discipleship. Just as important as the preaching and teaching of the doctrines of God’s Word was the modeling and nurturing of individual saints through practical hands-on lessons in godly living.
The building blocks of Christ’s church are Spirit-filled men and women whose lives are given daily as obedient servants of God.
God wants men and women that will mentor, nurture, and coach godly living for His church. These individuals believe that God has called them to touch one life at a time for His glory.
For just a moment please follow along in your Bibles in Titus 2:1-8, as I again read those 12 special character traits for men and women. Then we will go back to our word-by-word look at the Titus two woman of God.
v.1 But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine: v.2 that the older men be:
• Sober,
• Reverent,
• Temperate,
• Sound in faith,
• [Sound in] love,
• [Sound in] patience;
v. 3 the older women likewise, that they be
• Reverent in behavior,
• Not slanderers,
• Not given to much wine,
• Teachers of good things— v. 4
• That they admonish
the young women
• To love their husbands,
• To love their children, v. 5
• To be discreet,
• Chaste,
• Homemakers,
• Good,
• Obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.
v. 6 Likewise exhort the young men
• To be sober-minded, v. 7
• In all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works;
• In doctrine showing integrity,
• Reverence,
• Incorruptibility, v. 8
• Sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you. (NKJV)
When God gets to pick the curriculum for His Church, what does He choose to be taught? He lays down twelve vital, godly character qualities for women and 12 vital, godly character qualities for men.
Twelve Godly Characteristics of Highly Useful Women
Women who are highly useful to God have these characteristics. The long-term goal of their lives is geared towards being useful to God. Parents who want their children be useful for the Lord begin early on to point their children towards the high calling and great joy of being a Titus two woman and the Titus two man.
The whole goal of a Titus two woman is to train younger women in Biblical, simple-to-measure, Spirit-empowered, love-based living.
Paul did not call for Titus as the pastor to train all the women in these qualities God wanted them to cultivate; rather he called upon the godly older women of Christ’s church. He singles out the women of faith, those who had already learned to love their husbands, learned to love their children, and learned to be reverent, godly, modest and wise, and charged them with seeking out and meeting with every younger woman in the church.
Now, let’s begin a step by step look at all 12 characteristics of a Titus two woman. Paul lists them in the verses we already read. Here they are one-by-one.
The older women are to have mastered all 12, and the younger women are trained in the last seven.
First the godly character of the older woman in the faith is profiled. Without a reverent lifestyle behaving like a living sacrifice, dedicated to God, none of the rest even matter. That is why Paul starts here first!
v. 3a “the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior” (1)
Paul first draws a word from the Roman world to capture the entire bearing of these godly role model women in Christ’s church. The Greek word translated “reverent” is used only here in the Bible, and it conveys the idea of priest-like. That word for “acting as a representative of a god” is the word Paul uses to describe the devout and godly character of the Titus two woman. Older women are to live like holy priests serving in the presence of God. Their sacred, personal devotion to the Lord has slowly come to influence every aspect of their lives.
So a godly woman (or any believer) won’t allow anything to stimulate their flesh away from God; and they insist on only feeding their mind with what encourages and increases being “reverent in behavior.”
Godly older women have simply taken Romans 12:1-2, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, and Galatians 2:20seriously.
• Romans 12:1-2 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. NKJV
• 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. NKJV
• Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” NKJV
They have presented themselves to the Lord, they have begun to live life the way God asked them to live—as a walking temple of God, as a consecrated priest of God, as a living sacrifice, and as a bondservant of the Lord.
Godly Women Seek to be Reverent in Their Behavior
v. 3b “not slanderers” (2)
Next Paul turns the spotlight on the hardest member of the body to control, according to James, the tongue. Twice in his epistles Paul targets a woman’s habits of her speech, saying it is a spiritual qualifier or disqualifier. Though this is a universal problem we all face, Paul specifically says to women who want to serve Christ’s church, guard those tongues. 1 Timothy 3:11 “In the same way, their wives are to be women worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything” (NIV).
“Whereas men tend to be rough or violent in their actions, women have a tendency to be rough or violent in their words. Older women who find themselves with time on their hands can be tempted to allow their conversations to lead to gossip, criticism, and slander.”
James tells us that a tongue out of control indicates a life out of control. He goes on to warn how huge can be the dangerous effects of uncontrolled words. James 3:2, 6 “For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body as well. 6 And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell.” (NAS)
Note that the source of all wickedness, especially of an uncontrolled tongue, is hell; and it is Satan who is at the root of all gossip, all harmful talk, and all slander. If you are damaging the reputation and ministry of others, you are a tool of the devil.
Right after James’ discussion of the tongue he explains that our motivation either comes from below (Satan’s realm) or above (God’s). We can tell by the byproduct of our words and actions. When what we say causes this list of woes from James 3:15-16: “jealousy, selfish ambition, disorder, envy, and every evil practice” or as one man puts it, “Whenever you’re trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others’ throats.”
In fact the word “slanderers” here in Titus 2:3 is diabolos, the very name of Satan used of him 34 times in the New Testament. Satan has been a false accuser and so each time he incites a believer to do so, they are doing Satan’s work. Satan is the ultimate source of all evil, the root of all wrong behavior; and since James says the tongue is capable of causing great evil, Satan is always close at hand.
Godly Titus Two Women Never Are to Surrender Their Tongues to the Devil
Stop, and as the Psalmist says, set a guard at the door of your mouth (Psalm 141:3). Be sure that what you say is absolutely true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report before you say it—or you will severely lessen your ministry effectiveness as a godly Titus two woman.
Remember that it has been estimated that from the first “Good morning” to the last “Good night,” the average person engages in thirty conversations a day. Each day, his words could make a book of 50-60 pages-the equivalent of more than one hundred books a year of 200 pages each.
Our tongue is an intriguing study of great contrasts. Think of that object resting in your mouth just now.
To the doctor it is a two ounce slab of mucous membrane containing a world of inter-related muscles and nerves. That is the physiological tongue.
To our Body it is a vital organ that must work properly if we are to eat, chew, taste, swallow, and talk. That is the helpful tongue.
To other people the tongue is the primary avenue of communication. It gives us the ability to inflect sounds and articulate words distinctly. It gives us a vehicle to communicate our thoughts. That is the essential tongue.
Yes, without the tongue –
• No teacher could guide their pupils.
• No coach could prepare his team.
• No mother could softly sing her baby to sleep.
• No leader could motivate his group adequately.
• No pastor could bring comfort to heavy hearts.
• No issues could be discussed and resolved.
In fact, without the communication of conversation our whole planet would be reduced to a mere roar of unintelligible grunting and groaning. It is rare that we stop to reflect on how vital this little muscle in our mouth really is. But without being given over in obedience to Christ, our tongues are dangerous.
One common type of talk that hurts is called gossip and comes in many forms. Here are three forms of gossip that all of us, and especially those who earnestly seek to be a Titus two man or woman, should always avoid: malicious talk that is geared to cut, to destroy, to divide friends, break relationships, and erode trust. This is the fire James spoke of.
Secondly, avoid rationalized gossip/talk which is when a person is convinced (and deceived by themselves) that they are to share this information for the “good” of the other person, often for them to “pray” about. But again, down deep just like malicious talk, this type of talk is gossip that causes harm and is empowered by the devil.
The third and final type of malicious talking that we all need to avoid is “innocent” gossip. This usually starts with proper motives and desires but gets off course with unwise sharing of sensitive information, then curiosity sets in and soon the conversation is far beyond the problem and the solution and has become malicious, slanderous, harmful gossip.
So what should we avoid? Never use our mouth in an unregenerated way! What should we do? Tame our tongue by the Holy Spirit as His Word richly dwells and permeates all our lives. Why not like David, make some plans now to change our usage of our tongues?
Here are three great ways to change:
• Think first: before starting to say something pause a few seconds and ask are these words–true or false; exaggerated or accurate; healing or cutting; grateful or complaining?
• Talk less: it is a biblical fact that the less you talk the wiser you appear. Plan, prepare, concentrate and enrich each opportunity to speak. Make each a time to speak as 1 Peter 4:11 If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. NKJV
• Start now: like David, ask God to fit you for a word retainer, get braces put on that tongue. Don’t waste your greatest tool.
Godly women seek to be reverent in their behavior, and are careful in all their conversations.
v. 3c “not given to much wine” (3)
Paul here focuses upon the self-controlled moderation that is to characterize women of every age in Christ’s church.
Godly women are Spirit-controlled in every part of their life. They resist excess in any area of daily life. They are not slaves to any substance, to any amusement, to any fashion, or to any attitude that does not please their Master in Heaven.
Most women in the early church were formerly pagans. Drunkenness was the norm for many women in that society. Drinking was the best way to forget about the problems of being a “slave” to a pagan man who looked upon his wife as a convenience that bore him legitimate children and enhanced his reputation in the community. Because this life was all there is to a pagan, hopelessness led to drunkenness. Paul said that prior to salvation they all were “without hope and without God (Ephesians 2:12).
Coming to Christ changed everything, but old habits are hard to break. The old ways of their husbands would come back, old pains from emotional and physical abuse would resurface, and the temptation to slip back to the intemperance of slavery to wine would grow strong. Lack of physical control of any appetite points to a spiritual immaturity. Both Timothy and Titus were told to beware of women returning to their old habits in this realm of drinking.
Today “not given to much” goes far beyond merely wine. There are so many forms of alcohol never imagined in the Biblical times that can be abused, plus drugs (both acceptable and unacceptable kinds) that can be abused, tobacco that can be abused,, wonderful varieties of food that can be abused, beautiful varieties of fashionable clothing that change with every season that can be abused, housing options, exercise options, recreation options—all that can be abused and become addictions.
There is a generation of believers who have never tasted a drop of alcohol and pride themselves in that choice—while overeating with daily regularity; and both are condemned by God in Proverbs 23:19-21 side-by-side.
Because of Romans 14:15-21 and I Corinthians 8:9-13, we see that though the Bible never forbids wine drinking, our liberty is limited by the consciences of other believers and our testimony to the world. The lesson of temperance is consistency.
We must be cautious of any intemperance; and “not be given to” too much of anything, be it the use of money, the enjoyment of leisure, or the establishment of a house to live in. Whatever we do is to be tempered by the glory of God. He must be the object and focus of all we do. 1 Corinthians 10:31“Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (NKJV)
Modern society has elevated fashion almost to the point of idolatry. Clothing stores, newspaper and magazine advertising, and television commercials are like giant billboards that continually proclaim, “We covet clothes.”
Expensive, often ostentatious jewelry for both men and women is becoming more and more prevalent as a means to flaunt material prosperity and glorify self. We are continually goaded to put our bodies and apparel on parade.”
Godly women are Spirit-controlled in every part of their life. They resist excess in any area of daily life. They are not slaves to any substance, any amusement, any fashion, or any attitude that does not please their Master in Heaven.
Godly Women Seek to be Reverent in Their Behavior, Careful in All Their Conversations, and Never Enslaved to Anything but Christ
v. 3d “teachers of good things” (4)
Paul starts and ends this third verse with the same thought. Godly women show-and-tell. They live what they teach. They train others in the pattern they have learned. Their walk speaks louder than their talk. Their life is under God’s control in all areas: their tongues, their appetites, and their habits. They do not overindulge themselves, they are not overweight gluttons, they are not pleasure-hungry, they are not malicious talkers. These godly older women were noble in everything and in the way they lived life they taught by their actions what is good! Titus 2:3 Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. NIV
Paul always stressed preaching and teaching what he was already living. In his instructions to Timothy he said, 1 Timothy 4:16 Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things; for as you do this you will insure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you. NASB
Titus was to encourage these older women to develop a ministry of teaching younger women what is good. Younger women with children were to keep their primary focus at home (Titus 2:4-5), but the older women would do well to reach outside their homes and share what they had learned with those who would profit from it most.
A godly woman teaches by her life what is good in God’s sight. She carefully chooses the “better part” as Mary did over Martha. Titus two women see every area of their lives as an open book that should and does teach Christ’s gracious Lordship. They can say as Paul did in 1 Corinthians 11:1Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ. NKJV
And who is an older woman? Technically, in this passage it was a woman who was past raising her children. Some commentators even say the age of sixty, as Paul does in the widow’s list of I Timothy 5. But in reality there is no chronological age given. For every woman in this church there are some older and some younger. To those older, you are to look and see if they are an example of Christ—if they are, ask them to show you what they have learned and how they do it. For those who are younger, you are to seek to get into their lives and help them bring every area of their lives under the gracious Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Every young lady and woman in this church should have as their highest desire the goal of being first a Titus two student of some godly older-in-the-faith woman. And, the highest honor, the greatest goal in the life of every older woman in this church is to have the honor of being that older-woman-in-the-faith. If you have children, that is where you must start. If they are grown and gone, ask God to begin filling your lives with younger women into whom you can prayerfully pour the love and wisdom of Christ gleaned from His Word and by your years of walking in the Spirit!
Every godly woman has the opportunity to teach the younger generation of women in the church. This instruction is to occur in informal settings, such as one on one, small groups, or women’s Bible studies. And this instruction is both by word and example. Many young women today were not raised under a biblical family model. That’s a challenge for the older women in the church.
Godly women seek to be reverent in their behavior, careful in all their conversations, never enslaved to anything but Christ, and teaching by example the way to follow Christ.
v.4a “that they admonish” (5)
In teaching what is good they “encourage the young women” (Titus 2:4). This opening phrase ofTitus 2:4 “that they admonish” is one Greek word in Paul’s letter, the word is sophronizo and means, “to train someone in self-control, restore to senses, admonish and exhort earnestly.”
“You will note the similarity of this form to characteristics of elders, “prudent” (1 Tim. 3:2), and older men, “sensible” (Titus 2:2). Older women are to train the younger women to learn the art of self-restraint. This training process requires that you older women be committed to being responsible, confrontive, and affirming in an ongoing relationship with a younger woman.”
The first four spiritual qualities are all present to make this quality work. God wants a godly woman whose life speaks louder than her words. A woman whose character is noticed prompts other women to examine their own lives and seek to emulate her joy, her peace, her walk in the Spirit in evident and practical ways. The Titus two older woman-in-the-faith’s life is a pattern for others to use in shaping their own lives.
This one word is variously rendered into four different English words by the top four versions: “teach” (KJV); “admonish” (NKJV); “train” (NIV); and “encourage” (NAS). The context and the word imply that this was to be a process of teaching, explaining, encouraging, training, and holding the young wives to a standard that was unfamiliar to them and yet vital for the success of their marriages and families.
One of the strongest forces for spiritual ministry in the local church lies with the older believers. Those who are retired have time for service. It is vital that we mobilize and use these important people. In my own 30 years of pastoral ministry, I have been constantly helped and encouraged by godly older saints who knew how to pray, teach God’s Word, visit, troubleshoot, and help edify Christ’s church.
So the older-in-the-faith, godly women of the church were:
• To behave like holy priestesses of the Almighty God,
• To show restraint and discipline of appetites and words,
• To live what they speak so that the younger women want to learn from them how to live and please God in their lives and families.
So what was their very first lesson? Loving husbands God’s way!
v. 4b “the young women to love their husbands” (6)
Among the Bible believing women of the first century, there was a big challenge in “loving” their husbands. For various reasons and in various degrees those women found themselves with either minimal or no “feelings of love” for their husbands. Believing wives almost always want to obey the Lord, thus they submit and fulfill their responsibilities to their husbands—but often only dutifully and not lovingly. It is not that loving your husband is a virtue, Paul says that not loving him in a way that he can feel is a sin!
In Paul’s day, men and women were saved out of a culture where romantic love usually did not exist in marriages. Wives were only seen as the trusted keepers of the home and bearers of the children. Emotional love, psychological needs, and sexual desires were satisfied outside of marriage by most husbands. The opportunities for illicit sex in the Roman world were endless. For most women this was in some ways a relief as they did not have to “perform” sexually on a regular basis for their husbands. But the emotional super-glue that the marital relationship produces was thus absent. Salvation stopped the immorality in most believing men’s lives back then, but salvation did not make them or their wives instantly close, intimate, and life-sharing friends and lovers.
Just as modern pre-marital moral laxity has scarred many young couples into a troubled, often superficial marital relationship, so were most of the marriages of the New Testament church. What was Paul’s Spirit prompted answer? What was to be the way to solve the distant, detached, and constantly tempted husband daily buffeted with the overpowering allurements of the flagrantly immoral Roman culture?
Christ led Paul to deploy a legion of older-in-the-faith, godly women to go from house to house, become a close and trusted friend of those young wives, and train them in how to become their husband’s best, closest, dearest, and most intimate friends.
Physical or sexual love without romance is soon empty and meaningless; and as Solomon (who had a lot of experience) said, soon becomes “Like gravel in the mouth” (Proverbs 20:17). Paul knew that to protect those newly believing husbands and fathers from the tidal waves of temptation, they must have a vibrant, attractive, satisfying emotional and physical relationship with their wife. Husbands who are drawn to think about and want to see their wife throughout a day away from home are protected from attraction and distraction by a wicked world about them. Loving, caring, romantic wives are trained not born.
The key to understanding this bold new dimension of the early church’s training is in the word Paul uses for love. Every believer has already repeatedly been commanded to “love” with agape love, which is an action. We are commanded to act in a loving way towards each other, our saved and unsaved friends, and even our enemies. This agape love is not a feeling, it is an action. Paul explains agape love in Ephesians 5:25 and Colossians 3:19 as a husband acting towards his wife in the same self-sacrificial way as Jesus loving the church.
Women were also commanded to obediently submit respectfully to their own husbands (Eph. 5:22;Col. 3:18). Peter adds that they were to cultivate a gentle and quiet spirit that was beautiful to God and of immense value in the marriage (I Peter 3:4). This was the reciprocal relationship of a godly marriage on a behavioral level. The commanded attitudes and behavior of believers in marriage is the foundation and the formula for a Christian marriage. But soon it gets back to dutiful, obedient, often unemotional, and detached relationships. So Paul says that it was imperative to go further. Titus is given the key to flourishing marriages and homes—train the younger women in how to cultivate a loving friendship (phileo) with their husbands. This is emotional love.
Agape love is never used in the Bible to describe sexual love or responsibility because emotional love can’t be commanded. The beautiful, intoxicating love that God designed for marriages to have sexually is emotional and those emotions can’t be commanded. We can’t make someone feel a certain way; we can command them to “do” something but not “feel” a certain way. Genuine, Biblical, marital, sexual love is emotional intimacy in the highest degree. God commands willful, agape love; but the emotional phileo love of friendship and sexual intimacy can’t be commanded—it must be learned.
When the younger women saw how the older women loved, respected, admired, and were best friends with their husbands—they were drawn to see that close and intimate friendships with husbands were possible and very profitable for daily life. They learned how to encourage their own husband, how to build him up, how to surprise him with their affections, and how to cultivate a life-long growing and deepening friendship.
The best way to calm a home and to fill a home with joy and peace is to have a husband and wife who are best friends–intimately, emotionally, and spiritually.
What are some practical steps a Titus two woman mentoring a younger woman in the faith would teach? Here would be some wonderful starters:
• Decide that you will make your own husband your number one most important human relationship of life over your parents, brothers, sisters, and friends.
• Begin to seek your husband’s friendship and love ahead of all other human relationships, including your children.
• Begin examining your lifestyle and schedule to see if you are intentionally “spoiling your husband rotten” if you are doing so as a way of life, then you can be sure that you are his best friend and are truly “loving” your husband.
Here are some habits to cultivate to keep on in your love for your own husband:
• Pray for your husband daily.
• Plan for him daily things like: special acts of kindness, special dinners, special times alone, special meals alone, early bedtimes for the children, going to bed at the same time.
• Prepare for him daily: prepare your heart with being clothed with God’s love; prepare the house; prepare your appearance; prepare your greeting; set the table; clear out all visitors; stay off the phone; pray for his arrival.
• Please him daily.
• Protect your time with him.
• Physically love him, let him know that you are available at any time that would please him.
• Positively respond to him.
• Praise him.
• Pray without ceasing.
“Younger women” refers to those women who are able to bear children or are still rearing children. Since women can bear children well into their forties and the main duties of raising a child last for about twenty years, a woman under sixty could be considered young in the biblical sense (1 Tim. 5:9). What qualities ought to characterize her life? Love their husbands: One word in the Greek text, philandros, is translated “love their husbands.” Paul used the same terms to describe godly widows (1 Tim. 5:9). It means to be a one-man woman, totally devoted to one’s husband. I’ve had women tell me that their husbands are no longer lovable. But having that attitude is disobedience to the clear Word of God. To help your attitude, keep in mind that loving your husband doesn’t mean you’ll always feel the rush of emotion that characterized your love at the beginning of your relationship. A recent cover story in Time magazine explained that those initial feelings change in a couple of years because of chemical changes and mellow into something deeper (Paul Gray, “What Is Love?” [15 Feb. 1993]:47-51). Marriage is a contented commitment that goes beyond feelings to a devotedness—to a level of friendship that is deep and satisfying. If you don’t love your husband, you need to train yourself to love him. Serve him kindly and graciously day by day and soon you will make such a great investment in him, you will say to yourself, I’ve put too much of myself into this guy not to love him! It is a sin to disobey this command.
The godly older women have the responsibility of teaching the younger women how to be successful wives, mothers, and housekeepers; and the younger women have the responsibility of listening and obeying. The Christian home was a totally new thing, and young women saved out of paganism would have to get accustomed to a whole new set of priorities and privileges. Those who had unsaved husbands would need special encouragement.
The greatest priority in a home should be love. If a wife loved her husband and her children, she was well on the way to making the marriage and the home a success. In our Western society, a man and a woman fall in love and then get married; but in the East, marriages were less romantic. Often the two got married and then had to learn to love each other. (Eph. 5:18–33 is probably the best Scripture for a husband and wife who really want to love each other in the will of God.)
Transcript
Let’s open again in our Bibles to Titus 2, and we’re going to get to the second quality of a godly woman’s life. Titus 2, those first eight verses, and we’re going to survey them again.
I remind you, and never forget, that the Gospel went into a very needy world, as it does to this day. And that sin-darkened world had corrupted the family values, the marital values, had warped the entire fabric of those individuals that were coming in, as sin always does. So, they came into faith in Christ. They came into the Church, but they had a completely foundationless view. They did not have a biblical perspective of what God would expect in marriage in the home. Those men and women, though they were gloriously saved, didn’t automatically, at salvation, as we saw this morning, become immediately wonderful Spirit-filled husbands and wonderful Spirit-filled fathers or wonderful Spirit-filled mothers or wives.
So, God’s method, as always, is to teach them. When they came to Christ, they were given everything as we were in Christ, but these new believers needed to believe correctly. So, the systematic teaching of the Word, and that’s what Paul and Timothy were exhorted so clearly to do, and Titus also to faithfully and systematically teach the Word. But as we saw this morning, those discipleship times also needed to be added for them to behave correctly. They were believing correctly, but taking what they learned in the gathered worship, taking the Word of God and all the doctrines, and putting them into practice is what Paul exhorts. This chapter needed to be addressed on a personal level. They needed personal examples. They needed someone who was living this life, someone who was walking this walk, to bring them alongside and to walk them through. That’s the entire Titus 2 model. So, that’s what Paul lays down for Titus.
He said godly behavior is a series of choices, and these men and women had to be nurtured in the skills, the daily choices for them, for their marriages and families. What a vital ministry it is, captured in Titus 2. Christ’s Church was using coaches in godly living. That’s what really transformed these families. Those who had no foundation could not wait for years and years for finally the total effect of systematic teaching to take over in their lives. They needed someone to come close to them and say this and this and this is what you need to work on in an atmosphere and in a context where they were living. Those building blocks of Christ’s Church, those Spirit-filled men and women, those lives daily given were the goal.
In fact, at the end of this Titus 2 passage, it says in verse 11 that the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all, teaching us that, in verse 12, denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly. That’s the same concept, this idea that is in the verses we’re looking at, this sober living, this reverent living. It just is to encompass the whole Church. God wants men and women who will mentor and nurture, and coach godly living.
For just a moment, I want to go through that entire list with you again and read these eight verses. In fact, each time we gather and look at these, we’ll keep reading these verses over, and I’ll keep showing you those building blocks. If your Bibles are open to Titus chapter 2, we’re going to read verses 1 through 8 again. As we do that, just tick off in your mind, as your eyes follow through in the Scripture, and see the characteristics that are given, six for the godly older men, five for the godly older women, seven for the godly trainees, the younger women, and then six more for those younger men. Just in your mind, as we read them each time, ask the Lord, what do you want me to be working on in my life? What do you want me to be cultivating so that I can be an even greater prepared Titus 2 man or woman? So that I can have my life formed in someone else. As Paul said, he labored to see Christ formed in others. He labored to be an example that they could follow. So, let’s all spend this evening, as we hear and watch and see what God says, ask Him to make that in our lives.
Titus 2:1-8, but as for you, addressing Pastor Titus, speak the things proper for sound doctrine. And then, in verse 2, recruit these special forces. I like to call these the special forces of the Church, those who are doing this intense work. That the older men be, number one sober, number two reverent, number three temperate, number four sound in faith, number five sound in love, number six sound in patience. That soundness modifies all the way down those faith, love, and patience. So, that’s the older men: sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, sound in love, sound in patience. If you want to be a Titus 2 godly example as a man, be sound in faith, love, and patience, be sober, reverent, and temperate in your life.
Then verse 3, the older women, likewise, just like those men, just like the men of Titus 2, older men in the faith, you, older women, be reverent in behavior. Go through life as a holy priest of God, number one. Number two, not slanderers. Number three, not given to much wine. Number four, teachers of good things. Verse 4, the fifth one, that they may admonish. They are to be characterized by bringing younger women to their senses. That word admonishment means to help them see what they need to do. It’s not the word teaching. It is a skill development. It is a long-term process of helping them to see by example what they’re supposed to be.
So there are the five: reverent, not slanders, not given to wine, teachers of good things, and this admonishment, this leading them in the right direction. So, that’s the older women’s ministry. Then, picking up in the middle of verse 4, those admonishments go to the young women. And here are the seven marching orders, the seven characteristics that characterize the needs of these godly young women. They need to learn, number one, first and foremost, to love their husbands. Number two is to love their children. Verse five has a third, to be discreet. Fourth is chaste. Fifth is the homemaker. Sixth is to be good. Seventh is obedient to their own husbands, that the Word of God may not be blasphemed.
So, what’s interesting is that clause seems to go back to God’s Word being blasphemed if they don’t love their husbands, if they don’t love their children, if they are not discreet, if they’re not chaste, if they’re not homemakers, if they’re not good, if they’re not obedient. It blasphemes the Word of God because the watching world sees an inconsistency there. So, that’s the seven elements for the young women.
Then in verse six, the young men, likewise, just like the older women, just like the older men, just like the young women. Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded, in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works, in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, and sound speech that cannot be condemned. So six quick elements: sober-mindedness, showing to be a pattern of good works, showing integrity in doctrine is a third, reverence is fourth, incorruptibility is fifth, and sound speech that cannot be condemned. Then a final purpose clause there, so that the one who is an opponent may be ashamed. As a witness, the world looking on, not only will the Word of God not be blasphemed, but the unsaved world will be ashamed. They won’t be able to say evil of us when we live this way.
Twelve characteristics for men and twelve for women. What a lofty, wondrous goal and picture our Lord has given us. Let’s bow before the Lord in prayer. Father, I thank You for Your Word. It’s alive. It’s powerful. It is settled in Heaven, and we receive it into our hearts. We hear Your voice, and we say, speak, Lord, Your servant’s here. This is what we want. When we get to make choices in life, these are the choices we want to make. When we get to plan, these are the plans we want. When we get to think about how to invest our lives, this is how we want to invest them because we belong to You. You bought us at a price, and therefore we want to use these bodies to glorify You, to fulfill Your purpose in our generation, to become examples to Your flock, and to tell others to follow Christ like I am. And each of us has that privilege, each of us has that calling, each of us can make choices to have a life that can be followed and poured into someone else. Teach us more tonight, especially as we look at the older women. I pray that You would raise up such an army of godly older women in the faith that would make it their life’s desire and true focus to systematically, one by one, pour themselves into the life of a younger woman in the faith. And we’ll ask You to do this so that You be glorified and exalted. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.
What you’re looking at in these eight verses, when God got to pick a curriculum, when God got to write the curriculum, this is what He wrote. He wrote it very carefully. He wrote it very systematically. He wrote it for us. He chooses 12 vital characteristic qualities of women, and I call them the 12 godly characteristics of a highly useful woman. Now think about that, the greatest thing that we can be is useful for God. Remember, we are His servants.
In fact, this first one, women who are highly useful to God, are the women who are Spirit-empowered and who live out this attitude. It starts with that very first, look at verse 3, the first characteristic of an older woman in the faith is profiled. I want you to think about the sequence here. Without this first characteristic, the others don’t matter. Without that reverent behavior, the others will not follow. The life will not speak. It’s very significant that the beginning is that the older women be reverent in their behavior.
If you remember this word drawn from the Roman world, the word is actually only used here in the whole Bible. There are basic, very similar words used interspersed all throughout this, the pastoral epistles, but this word is uniquely here. This word captures the entire bearing of these godly role model women in the Church. This word, translated reverent conveys the idea of priest-like. Now I just want to take you, we looked at one, but I want to take you to three this evening. We’ll start in Romans 12, and I just want to read these for the simple purpose that just the public reading of God’s word has an effect on us.
So, start in Romans 12 with me and let me go through this idea of being a priest and a priestess for the Lord. Because if we, in Romans 12:1-2, act as a representative of God, then we fulfill the idea behind what Paul’s trying to convey here. This idea of reverent behavior starts with a proper view of my relationship, in a practical way, as I go through life, to the Lord. I am to be offered as His servant.
Now, we don’t have servants nowadays. That’s just not a part of our culture. In fact, it’s an abysmal part of our culture. We should look back at what happened with slavery in America. But slavery was just part of everyday life in the ancient world. It was very common. In fact, as I’ve told you before, there were eight different types of slaves in the New Testament world. Many people, many professions, now that we have professionals, would’ve been slaves in the 1st century world. Not all slaves were beaten and mistreated. Many of them were high-ranking officials in different parts of society. They were the lawyers, they were the confidants, they were the financial advisors, they were investors, they were stewards, there were many different kinds. In fact, a lot of those temple workers that we’re talking about even here were slaves, but they had an elevated position. So, slavery in our mind is all negative, but in the ancient world, it wasn’t, and times are different.
But the word that Paul uses to describe the believers is that they would be devout and godly in their character. It was not that they were a member of this church, but they lived like the Devil. It wasn’t that, yeah, I’ve done that, it was something that flowed throughout their whole life. It was a characteristic of their life. They were devout. They were reverent in their behavior, not just at church, not just in discipleship group, not just when they were in their ministry. It just permeated their lives. Romans 12, godly older women have simply taken, first of all, Romans 12:1-2, as their call to present themselves to come before the Lord and say, yes, I respond to your request. I present myself as a living, sacrificial offering. I am not my own. I belong to You. Do what You want.
Romans 12, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your body, a living sacrifice, your body holy, your body acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Don’t allow yourself, verse 2, to be conformed to the world. In the context of this Titus 2 woman, an older woman would live like a holy priest serving in the presence of God. Their sacred, personal devotion to the Lord slowly influences every part of their life. They do not allow themselves, Romans 12:2, to be conformed to this world, but they are progressively being transformed by the renewing of their mind. They are constantly saying, Lord, I want my thoughts, I want my behavior, which is directed by my thoughts, I want that all to be conformed to You, not the world. That’s why they become so powerful in the church, because they can help younger women to see areas where they have been conformed to the world.
It’s so interesting. I can say something and apply it over here, and it has nothing to do with someone’s life. But a godly older woman can come alongside a younger woman and say, you know what? On Sunday, when we were talking about conformity to the world, you probably didn’t see it, but you know what? In this area of your life, you have been conforming, allowing the world to squeeze you into its mold. The younger woman will say, I don’t understand. And the older woman will say look, the Scripture says this, and it says this. Now do you see your response here, and here? That setting is the nurturing and it’s the discipleship setting that shows them how to renew their mind using the Scripture. Romans 12:2, that you may prove that you can live out what is good and acceptable and the perfect will of God, so that you can demonstrate it, so that you can put it into action. It’s one thing when it’s up here, just on the stated verbal truth level. But we’re not supposed to merely be hearers, but this is the doer part. So, these Titus 2 women, reverent in behavior, come alongside and say, this is how the Lord has shown me to be a doer.
Now, keep going to the next book, 1 Corinthians 6. Because the second element of this reverent behavior comes in the last two verses of chapter 6. Remember I said that they are priestesses serving in the Temple and that we are the Temple? 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. Or do you not know that your body, 1 Corinthians 6:19, is the Temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and because of that, the verse says, and you are not your own. Do you know that? See, Paul’s asking a question. He’s asking a group of people who knew all about temples and all about being servants. He says, don’t you realize that when you respond to God and offer yourselves as a living sacrifice, you become His living servant? You have died to yourself and you live to Him.
Now look at the wording of verse 19, your body becomes His temple. What was the temple for? It was a place that people went to see their God. You and I are the representation of Christ. We are, do you remember how Paul put it? He says you’re the photographs of Christ. You are the image of Christ. He’s written in your heart. You demonstrate Christ. You’re living letters as it were of Christ. That’s what we’re to be. We are His temple, we have Him living within us, living out through us, and people see Christ through our actions and behavior, and are drawn; there’s a winsomeness.
That’s why in Titus it says that the pagans will be ashamed. They won’t be able to speak evil because they see such consistency. Now, they might hate it, and they might persecute it, and they did in the Roman world. But often they didn’t know how to respond to it because it was so compelling.
That’s why the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the Church, they couldn’t kill them fast enough in the Roman Empire. The faster that they killed them, the more people believed because what they said is that they know how to live and they know how to die, and we don’t. We want that. We don’t have hope. We don’t have joy. We don’t have peace. We don’t have harmony in our homes. We don’t have peace in our minds, and they do. So, he says in verse 19, your body is God’s temple. He’s in you, whom you have from God; you’re not your own anymore.
Verse 20, For you were bought at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your Spirit, which are God’s. So there’s a great truth. It’s just hanging out there. It’s like a beautiful piece of art. It’s just hanging out there. Those early believers heard that. They actually heard Paul say that. They would go, wow, just like we do. Wow. Then they would say, now I have to go back to making chariots, or I have to go back to trampling out grapes tomorrow in the vineyard. They could not connect the wonderful truth they got with where they were and how they could live that out.
So, that’s why these godly older women were deployed. They would say to them, this is how, verse 20, you glorify God in your body. And then when we get down to how wives are to love their husbands. Do you remember that in the ancient world, and I don’t want to get ahead of myself here, but in the ancient world, marriage was a convenience to have legitimate heirs and to have someone you trusted at home to watch over everything. There was nothing romantic about marriage as a whole in the ancient Roman world. Men found their companionship, their emotional intimacy, and their physical intimacy outside of marriage.
So, when they got saved, they didn’t immediately know how to express genuine love to their wives. They didn’t know how to express the genuine emotional and psychological needs that these women had. They didn’t relate to them. They were just the ones who were supposed to cook, take care of the kids, have the kids, and do all that, and make sure the house was right. They had their fun outside.
He’s telling these women, I want to show you how to glorify God in your body, what you’re supposed to do, and in your Spirit, how you’re supposed to respond and act in your emotions, in your mind, in your attitude. That’s what I’m telling you because your Spirit and your body belong to God. I’m going to train you because I was in a marriage like that with a man just like you have. He was insensitive and he was uncaring, and unthinking, and even though he came to Christ, he still didn’t know how to relate to me. I’ll show you how I became his best friend. I’ll show you how I got very close to him and how he shared his life with me. Then I’ll show you how, and they go through the children, to love children who were raised in that Roman world.
So, 1 Corinthians 6 would come alive. This wasn’t just going on in Crete. This truly, this model was the model for the Early Church. That’s why we call 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus the pastoral epistles. This is the model, the structure. This is what Paul was training and teaching to be done in the churches. It wasn’t just Crete that had this highly developed Titus 2 woman and man with younger men and younger women going on. It was to be throughout the Church, this is how they trained.
So, Corinth, when Paul spoke these words, they would have been followed up with older and godly men showing young men how to present their bodies to the Lord, how to be a living walking temple. They’d say you know what? Maybe on your way to work, you shouldn’t go by the gemnasium. Do you know what a gemnasium means? I’ve told you many times. You know in biology that there are angiosperm seeds and gymnosperm seeds. Angiosperm seeds are covered, and the seeds are hidden. Gymnosperms, they’re not. A gymnasium was a place where you didn’t cover your body to do athletics. I think by about the 2012 Olympics, they probably won’t wear any clothes. It’s less every time. They just were headed the Greek way. But in the Greek world, they did all of their athletic events completely naked. That’s why homosexuality was so rampant in the Greek culture.
So Paul, teaching this, when these new converts that were so used to that they weren’t even fazed by the immorality, when they came to Christ, they had old habits. So, their godly mentor would come along and say, hey, if you want to glorify God in your body, you shouldn’t go to the baths. You shouldn’t go to the gymnasium or whatever it took for them to cultivate godliness. It had to be explained to them and modeled for them.
We keep going to the right to Galatians 2, because there’s a third element that these godly women would have been living out. Romans 12, presenting themselves back to God, 1 Corinthians 6, realizing their body was God’s temple and that temple was to glorify God in both body and Spirit. But Galatians 2:20, which we know so well, I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. They realized that Christ was living in them and out through them. So, Paul would teach that. This was a sermon. He preached to the churches of Galatia, the churches of his missionary journey. So, he told them, he said, you were crucified; when Christ died on the cross, you died on the cross. When Christ was buried, you were buried. When He rose, you rose. He went through all of that and said the result of this is that Christ lives in you, and the life that you live, you live for Him who died for you and gave Himself for you.
All the people would go, there’s another wonderful, whoa, truth. Then they went back to working in the leather shop, dyeing things, and working sewing things, and being servants here and there. They were trying to figure out, how do I do that? They didn’t have the portable Scripture. We forget nowadays that we can drive around and listen to stuff in our cars, and we can listen to our personal digital devices, and we can carry around all these materials, which are wonderful, but sometimes they’re a substitute for what God really intended. He didn’t intend for someone who couldn’t see what you’re doing, for you just to listen to them and sort out what you want and what you don’t.
Back then, they had a living person who came alongside them and said, you’ve been crucified with Christ, you’re dead to that. There should be a decreasing frequency of anger in your life. I see anger. There should be a decreasing frequency of impatience in your life. The fruit of the Spirit, fruit is alive and it’s growing, and there should be a growing joy in your life. I don’t see that. Can you imagine sitting here right now? What would you think of having someone next to you saying that to you? You’d look at them and you’d say, really? And they’d go, just the way you just responded to your husband. That’s not loving. Really? Yes, I’m serious, and I’m praying with you about it. You need to yield that part of your life to the Holy Spirit. Can you imagine how fast people grew like that? This person’s around them. They know them. They see them regularly. That was the ministry of these Titus 2 women in the Early Church. Pointing them to Christ living in you.
Okay, let’s go back to Titus 2:3 because I never want to get far from the text. I want you to see in Titus 2, in verse 3, the first part, that these godly older women could not be godly older women until number one, they were reverent in their behavior, until they had the demeanor, the bearing, the attitude of life that they were the living, breathing priestesses of God. So they presented themselves to the Lord. In Romans 12:1, they began to live a new life, the way God asked them to live. Not conforming anymore. Actively saying no to conformity to the world. Transformed minds. Walking temples of God. Consecrated priests of God. Living sacrifices, servants of the Lord. That’s the first one. Godly women seek to be reverent in their behavior.
Number two, not slanderers. Titus 2:3, be not slanderers. Before we go, I want to talk about not slanderers and not in excess of anything in life. Those are the next two points that he gives. Paul turns the spotlight after this reverent behavior, this priestess like behavior of these women, he turns, secondly, the spotlight on the hardest member of the body to control. Remember, according to James, what’s the hardest part of our body to control? The most agile and versatile part, our tongue. James says that we need to beware of our tongue. Paul, specifically, in his epistles, two times, tells women to be careful not to slander. That’s very interesting. He tells women to be careful not to slander.
Before you get upset about that, let me qualify it. Paul targets a woman’s habit of their communication. He says your communication is a spiritual qualifier or disqualifier. The way you talk, the way you convey communication, either qualifies or disqualifies you. Though it’s a universal problem we all face, James says we all have trouble controlling our tongues. Paul zeroes in, for some reason, the Spirit of God guided him to twice say to women, this is a qualifier that you need to watch out for. Now, wait till you see how many times he says it to men, but we’re only talking about the women right now, okay? People get all nervous, and they start flipping through their Bible to see if he says that about men. That’s just our human nature. Don’t worry, the men really get it, okay?
But, look back at 1 Timothy 3:11, because this is a parallel passage. The godly women, 1 Timothy 3 and verse 11. He says to them, in the same way, Paul specifically says to women who want to serve Christ’s Church, guard those tongues, 1 Timothy 3:11. In the same way, their wives, the word is women, and there’s great, you can go either way with this. Some of the greatest Bible teachers in the world differ over this. It’s very interesting. In the middle of talking about elders, men, and then deacons, men, all of a sudden, in verse 11, it says likewise. The their in the New King James is in italics, so it’s implied, it’s not in the text. Then it says wives, and actually it’s just the word for women. So, it says likewise for women.
Now, to show you how some churches interpret this, for five years I was paid to be a full-time shepherd at a large church with over 300 Deaconesses. How do you like that? 300 women deacons in a church. The church was called Grace Community Church. John MacArthur’s church. I was the shepherding pastor over the 300 men deacons and the 300 women deacons. So, John takes verse 11 to be talking to female deacons. You say, whoa! That’s a very valid interpretation of this text, of course, that there’s this hanging the women out there. So, he takes it to be women servants of the church, women deacons.
But however you take it, and either way is fine, whether it’s the wives of the spiritual leaders, or whether it’s these deaconesses, or whatever it is, what Paul’s saying to them is, in the same way, women, be women worthy of respect. That’s the reverent behavior, not malicious talkers. You notice what he said? He says, after you get that reverent attitude, be so careful about what you say. Guard your tongue. Don’t be a malicious talker.
Now, go back to Titus chapter 2 because I want to explain the word in Titus 2. Whereas men tend to be rough or violent in their actions, women have a tendency to be rough or violent in their words. Older women who find themselves with time on their hands can be tempted to allow their conversations to lead to gossip, criticism, and slander. That’s what he was talking about. If you read the 1 Timothy passages, he says, watch out, they are idle and they go from house to house talking. And they get a little bit here and a little bit there, and they share it here, and pretty soon they are talking in a way that’s malicious, that is not beneficial to the Church. Now, can you imagine how much greater the temptation is today, where you don’t even have to walk from house to house? Where you can just be on the phone constantly, and hear a little bit here, and share a little bit, and just constantly go back and forth and piece things together? And say, have you heard about this? Did you know this? Did you know this? That was brewing in the 1st century.
James chapter 3 tells us something interesting about our tongues. James says that your tongue and my tongue can show how much of our body is under control. He says if our tongue is not under control, our whole body is out of control. If we have malicious talk, then there’s some part of our life that is not under the lordship of Jesus Christ, and we are not yielded to Him. In fact, for just a second, go all the way to the right to James 3. I want to just show you the intensity of his speaking to that 1st Century Church in Jerusalem as the pastor. Then radiating out to all those early believers whom he wrote to, scattered around after the persecutions. James chapter 3, my brethren, believers, he says, let not many of you become teachers, James 3:1, knowing that we all shall receive a stricter judgment. So, a teacher is under a higher level of scrutiny. For we all stumble in many things, and if anyone does not stumble in word, he is perfect, a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body. And then he starts talking about how little an object can steer an animal, like a horse, and then he talks about ships. Then he says in verse 5, the tongue is a little member that boasts great things, and look how big a forest a little fire can kindle. Then he says it, verse 6, and the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature. It is set on fire by what? By Hell.
Back to Titus 2. Let me show you something fascinating. If you’ve never seen this before, it’s just amazing. Note the source of all wickedness, especially of an uncontrolled tongue, James said, is Hell. He says when someone, with their mouth, causes fires, when they cause problems, when they stir things up, like in Proverbs, a talebearer. Remember when there’s no wood, the fire goes out, so there’s no strife when the talebearers cease. When the person who’s going around and inciting things and saying, did you know this? Are you sure about that? Have you…? And it doesn’t always have to be an overt lie, it can just be a well-placed question, like, have you ever thought or wondered why this? It’s just little words that set fires in people’s minds.
But James says, note that the source of all wickedness, especially of an uncontrolled tongue, is Hell. It’s Satan who is at the root of all gossip, all harmful talk, and all slander. If you’re damaging the reputation and ministry of others, James says you’re a tool of the Devil. And if you keep reading the James passage, he talks about either motivation comes from beneath, through selfish ambition and confusion, or it comes from above, where it’s pure and peaceable and gentle. You can tell what is motivating someone’s words. If their words lead to confusion and strife, if they stir people up and there’s confusion and strife, the motivation is from the Devil. If their words are pure and peaceful and gentle and full of mercy and good fruits and without partiality and without hypocrisy, they come from the Lord.
But now, look at Titus 2 because the word that Titus is given by Paul is the word slanderers, in verse 3. Now, do you know what that word is in Greek? It’s the proper name of the Devil. In fact, the other 34 times that it’s used, diabolos is the Devil. So, what he says is we say slander because that’s what the Devil is. He is a slanderous accuser. He is the Devil. He’s the adversary, Satan. As the Devil, he is the slanderer. He is the one who slanders before God, His believers. He accuses us. Remember how he was accusing Job. You can see him in that accusing state. He is accusing and accusing.
Now, the word slander in Titus 2:3 is diabolos, the very name of Satan used of him 34 times in the New Testament. Satan has been a false accuser. So, each time he incites a believer to falsely accuse someone else, they are doing Satan’s work. That’s why Ecclesiastes 5 says, God is in Heaven and you’re on Earth, therefore let your words be few. Because our tongues, if you think about it, if our tongue can be set on fire with the fire of Hell, Satan is very much at work in the talk, in the use of the tongue, and especially the use of the tongue in a slanderous way.
That’s why, for this godly woman to be useful, she first starts out with a behavior of total presentation of herself to the Lord. This reverent as a priest’s behavior, and the very next thing she does is she checks her tongue at the door, and just says, I am going to be very careful what I share. I’m going to be very careful what I talk about. I am not going to be a tool of the Devil, because if I’m going into…do you understand the problem here? If this woman is going into homes, and coming right alongside these young women, and knowing exactly what’s going on in their life, then when they leave that house and go to the next house, they say, oh, you should have seen what was going on over there. You don’t have any problem concerning…wait till you see what… Immediately, that woman is totally ruined, the ministry is ruined in her life because she can’t trust that woman.
So, to be this godly woman, it’s a woman who never allows her tongue to be used by the Devil, is what he’s saying. Satan is the ultimate source of all evil, the root of all wrong behavior. Since James says the tongue is capable of causing great evil, Satan is always close at hand.
Godly, Titus 2 women, secondly, are never to surrender their tongues to the Devil. That’s the second qualification. Not slanderers. Not little Devils. Not little shareers and spreaders of things that shouldn’t be talked about and said that are unverified, probably untrue, motivations are not known, and accusations that should not be made. When those happen, that woman is a tool of the Devil.
How do we be careful for that? Look at Psalm 141 in verse 3. Psalm 141 in verse 3. David had a great plan. David, the most talked-about person in the Bible, talks about everything, doesn’t he? Every part of his life. In Psalm 141:3, we need to stop, and as the psalmist says, set a guard at the door of our mouth. Be sure, that’s what Psalm 141:3 says, set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth. Keep watch over the door of my lips. Do not incline my heart to any evil thing. He says, I don’t want my mouth to ever be involved in what would dishonor you. I want to go the other way. I’m going to say far less. Remember, let your words be few. Be swift to hear and slow to what? Speak. Be even slower to share with someone else something that you aren’t sure about.
In fact, one of the best ways to know whether you should share it is, if the person you’re talking about were standing right there, would you say the same thing? Because worse than them standing right there, God is. God is the one who says, don’t be like the Devil. The Devil slanders and accuses. So, be careful. What he says is, be sure that what you say is absolutely true. Remember Philippians 4a? Whatever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report, think about that.
We should think about what we say, and that’s what this guard at the door of our mouth is. It’s almost like a screen door. It’s almost like the little strainer in your sink. Don’t let anything through that would plug up the pipes. Don’t let anything through that would defile, that would be slanderous. So, is it true? Are you sure it’s true? Is it verified? Is it honest? Does it really represent? Is it just? Does it represent the situation? Is it lovely? Is it a good report? Do you know what the Bible says that? The Psalm 15 and Psalm 24 godly person doesn’t take up a reproach against their brother. They’ll say, no, I can’t accept that. I’m not sure that’s true. Besides that, why are you coming to me about it? Have you gone to them about it? Go to them and then come to me. Don’t just share that with me. As we’ll see in a moment, in the Church, it’s so easy because we usually couch it as a prayer request.
But remember, it’s been estimated that from our first good morning to the last good night, the average person engages in so much talking that we would make 50 to 60 pages of a normal book, just in our words that we write. In fact, most of us, just in our conversations throughout the day, could fill an equivalent of 200 books. Just imagine all of our words just up on the shelf. Every year of your life, 200 books are written of our words. The Lord says, you and I speak so many words, either our words are going to disqualify us, or they’re going to qualify us for spiritual ministry. Be very careful about what we say.
One area, one common type of talk that hurts, we call gossip, and it comes in many forms. When, and back to Titus 2 and verse 3. When Paul says to Titus, the older women are not to slander, he was saying they are not to be involved in gossip that falsely accuses or falsely represents, or improperly represents a situation. There are basically three types of gossip. The Titus 2 man or woman should always avoid them.
The first one is malicious talk. That’s 1 Timothy 3:11. That’s geared to cut, to destroy, to divide friends, to break relationships, to erode trust. That’s the fire James spoke of. Of course, malicious gossip is always wrong. Intentionally sharing something just to poison the water, just to ruin their relationship with that person. Usually, we reserve this for high school kids who are vying for different relationships, and they try and poison people’s attitudes so they can move in. But malicious talk doesn’t end in grade school. It goes through life, and we should always avoid cutting. Remember? Let no corrupt, Ephesians 4:29, that’s malicious talk, corrupt communication.
Secondly, avoid rationalized gossip. Now we’re in fertile ground in the Church. Rationalized gossip or talk is when a person is convinced and deceived by themselves that they need to share this information for the good of the other person. Often, for someone to pray about it. But again, down deep, just like malicious talk, this type of talk is gossip. It causes harm, and it’s empowered by the Devil. See, a lot of times we have a little check in our spirit, and we think, oh, maybe I shouldn’t say that. But we go ahead and say it, and we say just between you and me, let’s pray about this, okay? Do you know what’s going on? And we wait to see their interest, and then we share it. A lot of times, as soon as it’s shared, ugh, we feel, oh, I shouldn’t have said that, and I hope they don’t get in trouble, I hope nobody finds out. And you’re, whew, when nothing happens. That’s rationalized gossip. That’s where we share it as a request, we share it as maybe you ought to know, and that is so easily used by the Devil.
The third and final type of malicious talking that we all need to avoid after malicious, plain out gossip and rationalized gossip is what I would call innocent gossip. Usually, we start with a proper motive, and we’re talking with someone, and we desire to really be involved in spiritual ministry. But the conversation gets off course, and all of a sudden, there’s this kind of unwise sharing of more than we needed to share. Now, we didn’t intentionally go into either share or to get this information, but it just started coming out. Have you ever been in a conversation where, all of a sudden, you realize I really shouldn’t be hearing this. I really shouldn’t be, you shouldn’t be telling me that. I shouldn’t be listening to that. The godly, reverent behavior, committed to not slandering a person, just says, wait, I’m not a part of the problem, I’m not a part of the solution, I don’t need to know that. The Bible says, I will not take up a reproach against a friend. Let’s just stop talking about that. Because this innocent gossip is when we go far beyond the problem, the solution. As we continue to talk and share things, maybe just the emotions of the moment. Then all of a sudden, it’ll become malicious and slanderous, and harmful.
So, what should we avoid to be this godly, Titus 2 man or woman, especially this older woman of the faith? Never use our mouths as a tool of the Devil. He sets fires. He causes division. He undermines. He breaks trust. He comes to kill and steal and destroy. In a close knit community like a church, the people that are useful to God, the godly women of renown that are to be venerated, as it so clearly says, to be followed, number one, have a behavior that they’re given as a holy servant to the Lord and that colors and permeates their whole life. Number two, they are so cautious about what they talk about and what they share, and what they listen to, and they will not be involved in slander.
Three great ways to change our tongues are to think first. Remember true, honest, just, and pure. Think first. Before starting to say something, pause a second and ask, are those words true or false, exaggerated or accurate, healing or cutting, grateful or complaining? Think first. Psalm 141:3, set a watch at the door of my mouth.
Number two, talk less. Swift to hear, slow to speak. Remember? Talk less. It’s a biblical fact that the less you talk, the wiser you appear. Remember? The Bible says that. It says if you put a knife to your throat and don’t say anything, they’ll think you’re a genius. So, talk less. In fact, we should make each time we speak, as 1 Peter 4:11 says, if anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracle of God. So, when you get to talk, think for a moment, talk less, and say, now when I open my mouth, I’m going to be God’s oracle. Would God’s oracle say that? Would God’s oracle share that? Would God’s oracle present that? Communicate that? As Peter said, we should minister with the ability that God supplies.
Finally, we need to start now. David said, Lord, set a watch at my mouth. We should ask for a mouth retainer. I don’t mean the kind that makes your teeth straight. The ones that limit our words. Say, Lord, set a watch. I never want to slander with my tongue. Godly women seek to be reverent in behavior, that’s number one, and careful in their conversations.
Let’s go to the third one real quick. Look at Titus 2 and verse 3 because this one just jumps out at you, doesn’t it? Not given to wine. When’s the last time someone in this church was given to wine who’s a godly, revered woman? But Paul here focuses upon the self-controlled moderation that is to characterize women of every age in Christ’s Church.
Now, think about the background of these people, where they came from. Godly women are Spirit-controlled in every part of their lives. They resist excesses in any area of their daily life. They are not slaves to any substance, slaves to any amusement, to anything. Now remember, these women in the Ancient Church, the 1st Century Church, were formerly pagans. They were formerly in a world where alcohol was just like the Russian culture today. Alcohol is just part of life, like the European culture, you just don’t go through life, and the American culture is getting to it. Do you go during trash day when you’re leaving for work? Do you ever look at the trash piles? Do you ever look at almost every house, and it has a 24-pack of whatever, Bud or whatever the current one on sale is? Our culture is given to alcohol.
In fact, Tulsa has a higher level of drinking than the United States median and the rest of Oklahoma. We are in an especially alcohol driven society. But these ancient 1st century believers, drunkenness was the norm for many women in that society. Drinking was the best way for them to forget about their problems of being a slave to a pagan man who looked on his wife as a convenience that bore him legitimate children and enhanced his reputation in the community. That’s all women were back then. They weren’t even supposed to go out of the house, they were just supposed to be there for whatever he wanted. That was the normal lifestyle, and so what they did was they drank. Because of this life that they lived as a pagan, that was all there was, hopelessness pervaded their lives. So, hopelessness led to drunkenness. That’s why Paul said to the Ephesians that prior to salvation, they were without hope and without God, Ephesians 2:12. They just were hopeless and godless, so, what did they do? Forget all your troubles and just drink and feel better for a while.
Coming to Christ changed everything, but old habits were hard to break. The old ways of their husbands would come back. The old pains of emotional and physical abuse would resurface. The temptation was for them to slip back to the intemperance of slavery to wine. Those temptations were strong. We’re talking about Christians here. Titus 2 was written to Christians. Notice what it says. Not given, not enslaved literally, not a slave to wine. That means that there were women in the church who were slaves to wine. Why do you think Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, some of you are getting drunk at the Lord’s Supper? Because drinking was just a part of life, and they would just enjoy it more and more. Both Timothy and Titus were told to beware of women returning to their old habits in this realm of drinking.
Today, not given to much wine goes so far beyond just wine. There are so many forms of alcohol never imagined in biblical times. The highest strength alcohol they had would be modern-day brandy. They knew nothing of distilled spirits. They knew nothing of all the incredible levels of alcohol that have been cultivated in modern times. But there are so many kinds of alcohol that can be abused. Drugs, both acceptable and unacceptable kinds, can be abused. Tobacco can be abused. Wonderful varieties of food that can be abused. See, this is not just talking solely about not drinking. It’s about a whole refusal to be enslaved by anything. Wine was the easiest back then.
But the broader application to all of us today is not being enslaved to anything. Today, there’s such a wonderful variety of food that it’s easy to be enslaved to food. There are beautiful varieties of fashionable clothing, and people will be slaves to clothing that can be changed in every season. That can be abused. Housing options. We have so many options that we can easily be enslaved to our house. I think of everything else in recreation. Everything can become an addiction.
What I think about in our church, there’s a generation of believers who’ve never tasted a drop of alcohol and pride themselves in that choice while overeating with daily regularity. Did you know that side by side in Proverbs, when God condemns alcohol consumption and drunkenness, He condemns overeating in the same breath? And yet we pride ourselves that we never drink a drop of alcohol, yet, are totally enslaved to other appetites? We must be as cautious about any intemperance, not be given to too much of anything, be it the use of money, the enjoyment of leisure, the establishment of a house to live in, or anything. Because this godly woman is a Spirit-controlled woman in every part of her life, resisting excess in any area of daily life, not slaves to any substance, any amusement, any fashion, any attitude that does not please their Master in Heaven. Reverent in behavior, not a slanderer, not a tool of the Devil, and not enslaved to anything. Paul said, look for those women. They’re the ones whose lives are to be followed and to be imitated. They are highly useful for my church.
I want you to think about not just hearing all this, but while I’m praying, I want you to think about, Lord, am I truly offering myself as a servant to You? Am I truly setting a watch at my mouth? Am I truly resisting being enslaved to anything? Addicted? A slave to anything because if any of those are not present, you have to make conscious choices, because you’ll never be in the future something you’re not becoming right now. You’ll never be, in the future, a Titus 2 man or woman of God if you’re not consciously making choices right now. It’s incremental choices to say, Lord, I’m going to present myself back to You. I’m going to be a living sacrifice. I’m going to die with Christ and be raised with Him. I am going to live my life as a holy temple, and I’m going to watch what I say, and I’m going to resist any enslavement.
Let’s bow together. Father in Heaven, I pray that You would help the godly older women of this church to reaffirm this very moment their commitment to be reverent in behavior, not to slander, and not to be enslaved by much wine or anything else. And by those choices, to grow in their powerful ability to model Christ. In whose name we pray, Amen.
