SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/13/2019 10:47 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-6 “The Matter of Submission”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians
5:22a
Message of the
verse: “Wives,
be subject to your own husbands,”
We want to continue for at least a
little while talking more about the older women who would be examples to the
younger women of the church to be submissive to their husbands. Paul writes the following “older women
likewise are to be reverent to their behavior, not malicious gossips, not
enslaved to much wine teaching what is good, that they may encourage the young
women to live their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure
workers at home, kind, being subject [hupotasso]
to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be dishonored” (Titus
2:3-5). As we look at our country today
we see that one thing that is lacking and that is younger wives should be
workers in their homes, taking care of their children, not just taking them to
some kind of day care place where they could be taught the ways of the
world. It is no wonder the things that
are godly have been falling apart for a long time in our country. It seemed to start after the Second World War
when women had to go to work to help build war supplies, and then when it was
over women in many cases continued to work outside of the home.
John MacArthur writes “The term
‘workers at home’ in Titus 2:5 is from the compound Greek word oikourgos, which is derived from oikos [house] and a form of ergon (work). Ergon,
however, does not simply refer to labor in general but often connotes the idea
of a particular job or employment. It is
the word Jesus used when He said, ‘My food is to do the will of Him who sent
Me, and to accomplish His work’ (John
4:34, emphasis added) and, on another occasion, ‘I glorified Thee on the earth,
having accomplished the work which Thou has given Me to do’ (17:4, emphasis
added). It is the word the Holy Spirit
used in commanding the church at Antioch to ‘set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul
for the work to which I have called
them’ (Acts 13:2, emphasis added). Paul
used the word in relation to Epaphroditus, who ‘came close to death for the work of Christ’ (Phil. 2:30, emphasis
added) and in relation to the work of faithful Christian leaders in
Thessalonica (1 Thess. 5:13). In other
words, it is not that a woman is simply to keep busy in the home but that the
home is the basic place of her employment, her divinely assigned job.” MacArthur later states that “God’s standard
is for the wife and mother to work inside, not outside, the home. For a mother to get a job outside the home in
order to send the children to a Christian school is to misunderstand her
husband’s role as provider as well as her own duty to the family. The good training her children receive in the
Christian school may be counteracted by her lack of full commitment to the
biblical standards for motherhood.”
I believe that I have said enough
about the fact that the Bible does teach that a woman’s work is inside the
home, and am thankful that my mother, and then my wife, and then my daughter
have all followed these Biblical teachings.
As we look at many cults today we
see why younger people are attracted to them is because they seem to show a
family-like group in which they feel the acceptance and love they never
received at home and this was frequently due to the mother’s absence from the
home.
Paul talks a great deal about widows
in his letter to Timothy, the first letter to Timothy. The widows are to be taken care of by the
church, so that the women who are widows do not have to work outside the
home. Paul even states that if a women
who is a young widow has the opportunity to re-marry then she should do
this. I realize that many, many churches
in our society today do not follow this practice. Perhaps it is because of a lack of faith or
just not bothering to follow what Paul has written here.
One more quote on mothers working
outside the home, even though I said that I was done with it: “Just as with drinking of alcoholic
beverages, the Bible does not specifically forbid a wife to work outside the
home. But the biblical priorities are
so clear that they can only be obeyed or rejected openly, and each woman must
choose how she will honor those priorities.”
At the beginning of this section
some six SD’s ago we stated that there will be time to look at the rest of the
verses associated with this section and we will begin, Lord willing to do that
in our next SD. We have three more main
sections which are very short to look at and I hope to cover them in two
days. Let me close with a statement that
I have on my prayer list that I hope will be effective for the subject we have
been looking at today: “The Lord always
has the last word, and it will not be darkness.
We should never follow in the darkness what God has taught us in the
light.” This quote comes from Warren
Wiersbe, a favorite author of mine.
My
Steps of Faith for Today: My step of
faith for today is to trust that the Lord will use these past six SD’s to give
encouragement to those who read them along with obedience to the Scriptures
that they came from.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust that
the Lord will continue to teach me humility as I study His Word each day.
Today’s
quotation comes from one of my favorite Presidents, Abraham Lincoln who said
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character,
give him power.”
8/13/2019 11:33
AM
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