But my job isn’t just to keep this home. In fact, my husband shoulders some of that responsibility, since it’s his home, too, and he’s the leader of it. Nor is my job just to raise our children. That, too, is also my husband’s responsibility, since they are his children, and he, too, is commanded in the Scriptures to see to their nurture and discipleship (much more explicitly than I am, actually). And, further, Proverbs 31 and Titus 2 aren’t the only biblical passages addressed to me; biblical womanhood isn’t just locked up in those verses. 

This week, my husband took over the meal planning.

We are loving it.

He arranges the menu and emails me the grocery list; I put the grocery list into Kroger’s Clicklist; he picks up the groceries on the way home from work. Sometimes, we cook together, but, often, I cook alone. My least favorite part of meal-prep has been taken off of my hands.

I love it so much, and it’s somewhat familiar. Since my dad worked from home and loves to cook, the meals were a 60/40 split in his favor. I know from experience that kitchen stuff is not just women’s work.

I also know that we tend to have a hard time not seeing home-work that way. “She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household and portions for her maidens,” right?

Not a lot of passages in the Scriptures speak directly to women. So when they do, we’ve generally made them hills to die on.

WOMAN THINGS AND GUILT TRIPS

Women are homemakers. Home-workers. Home-keepers. They are supposed to be the organized ones, the ones who pay attention to every detail, anticipate every need, and keep the house humming smoothly while their husbands are out on the front lines doing God’s work.

Her home is a well-oiled machine because she is a well-oiled machine.

She’s a swan.

But I’m not a swan, y’all. I’m a chicken. And I’m really great at tending to my little chick and doing what needs to be done, but I don’t do it beautifully. Or in an organized fashion. I couldn’t care less if the laundry is piled up to heaven as long as my son and I got in a dance break that day.

So my husband helps me a lot with organizational structures and has even hired help to come in and clean for me every couple of weeks.

I once heard someone say quite snidely of a similar arrangement: “Oh. It’s like he’s your helpmeet.”

Proverbs 31 fail.

SUPERWOMAN LEVEL

Women get the short end of the stick with Proverbs. I have never seen a man held in the same way to the same strident standards held out in the other 30 chapters of the book.

It’s wisdom literature. It’s full of poetic examples of what it’s like to live a rich and God-fearing life. But, taken as a literal how-to-guide, it’s also full of contradictory information.

Take, for instance, Proverbs 26:4 —

“Answer not a fool according to his folly,

Lest you be like him yourself.”

And Proverbs 26:5 —

“Answer a fool according to his folly,

Or he will become wise in his own eyes.”

We know God doesn’t contradict himself. We understand that, sometimes, it’s fruitful to answer a fool, while other times, it isn’t. Wisdom dictates the difference.

Proverbs 31:10-31 is probably not a day in the life of a godly woman. It is an intricate tableau of different facets of excellence. It’s not a point-by-point guide for wifehood, but a picture of obedience expressed in all different aspects of life. It’s superhuman; probably because it’s not a picture of a specific human, but a passage meant to draw us into deeper reliance on Christ as we strive to be faithful in all of our duties both at home and abroad.

BUT WHAT ABOUT TITUS 2?

I can hear the uncomfortable shuffling commence: “What about Titus 2?”

What about it?

Read More