“So many times I’ve read Titus 2, about the older women training the younger, and immediately thought, ‘So where’s my older woman, God?’ Never did I ask him who my younger woman was.”

My pastor, Eric Simmons, has been taking Redeemer Church of Arlington through the book of Titus for the last few months. On Sunday, he spoke from Titus 2. As a woman, I am used to hearing verses 3 to 5 expounded upon. But Eric’s focus was on the congregation as a whole, underscoring how our beliefs should shape the way we live–and how we need each other to live godly lives.

So it was fortuitous timing that a friend sent me a link to the following article on the same day. This article, written by Tami Hagglund for the women of the Mars Hill Church (Ballard campus), emphasizes the Titus 2 perspective of how we need each other to reflect God’s character in our church communities. I think she raises an excellent point. [Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]

Here’s what she wrote:

Recently I was meeting with a group of godly women, praying and seeking God’s wisdom in forming a ministry to women at the Ballard campus. The topic of shepherding women ala Titus 2:3-5 was a central discussion point:

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

You know those times where someone says something and God bursts his light into an area of darkness in your heart? I had one, big time! A dear friend responded to the above scripture with words that both convicted me and encouraged me to repent. For many readers, I trust they’ll do the same for you. She said, simply:

“So many times I’ve read Titus 2, about the older women training the younger, and immediately thought, ‘So where’s my older woman, God?’ Never did I ask him who my younger woman was.”

This, sadly, is how I have responded for most of my Christian life. I felt certain that some elusive, godly grandmother type (preferably a pastor’s wife) needed to take me under her wing and teach me how to be godly just like her. If I’m really honest with you, I have often believed that I simply couldn’t be a godly woman myself until that older woman appeared. What a tricky deception!

But in 1 Corinthians 12:12-31, Paul explains that we are one body united by Jesus through the Holy Spirit. As a body we are to care for individual members, using the gifts and abilities God has given us. We don’t have to wait for the Christian Martha Stewart to come along and make us just like her. We have been adopted by God the Father through his Son, Jesus, and are now being made more like him (Ephesians 4:22-24).

An older woman training me to love and serve my husband and the sweet baby in my womb would be a lovely blessing. But right now, that’s not someone God has placed in my life. But I can still be that older woman for someone else.

For example, I’m currently learning to pursue the younger women in my Community Group, particularly the unmarried or newly married women. Although I’ve only been married for three years, I have learned a lot in that time! How tragic would it be if I were so focused on “finding my older woman” that I didn’t become that older woman and instead kept what God has done in me and my marriage to myself?

Ladies, who is your younger woman? Yes, you are a sinner, but Jesus has redeemed you. Yes, you need to grow and mature, but God has also given you a tremendous amount of wisdom and insight. True, you will never be perfect, but that doesn’t mean you can’t by God’s grace be a loving, caring older woman to a younger woman.

Who knows, maybe if we all took that more seriously, your older woman would come along, too. But if not, what joy you will have in training your younger woman! Let’s not allow Jesus’ sanctification, the gifts for life and godliness that we each possess, end with us, ladies. Pray for God to put younger women in your life, who you can pursue and help point to Jesus.
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Carolyn McCulley served as the media specialist for Sovereign Grace Ministries. Now she is the founder of a documentary company, Citygate Films. She studied at the City of London Polytechnic (England) and received her B.S. in journalism from the University of Maryland. She worships with a SGM church plant, Redeemer Church of Arlington, in Virginia. Her blog is “Radical Womanhood” http://solofemininity.blogs.com/. This article is from that blog and is used with her permission. [Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]