Titus 2 & Working at Home
Titus 2:3-5 says (emphasis mine):
[3] Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, [4] and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, [5] to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
My wife & I were talking about a post she read at Generation Cedar, a favorite of hers. It was about the Scripture quoted above, and whether not working in the home constituted a blasphemous disobedience to the Word of God. In the comments this seemed to be summed up as a matter of interpretation. Some people felt it was an absolute command – be a homemaker & nothing else. Others felt it was simply giving a primary responsibility, but not abrogating the possibility of a woman working outside the home. Which way we go depends on how we interpret the apostle.
There are things in the Scriptures that we’ve accepted as open to interpretation, so long as it stays within the realms of orthodoxy. Baptism is an issue with Biblical arguments at odds with each other. The correct view includes infants of believing parents as part of the covenant, the other view narrows covenant involvement to only those who are old enough to proclaim their own faith. Enough time has passed that we’ve all agreed that how you interpret certain verses is what’s going to determine how you live our your baptismal theology. Yes, there was once a time when it was clear to believers exactly how & who baptism should be applied to, but time has passed and no one can say definitively which came first, so we tolerate two views. The same thing goes with eschatology (end times stuff). Does that mean it’s the same with every issue where strong opinions are present, such as homemaking & Titus 2?
The thing is, Paul had something specific in mind when he wrote this. The Holy Spirit inspired him to say something. Either he meant that women should work at home. Period. Or he didn’t. He didn’t leave it up to us to make our own decision and then say, “I think this… and so long as I can get it to line up with that, I’m sure that’s what Paul meant.”
The point of all this isn’t to tell you exactly what Paul was thinking. That post will come along when as I work through 1 Timothy, I think. Instead it’s to point out the general hermeneutic that leads to the most common error in the church today: We come up with an idea or a preference, and then we go to the Bible for proof texts. The “interpretation” card needs to be used sparingly. As a last resort when we’ve thoroughly examined the issues through the lenses of Scripture. Instead, it’s become the church’s go-to play.
This is why the church so closely mirrors the world – the way we live our lives is coming from the outside and influencing the church. When the opposite happens, we have a Reformation.
