God’s design for womanhood

[Mary96]

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. -Titus 2:4-5

God instructs us that we are to love our husbands. We are to love our children! We are to be self-controlled, which means to always be striving against sin in our everyday life and to be pure.


He wants us to be working at home. I know being a stay at home wife and mother is can be hard work. It takes constant diligence and work. He instructs us to be kind to our family and to others. And we are to be submissive to our husbands. Plain and simple, God has laid this out in His word. We just have to listen.

 

[Blain]

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. -Titus 2:4-5

God instructs us that we are to love our husbands. We are to love our children! We are to be self-controlled, which means to always be striving against sin in our everyday life and to be pure.


He wants us to be working at home. I know being a stay at home wife and mother is can be hard work. It takes constant diligence and work. He instructs us to be kind to our family and to others. And we are to be submissive to our husbands. Plain and simple, God has laid this out in His word. We just have to listen.

I'm not so sure your correct about him wanting you to work at home, many godly woman have jobs and the husband takes care of the house

 

[MyLighthouse]

This should be title "God's Design for Womanhood In Marriage." I was disappointed that this forum wasn't what I taught it was going to be :/
Anyway,This is why I don't want to get married. I want to see the world and be out of the house. Marriage sounds boring

 

[Mary96]

I'm not so sure your correct about him wanting you to work at home, many godly woman have jobs and the husband takes care of the house

I work at a preschool/daycare and I think a lot of people don't realize the affect of dropping their kid off at 8 and picking them up at 6 has on the child.

 

[Angela53510]

I have worked at various times during my marriage, including when the children were little. They all grew up to be happy, well adjusted people, with good marriages and wonderful grandchildren.

While I agree that children need the love and attention of the parents, a father can give that input too. My husband was great with our children. When I couldn't take time off from teaching, he would take the time off to do field trips, hockey trips and so forth.

I think that God honours the home that honours him. That doesn't mean any slavish adherence to roles, but rather both parents reflecting the love of Christ in their lives.

There are many ways for a woman to express her God given talents. That does not always mean a stay at home mom! I am grateful to have a husband who has encouraged me in my career as a teacher, and now as a pastor. That is what works for our home.

Please do not think you have all the answers for people who chose to serve God in different ways than what you have chosen.

 

[JFSurvivor]

Why do women get the short end of the stick? The end is glorified in Christian settings but still short. God did not create me to be stuck in the house all day. He gave me talents that don't fall under "house wife" And I intend to use them.

 

[MarcR]

While I agree that having one parent at home (NOT NECESSARILY THE WIFE) is preferable; leaving children with a loving grandparent or even competent daycare is preferable to homelessness or malnutrition.

 

[cmarieh]

When God says that I am ready I desire to be a stay-at-home mom, who is responsible for the domestics(cooking and cleaning), home-schools the kids alongside my 'husband', and works an accounting job from home. Yes, God created women to be the nurturers, but that doesn't mean that the father can't help with any of the household responsibilities. I feel it is very important that any decision needs to come to an agreement between the husband and wife.

 

[breno785au]

We all have seasons, my wife wrestled with God on staying at home and not working, especially not long after spending 5 and a half years getting a degree in architecture but she walked through it with God. She has learnt so much being submissive to His will, though it wasn't easy and she finds being at home with our boy (and another shortly on the way) has been an amazing blessing. There have been times when the enemy has tried to sneak into her thoughts to make her feel guilty about not helping to provide for the household financially but she knows what God wants her to do and the enemy has no foothold.

Does that mean she will never work? Never have a chance to be her creative self someday? No! It does not mean that! It is a season and a time in her life to learn to be able to sacrifice parts of her own will to care and nurture for another, I have done the same for myself in other ways too.

Staying at home and raising children is by NO MEANS a lesser job, it is a very honourable job, highly undervalued in a lot of peoples minds and it is not easy, I know I have days when i'm home and it can be tough and enduring raising a toddler.

There have been times when i've envied her, wanting to stay home with our boy and there's times where she's envied me going to work but we have both resolved in our hearts that God has got us doing what we are doing and it's perfectly fine the way it is. We both do our part in looking after the household and now she often thinks how hard it would be if she also had a full time job, either way you make a sacrifice, whether its not raising your child through the day or not working through the day.

 

[Galahad]

"Staying at home and raising children is by NO MEANS a lesser job, it is a very honourable job, highly undervalued in a lot of peoples minds and it is not easy, I know I have days when i'm home and it can be tough and enduring raising a toddler."

Amen.
Staying at home to raise children, a decision with no regrets. My wife did the same. We are both thankful she was able to be home. So glad she did.

 

[Galahad]

Why do women get the short end of the stick? The end is glorified in Christian settings but still short. God did not create me to be stuck in the house all day. He gave me talents that don't fall under "house wife" And I intend to use them.

Staying home and taking care of and raising a child requires strength, patience, humility, faith, wisdom, and love. Talents? No. Those are virtues.
Staying at home is not the short end of the stick. There is no stick. It is seeing. It is a vision. It is looking beyond the present and into the future.

I hope you don't believe that staying at home to raise a family is getting short changed in life. It is not.

JF please don't think so negative about staying home for children.

 

[Galahad]

When God says that I am ready I desire to be a stay-at-home mom, who is responsible for the domestics(cooking and cleaning), home-schools the kids alongside my 'husband', and works an accounting job from home. Yes, God created women to be the nurturers, but that doesn't mean that the father can't help with any of the household responsibilities. I feel it is very important that any decision needs to come to an agreement between the husband and wife.

Yes. Most definitely. The husband and wife are a team.

If husband works outside home and wife stay at home, husband should help at home. Many women continue with duties after husband home from work. He relaxes, she works. Nope. He should help her. Lighten the load.

 

[cmarieh]

Yes. Most definitely. The husband and wife are a team.

If husband works outside home and wife stay at home, husband should help at home. Many women continue with duties after husband home from work. He relaxes, she works. Nope. He should help her. Lighten the load.

I believe in submitting unto my 'husband' as he is head of the home. I was asked once if this was something I learned from the bible or something that came naturally to me. I really had to think about it for a while and realized that it does come naturally to me because God created me to be that type of a person. But even though the wife submits to her husband does not mean that the husband and wife cannot be a team because they sure can be. Thank you for confirming my viewpoint on this, Galahad.

 

[Olerica]

As the title talks about "God's design for womanhood", I would like to object.

Please consider the unmarried and/or the infertile when making your response. For those who are without a spouse, should they not work? What about the married who do not have children, may never have children, or who have children that have grown up?

It seems often that there is an assumption that marriage and children are God's plan for every woman (or man), and we're not guaranteed those things in life.

The reason I bring it up is that I know/have known women who have an expectation that marriage and family are what is owed to them and they refuse to become well-rounded individuals. Education and/or a career is not a detriment to a woman's life, but an asset. Not always, and maybe never; will there be a man who is there to protect and provide.

(I may be stepping on a hornet's nest to post this, but I'll take my lumps should it come to that.)

 

[Deliver]

Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of Christian women who have had to raise the children and get work because the father has left. It is a blessing, a real blessing, to have a two parent family serving God because I think it's really rare these days.

 

[cmarieh]

Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of Christian women who have had to raise the children and get work because the father has left. It is a blessing, a real blessing, to have a two parent family serving God because I think it's really rare these days.

It is really rare. When I do get married and have kids I want those kids to have biblical morals and values that they see on a daily basis from their parents.

 

[MarcR]

It is really rare. When I do get married and have kids I want those kids to have biblical morals and values that they see on a daily basis from their parents.

I don't think it is rare within the Christian community; though there is certainly an increase in frivolous or selfish divorce among professing believers.

The fact is that the Bible Believing Christian community has become a small shrinking minority in our society.

As a result harmonious two parent households are indeed becoming increasingly rare in our society as a whole.

 

[Miri]

Hi Mary, great topic you have raised.

I suppose each person's circumstances are different, there were cultural considerations, I think in biblical times it
probably was the norm for women to be the wife who stayed home and were very much reliant on men.

i think that's why Jesus was especially concerned with widows and orphans.

Women must have played other roles though as Lydia is mentioned as being a seller of purple.

Acts 16:14 NKJV
[14] Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul.

Also the people Jesus toured with included women.

Deborah is mentioned as being married, a prophet and a judge.

Judges 4:4-5 NKJV
[4] Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, was judging Israel at that time. [5] And she would sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the mountains of Ephraim. And the children of Israel came up to her for judgment.

There are many other interesting women in the bible it makes for a good bible study.

i remember reading a book ages ago about Jewish women around the time of Christ and it suggested they were very much the
matriachal head/boss of the home, maybe that's why Christian households in biblical times were instructed in the way they were? Maybe women were becoming a bit overbearing

Im not sure what the position is in other countries is, but in the UK the government almost pushes women back to work
after having children, or makes it very hard to be a stay at home mum on benefits. These days couples or women have to be
very well off financially to have the luxury of staying at home. I don't have children but I see the daily struggles people have to provide and look after their children.

 

[eyesonly]

I work at a preschool/daycare and I think a lot of people don't realize the affect of dropping their kid off at 8 and picking them up at 6 has on the child.

If you can be an at home mom and wife, more power to you. Very difficult these days for sure with the expenses of living.
My ex and i worked opposite shifts in order to raise the children ourselves, we didn't believe in daycare. We have friends who did the daycare thing without question because to further their careers.
They are so much farther ahead than we are/were financially and their kids seem well adjusted and good kids. Guess its how you work together as a couple. Either way, home care or day care, if the parents aren't on the same page and working together, then it's all for not.

Lesson is, life will be tough, gets very difficult at times, is also so very awesome, but when the tough times come, even if it's an hour or a day or months, always work together, always love and respect each other, and always pick the other up when they are down, and never take your bad days out on your spouse.
You can have bad days without putting your spouse down to make you feel better.
Communication, communication, communication. And if you both have found love in the lord Christ Jesus, then what a wonderful marriage it will be.

God bless

 

[eyesonly]

Why do women get the short end of the stick? The end is glorified in Christian settings but still short. God did not create me to be stuck in the house all day. He gave me talents that don't fall under "house wife" And I intend to use them.

to each has been given a gift, and to know your gift and not use it would be contrary to the Lords design.
love god, love christ, love your neighbour, love your spouse, love yourself and you go girl.