Titus 2:4-5

‘That they may train the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sober-minded, chaste, workers at home, kind, being in subjection to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.’

Above all they are to train the younger women into what they should be. This was an especially important ministry in a society where such younger women would have little contact with men. Today this ministry can be fulfilled in Sunday School teaching and women’s groups.

The younger women are to be trained up to love their husbands and their children. This is not referring to teaching them natural emotion, but to how they are to exercise that love in the home by being a good helpmeet to their husbands and by bringing up their children wisely because they love them. They teach them how to show their love. They are also to teach them to be moderate and thoughtful, chaste and pure, and to act as good home makers. This was especially important in a place where false teachers were upsetting households (Titus 1:11). By doing this they will be fulfilling their ministry, as described in 1 Timothy 2:15, of bringing up children ready for the Lord’s service. They are to be kind and submissive (that is, paying them due respect) to their husbands lest the word of God be blasphemed. The point here is that while in the Christian church women were to be seen as equals before God (Galatians 3:28), they must not by their behaviour bring discredit on Christ in a world where women were expected to be discreet and stay at home with little male contact. Were they not to do so the church would become seen as libertine, and be ostracised.