This past week I had several woman reach out to me. Each one at a different season of life, but all needing some sort of support. Emotional, Spiritual, and/or Physical. This world is full of all kinds of stress, good and bad stress that pulls on us. A while back a friend gave me this book. “How does She manage? Insights to create Your practical guide for Successful home management.” It is a fun and easy read of four very different woman of Hebrew faith sharing their personal lives and how they manage various aspects of home management. If you struggle to find “your style” of home management, you might enjoy this book. But the reason I am mentioning the book has nothing to do with the practical side of womanhood and homemaking. But what I enjoyed most about the book was that these women spent time together, talked to each other, called on the phone, text, connected often with each other. That is the true blessing they had to offer was a picture of how to encourage each other in being Biblical women.
I find in our society we are “too busy” to really be there for each other. We don’t really know how to do life on life. I can not say that I have it figured out myself, but I thought I would blog about these things today, and ponder on it all.
So, I am beginning by opening my Bible. I am NOT going to take a look at Proverbs 31. I have studied that passage out before, and I think I even have a couple blog posts on it. No, today, I want to look at how women should interact with other women. So, I am heading over to Titus 2.
The letter to Titus from Paul is fairly short, and is best read in full. But, for this study today, I am going to focus on the passages about how Titus is to speak to the woman of Crete and what he is to tell them about how they should live and behave daily. Paul is telling Titus in this letter that he needs to teach the new believers in Yeshua to live their lives with discipline and self-control, caring for one another, and being to busy doing good to have time to be unkind and selfish. So, in chapter 2 verses three through 5 he focuses in on women. Paul says that older women are to teach the younger woman how to live. I don’t know about other people, but I learn best by doing.
I have to imagine that the women that were coming to faith in Crete were much like American women in that they lived like everyone else. Women are told in our society they are strong and can do anything, and should aspire to do everything. Even the church teaches that woman should do everything. Serve in the church, homeschool your kids, have your children involved in multiple activities, make your family affordable meals, and maintain a clean home, consider homesteading and gardening, and the list goes on and on. But, here we see that the simple instructions of Paul to Titus to teach the women to love their husband, children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, and obedient to their husbands.
So, what does that look like?
I need some more scripture. So, I popped over to 1 Timothy, and I took a peek at 1 Timothy 2:8-15. Paul tells Timothy that women need to focus on “good works.” So, we see the word, “good” in both these letters. The word good in the Bible is better translated as useful, beneficial, with valuable purpose. So, Paul is clearly saying that Godly women need to be useful, beneficial, in essence women should be a blessing to their husbands, children, the body of believers, and society. Another thing I notice that is similar in Titus and Timothy is women are to be discreet/quiet, specifically in public gatherings. The last commonality in these two passages that I notice is women should be chaste/modest.
So, three clear directives so far: Women should be a blessing by doing good works. Woman have discretion especially in public. Women should be modest.
I am still pondering how I need to interact with other women day to day. Should I just keep to myself and set an example to my daughters at home, and be busy at home all week, focused on my own home alone? Should I be going to other women’s homes and telling them how to manage their home, by teaching a Bible study? Should I go and help other women in their own home, or have them into my home and show them how to do things by just letting them do them with me? Is there any Bible verses that can help me better know the best way to encourage other women and support them?
I think I will look at a few more of Paul’s letters. Passages in Philippians come to mind specifically in chapters 2 and 4. In these passages we are told to place others and their needs above our own. We are told to do all things without complaining.
We are also told to rejoice always. We are told to be practical, thankful, and to not worry, to be at peace, and to seek Christ for a sound mind. If we focus in on truth, honor (placing others above ourselves), justice, purity, loveliness, and praise-worthy things then He will guard our hearts and guide our steps. So, Paul is again saying put the needs of others first, and do “good works.”
I spent some time looking up several other passages, and I didn’t find any that said exactly how we must go about ministering to each other. So, I began to pray and ponder. I began to think how can I be a woman who teaches younger women these important things. I also asked myself how have I seen my mom and others teach these lessons. I came up with a few different ways.
Have an open door. Let women know they are welcome in my home. My mom modeled this when I was younger, and I have tried to do this with women in my life. I have friends and sisters who will often text me and say, “hey, can I stop by?” Almost always, the answer is yes. I don’t always stop life, but I will welcome anyone in and let them be apart of our daily activities. If I have the ability I will take time to sit and visit and listen. Sometimes we just need to have a place to go.
Set aside a block of time to be intentional in other women’s lives. Maybe you can set a side one day a week to go help a mom clean her house. maybe you can set aside one day a month. Maybe you could set aside an afternoon to host a Bible study, or a mom’s park day. Maybe you can set aside a specific day or time to host a certain activity, like crochet, sewing, canning, homeschooling help.
Let others know they are doing a good job and it will be ok. When I was a young mom with six under six. I would often feel very lonely. I went to my mom’s house often, I went to church, I even went to Bible study. But, I felt very alone. I felt overwhelmed a lot of the time, and I just needed a friend to talk to once in a while. But I thought if I said anything that sounded negative, that it would sound like complaining and that would be wrong. I would feel frustrated in my marriage and parenting, and that would make me feel like a failure. I needed someone to tell me the feelings I had were normal and it was going to be ok. Maybe you can send a card, text, or call a sister to just listen and speak words of encouragement. (This is definitely not my gifting, but I so appreciate those who are gifted in this.)
Answer the call/text/email. Life is super busy, but maybe there is one or two women you can say, “hey, call me anytime.” This is a big commitment so don’t say it to every woman, but maybe there is a woman or two that God has just given you a desire to be there for. Give them you number and commit to answering the call even if it is a little inconvenient or awkward.
Pray intentionally. Make a prayer list of the women in your life. Ask them to share their prayer needs and then be intentional to pray for them weekly. Follow up every couple of weeks and update your list. Watch how Yehovah uses you, and blesses both you and them.
Lead a Bible Study or Book Club. Online or in person bring women together to study the Bible or read a book and discuss it together.
Post encouraging content online. Social media (facebook, instagram, etc.) can be a great place to just share a quick note, image, meme, of your daily life that might encourage another woman. If you have a website, or blog use it to share encouraging content that will motive other women to live Biblically.
These are six things I came up with just this morning as I am pondering how to help other women. As I finish this blog post, my children, including my nephews are waking up and need me to make them breakfast and do morning Bible with them. My door is always open. I tend to be more of a homebody, and prefer to quietly serve the women in my life in my home. I was feeling very overwhelmed that I can’t do more for other women that don’t live close to me, or that don’t have a way to come to me. But my daughters said, “mom, you can’t be everything to everyone.” They are so wise. So, I hope if you are a woman reading this post today, that you will ponder what type of woman you are and how you can be a blessing to other women.
We are Bible believing, scripture only people. We love to learn about the Hebrew roots of our faith. We believe it is important to not add or subtract from the Divine Word of God. The compiled scriptures that agree with one another and have no contradiction is the 66 books of what is commonly referred to as the Christian Bible, or the Holy Bible.
These writings were originally written by men inspired by God. They were written in the language of the writers and readers of the original documents. Many of the original documents have been lost, but God’s Word is eternal and remains. Therefore, it is important to us to study, learn, and consider the culture, history, and language of the original writers of the scriptures.
In our studies we have learned that the true name of God is Yehovah, and His son, our Messiah, is named Yeshua. Therefore, as you read our posts we will use the Hebrew names of God and our Messiah.
We would love to send you an email each time we have a new post. Sometimes we post a lot, but we're a busy family, so sometimes there are a few weeks between posts. Sign up today and never miss another post!
We are Bible believing, scripture only people. We love to learn about the Hebrew roots of our faith. We believe it is important to not add or subtract from the Divine Word of God. The compiled scriptures that agree with one another and have no contradiction is the 66 books of what is commonly referred to as the Christian Bible, or the Holy Bible.
Leave a Reply