The home, being the first institution created by God, has always been under attack, for it is the basis of life on earth. Wise women will stay home and guard the family from the wrong influences, preserving good values and being good stewards of their personal property and possessions, whether it be a little or a lot.
The home has authority, power and influence, but there are man-made institutions and philosophies which desire to get women out of the home and eliminate its impact on society. This pressure can come in the form of government, education, the media, financial institutions, and even friends and relatives.
Vintage Comfort, by Betsy Brown
Women are pressured on all sides to leave their homes and bring in wages. There are people who just do not see any value in women being at home. I heard a young man say that he could not figure out what a woman did all day at home. After all, he said, he was a bachelor, and how much time did washing dishes, washing clothes, and vacuuming take? He claimed that it was so easy to keep house that women ought to be out working and bringing in money. He misunderstood the difference between house work and home making.
Even a child can do the simplest housekeeping chores, but it takes a real woman to develop the knack for homemaking: putting warmth and welcome and sweetness into a house and making it a place where people do not want to leave. The young bachelor failed to discern the spiritual values in a home. He only saw the material things.
Any fool can rush around at 5 o'clock, minutes before her husband arrives home from work, putting things away or washing dishes, and make it look like she has been working all day. Just about anyone can do housework. House work can be done by a maid, but it takes more than house work to make a real home. This requires a woman being in her home so that she can tend to things without being stressed or rushed. If she goes to work outside the home, her time will be limited. She will not be able to relax and enjoy cleaning house, cooking, knitting or decorating. She will always be under stress, having to manage two jobs, and never really being able to be a home maker.
Carolina Evening 2 by Betsy Brown
The world only values women if they can earn money (a materialistic, unwholesome view of women), but God values them in a greater way, giving them the responsibility of guiding the home. Read Titus 2 again. It does not mention money at all. It does not command the women to be keepers IF they have enough money. It simply shows the way women in the Lord's church are supposed to live. They are supposed to marry, love their husbands, teach their children, and be keepers at home, workers at home, busy at home, that the word of God be not blasphemed. This means that they should pay careful attention to these things; to do these things well, and not bring shame on God's word. This wonderful place they have in life, at home, gives them a chance to be different that the world. It sets them apart, as God's people, from the way others around them live.
Tit 2:4 That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, Tit 2:5 To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
To illustrate this, think of a woman who claims to be religious. She goes around saying Hallelujah all the time and says she "just loves Jesus." Yet her husband is neglected, his shirts never ironed, she does not sew or make things with her hands, she refuses to cook or clean, and her house smells bad. Those outside of the faith would naturally conclude that she was a hypocrite: claiming to be religious but not living the principles of the religion, which include the command to be keepers at home.
Some of the pressures against women at home are:
Loneliness:
The eight people aboard the Ark must have had some determination to stay free of the vices of their world, which was very wicked at the time. Think of Noah and his wife, his three sons and their wives, aboard the ark, all alone in the world at the time of the flood. Imagine how isolated and terrified they must have felt while the rest of the population still existed, with all their deceit, lying, scheming, and violence. Yet these 8 souls were saved by obediently clinging to the promises of God: that He would save them if they obeyed him. They did not know what life would be like in the new world, but they obeyed God's command.
Women at home may feel they are all alone, as they see more of their friends going off to work, leaving the neighborhoods echoing with empty houses during the day, but they have to remember that God often uses few people for His purposes. It is one thing to do something worthwhile if many others are doing it, but it takes a very dedicated woman to be a homemaker when no one around them is doing it. Like Noah and his family, we must remember that God has provided a special place for us at home, whether the prevailing culture approves of it, or not.
This is a wonderful era in which to live, for today we have a network that has never before existed. We don't have to spend days and days feeling isolated or lacking in moral support. The Internet provides the opportunity to connect with those who share our beliefs. All over the web, daily, there are interesting things designed especially for home-lovers, in the form of participant activities with names like Make-Over, or Home Made Monday, Table-Setting Tuesday, Crafty Wednesday, Decorating Thursday, Cooking Friday, Sewing Saturday and so forth. I've just made up these names to give you an example of some of the things out there on the web that encourage homemakers to do things to enhance their home life.
Women are motivated to clean their houses and share their house-tour slide shows on blogs, and they make friends through give-a-ways and contests, all which have something to do with home keeping and home making. There is no reason to feel isolated or lacking in purpose, even in a row house or apartment, with such a rich store of information available on the web. Unlike magazines, you can pick exactly what you like and tune in to it, on a blog or a you tube tutorial, and gather up all the information you like to make your home living exciting and fulfilling. It is almost always free, and you can print out things for a notebook and collect everything you like.
Every single day of the week can be interesting and a homemaker can keep her creative mind exercised, as she finds ways to make her home functional and inviting, and save money at the same time. One reason I have included so many blogs on the left side of this blog, is to show the beautiful things women are doing at home, and give viewers an idea of the potential in home life. Go through some of these blogs and get some ideas for your own home.
Difficulty Seeing Rewards of Our Efforts.
Hebrews 11 gives an account of the Patriarchs and other men who walked by faith, even though they did not see the result of their faith right away. Occasionally, women will not stick with homemaking because they go through a difficult period and conclude that it must not "work." The Patriarchs of old did often did not see the results of their faith, but they followed it anyway, knowing that they were citizens of a heavenly kingdom, and that life on this earth would fade away. Homemakers have the blessing of seeing little results here and there as they work at home, but ultimately, they must do it for the Lord: ....with good will, doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord...Ephesians 6:7-8
note: A patriarch in the Old Testament was a man who was the head of his family whom God spoke to directly, to reveal his will: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and others were these patriarchs.
If women give up their place in the home and pursue careers, they will not be able to provide an example for their children and grandchildren in obeying God, no matter what the cost. If women give up their place in the home as homemakers, and pursue careers, they will be wasting a lot of time that could be used to develop the skills and knowledge to care for their families. Think of your children and grandchildren, turning the pages of the family album, and pointing to you, their grandmother, and describing the life you lived. Will they say that her life was centered on the home, and that she provided a home life for her husband?
Some of the discouragements to homemaking are:
Intimidation by others who are out working for wages:
Like the miserable comforters of Job, discouragers say, "Why don't you give up and go to work?" Some people do not see success unless they see money, so they may conclude that your being a keeper at home full time is not successful unless they see your family thriving financially. They are not thinking about the spiritual foundations that a homemaker is developing in her family. They are thinking only about money, only about financial and social security, and only about material things. They may say they are "concerned" (how often do we hear that?) that you are not being "fulfilled" or "concerned" about your children's "social development." They push and nag and hint and intimidate and accuse, until they have put enough pressure on the homemaker to make her get a job outside the home.
Edgar A. Guest, a poet who was born in 1881, wrote many inspiring poems, and here is one which many mothers of the past read to their children, and which many children memorized, when faced with discouragement:
There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle it in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start to sing as you tackle the thing
Another point of pressure towards homemakers is:
Fear of financial failure.
Women will start worrying about how they are going to survive financially, and then take matters into their own hands, get a job, and start bringing in the cash. We were warned by older women many years ago that this would make it impossible for women to stay home, as the need for money would only increase, and their expenses only get worse, once they began working outside the home. Not only that, but they would pay a terrible price in the loss of their children's souls, many who would be put out to pasture, wandering from house to house; never experiencing a spiritually rich home life.
So-called "experts" came out declaring that this was "normal" and that children actually thrived and did quite well in day cares, and were as intelligent as children brought up by full time mothers. Many people warned that women working outside of the home would cause a rise in divorce, and other warned that it would make it more difficult for men to find employment. Today we see entire towns "manned" by women, at the post office, bank, grocery stores, libraries, and police stations. This cannot be good for the economy or for the home. Many men cannot find jobs, and feel forced to go on welfare. For every woman who is working, there is .5 man on welfare.
Whatever the self-appointed experts claim, we know God's word is the final authority for our lives: ... That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. ...Titus 2:4-5.
As a Titus 2 teacher, I cannot tell you how you will pay your rent, your phone bill, or your grocery bill, but I can tell you that your first priority is to obey God. This lesson is not for the unbeliever. It is for those who really want to do what is right and good and want to be in God's will. If you seek first the will of God, according to His word, He will provide a way for you to do it. There are many women who have done it. There are many women who are living the Titus 2 "dream" even now, although they have no "second income," as the so-called experts claim they must have. Do it for the protection of your marriage and your home. Do it as example to other women. Do it for your own peace of mind and your health. The world wants to make men out of women. Christian men are supposed to "provide for their own..." 1st Timothy 5:8 Christian women are supposed to "marry, bear children, and keep house.." 1st Timothy 5:14
Pressure from husbands:
There is a generation of men that have apparently missed out on being real men by accepting the responsibility to provide for their families. They feel that women should carry half the "load" of the financial responsibility. They may be getting this idea from other men who congregate at work and discuss their personal financial problems. They may be comparing their homemaking wives to the career women surrounding them at the work place. They may lose a sense of the precious value of their own wives at home. They could possibly listening to reports on the radio or television that keep them in a hyped up sense of fear that everything is going to crash financially and we are all going to be living in cardboard boxes if we only have one income. The media has done this for decades now, to mobilize people in whatever direction they want.
Many church members, including preachers, elders, deacons, teachers and "leaders" have their wives working. They seem to have cut many scriptures about the responsibility of women in the home, out of the Bible. It is rarely spoken of in churches today, for fear of offending most of the members, whose wives are working outside the home. In a future post, I will address the problem of what to do at home. There are those who do not know what to do at home, and are working because they feel there is nothing for them to do at home,
The media and government agencies promoted the feminist movement, to get women out of their homes to make money, from which income taxes would be extracted. This would provide more money for the federal government to support questionable programs and create an empire not approved of by the American people. When you cave in to the pressure from your husband or anyone else, to go to work, you are giving the government some of your money to support their unholy programs like Planned Parenthood and government schools which teach thousands of children to hate the free enterprise system and embrace socialism and communism.
When you go to work, you participate in paying the taxes which provide the way for the government to do more harm to this country. If you stay out of the work place, and make a wonderful home for your family, you do more for your country than you can possibly do if you were in the military. You also harm your husband by taking over part of his own responsibility to be a provider. Your job is big enough just keeping your husband alive with good nutrition and a happy atmosphere at home, free from the troubles of the work place.
High Rock, by Betsy Brown
A good help meet will not allow her husband to pursue doctrinal error. If women do not warn men when they are going in the wrong direction, they are not being proper help meets. When wives see husbands putting pressure on them to go to work outside the home, they need to remind them of what God says. Women are not obligated to obey anyone when it comes into conflict with God's commands. To keep the situation from becoming tense, women should busy themselves about the house, and when pressured to get a job, ask the husband to take over the work at home for awhile and work full time, too. The men will quickly see that it cannot be done. If a man is truly a leader, he will show the way, not boss the way. He will live what he teaches. If he thinks his wife should have a second job (her home is is first job), he should get a second job just to show the example. If he is not working, he should not ask his wife to work, and if he is trying to be a house -husband, the wife should certainly not get a job. It will only make him lazier, as he "falls back" on his wife's income. If she goes to work, he will not be as careful with his expenses, and he will fail to feel that all depends upon him. It does not make him a better man if he sends his wife to work. It will rob him of his sense of urgency in solving the income problem. The wife can, however, cut back on expenses, and be resourceful, learn to make things herself rather than buy ready made or manufactured goods, and live simply.
One woman I know decided to make her own cloth napkins, and when she had company, the wife so admired these napkins that she paid her to make some for her. Now, she is in the cloth napkin business of her own making, but her husband provides the main income. You never know when a necessity becomes an invention that will bring financial rewards.
I believe it is unscriptural and wimpy for a man to ask his wife to get a job, but if a woman wants to earn money, there are many ways to do it from home. In saying that, though, it comes with a warning: it will still be a second job, will use up your stamina, and will cause you to neglect your home and your husband. Jobs, whether online or from the home, will still take over, unless a woman is careful to discipline herself to only work a few hours a day. If a woman develops an online job, it is easy to dedicate whole days to it and allow the housework to pile up, which is no better than working outside the home.
House work, house keeping and home making take a lot of time and energy. It takes thought and concentration to create a meal, set a beautiful table, and make life at home desirable. In her leisure time, a woman should be knitting or pursing an interest that relaxes her. If that is earning money on the web or knitting, so be it, but no one should pressure her to earn money.
Husbands can cut down on expenses and create their own 2nd and 3rd incomes. One man I know who was laid off work after a large company had to fold, began inventing little things he had always been curious about. He got a patent and began to sell his useful inventions, from the home. He had special tools and gadgets that helped the homemaker and he made wood toys for children. His wife was patient and frugal and had a lot of faith in him and told everyone she knew about his products. They now have an income to replace the job he had, and he has no overhead to pay, and uses his garage for his production. He employs his home school children in his factory. This did not happen suddenly, but gradually, step by step. His family encouraged him and cut down on expenses during the time when they had little income.
The term "one income" did not exist, as far as I know, until the early 1970's, when it was created by social economics media, to motivate women to get jobs. "Studies have shown that a man can no longer support his family on one income," said one report on television news. "A man will not be able to support his family on his income alone," --a local newspaper reported. Religious women stuck by the good news of Titus 2 and thrived, but the world kept predicting the end of the one income-family. Today, a husband will come home and declare that his wife must "do" something (an expression that means get-a-job) or "help" out (another one like the other one). These are just what I call weasel-word phrases that really mean "money." Women must not panic. They must show confidence and assure their husbands that they know they will survive. They may have to make adjustments and get rid of some major expenses, but it is better than getting rid of the wife at home.
Seasoned homemakers will say that they cannot count the number of times their own husbands thought that the economy was so bad that the wife must go to work, and yet they continued faithfully in their homemaking jobs. A family's personal economy will always have its lean times and its prosperous times. It is part of life. Women must remind men that their place is in the home and always will be. They will help where they can but they must not leave their homes. If they do, they may have a very difficult time ever returning to the home full time.
Social Pressure:
There are always those people who feel they are helping the poor little homemaker by showing up at her door with a newspaper full of want-ads and circled jobs available. These types will ask questions like, "How will you ever get retirement?" "Where will you get your pension?" "How will you ever buy a house?" Women at home have to be careful about the influence of girlfriends who are not quite at the same level of faith. Instead of allowing them to influence you to go to work, you need to use your home as teaching place, where you can influence them to be keepers at home. All you have to do when they drop by is tell them that you are very glad to see them but have to iron a few shirts before your husband gets home. They will then know what an iron and an ironing board looks like, and be able to see how it is used.
Social pressure from friends can cause women at home to be unhappy and discontent. Instead of viewing themselves as people who have-not because they are homemakers, they need to view themselves as being stedfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. 1st Corinthians 15:58. Your work at home is the work God has given you. It is the work of the Lord.
Please do not limit yourself to just a few verses in Titus 2. Go ahead and read the rest of the chapter, and see how it connects so well to the verses intended for women and the guiding of the home.
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*this is the King James Bible translation spelling of the word we know as steadfast. I did not make a spelling error. I used the KJV spelling to go with one of the scriptures within the post.
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