A Woman's Walk - Working at Home (Titus 2)
Titus 2:1-5 (ESV)
But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 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.
Can women work outside of the home? We often get asked this question in reference to Titus 2:1-5. Let’s look at these verses and see if we can answer this question starting with verse 1.
Titus 2:1 (ESV)
But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.
In verse 1 we see that the context of these next verses are about teaching sound doctrine.
Verse 2 applies to men teaching sound doctrine and gives us the characteristics for those men.
Titus 2:2 (ESV)
Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.
In verse 3, we see what the characteristics of the older women teaching sound doctrine are to be like.
Titus 2:3 (ESV)
Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good
So they have good (godly or Torah obedient) behavior, do not slander, are not alcoholics and they should teach what is good. So what is the good doctrine? Verses 4 and 5 tell us the good doctrine the older women are to teach the younger women.
Titus 2:4-5 (ESV)
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.
Again the good doctrine that the older women are to teach the younger women is:
-how to love their husbands and children
-how to be self-controlled
-how to be pure
-how to work at home
-how to be kind
-how to be submissive to their own husbands.
As we look at this good doctrine one thing really jumps out, these are all in the context of the family unit; but the big question is still, can we work outside of the home?
Let's look at what “working at home” means. We will use the Blue Letter Bible website to look these up. You can see the results of the search here: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G3626&t=KJV
The Greek word used for the phrase “working at home” is oikourgos.
Strong's G3626 – oikourgos
from G3624 and οὖρος oûros (a guard; be "ware"); a stayer at home, i.e. domestically inclined (a "good housekeeper"):—keeper at home.
- caring for the house, working at home
- the (watch or) keeper of the house
- keeping at home and taking care of household affairs
- a domestic
As you can see, the phrase, “working at home” has nothing to do with having a job outside of the home. It is all about taking care of the home and the household affairs.
So the good doctrine that the older women are to teach the younger women is all about how to be a good wife and mother and how to run her home.
It is also important to mention that there is nothing in Torah that says a woman has to stay at home or work from home.
We hope this clears up any confusion on these verses.
Shalom
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