“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” (Tit. 2:3-5).
Older Women Train Younger Women
As we read the verse above from Titus 2, apostle Paul tells the older women in the church to train the younger women.
How do we go about this task that God has given to older women? When someone coaches us in life skills, we at Thistlebend Ministries call that a mentor. A mentor is someone who has personal experience and understanding of life and can communicate that personal experience and understanding in a way that helps others live life better.
Older women are called to be mentors, or life-coaches, to younger women. Paul tells the older women to train the younger women to (among other things) love their husband, love their children, and be self-controlled. He also tells them how this training is to be done: “teach what is good” (v. 3). The training happens through their godly example and through time spent teaching what is good.
Using the Word of God in Mentoring
Although Paul probably doesn’t have in mind women teaching other women exegetically verse-by-verse through the Scriptures when he makes these comments, we do know that what is good is found ultimately in the Word of God. Therefore it is appropriate for women’s ministries to teach women from the Word of God.
Younger women will not be able “to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands . . .” apart from a deep understanding of the Word of God. Women will not be able to love their husband and children without being taught the love of God through the gospel and how to love the Lord.
Mentoring Is Doable by Ordinary People
Some older women might object that this is way out of their league. They don’t have a seminary degree or a teaching certificate. They have no training in marriage counseling. They are not up on the latest theories on parenting, and half the “wisdom” they were taught by the experts back in their day didn’t work anyway. They might even feel like they could barely teach someone to do the dishes let alone how to live life well from the Word of God.
If we are tempted to think this, we must remind ourselves who Paul had in mind when he said this. These women living on an island called Crete back in the first century would not have had a seminary degree. They may have had access to copies of the Old Testament, but it is likely the only written portion of the New Testament they had was this very letter that Paul was sending to Titus. We can be fairly confident that they didn’t have the latest and greatest word study tools or even a Bible dictionary. It was these first century, ordinary Greek women that Paul expected to train other women.
What this means is that mentoring is doable by ordinary people—and it happens by the equipping and power of the Holy Spirit. Sigh of relief!
SALT – Thistlebend’s Model of Mentorship
With these things in mind, Thistlebend Ministries has prayerfully developed a model of mentorship, or discipleship—which we refer to as SALT—that involves intimate coaching from woman to woman so that women can better love the Lord, live a life of godliness, and fulfill the call that God has given them in the body of Christ.
As they are trained up in the Scriptures, they will then be in the position to take their deep personal understanding of a relationship with the Lord and pass that on to other women after them, so perpetuating the knowledge of the glory of God and helping to build and strengthen His church.