Titus 2 • Godliness Is Transferable from Woman to Woman

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Adorning ourselves with godliness will lead us to desire godly relationships with other believers who can demonstrate godliness in their lives as examples for us to follow. God has a plan to meet that need for us women as we share with each other woman to woman. In the last article, we saw that godliness leaves no room for rebellion. This is post #11 in the 1 Timothy & Titus blog series. In this post, we will see how adorning yourself with godliness is transferable from woman to woman.

Listen to this post as a similar podcast from Adorn Yourself with Godliness Bible Study covering 1 Timothy and Titus in the New Testament. (11 lessons)

The Need for Godly Role Models

Titus was ministering in Crete, a very corrupt society. There were apparently few role models to demonstrate what godly people were like. In our culture, we are surrounded by false teaching and subtle deceptions pervading social media and our educational system. And there are plenty of religious people around us whose walk does not match their talk—like the ones from Titus chapter 1 we covered in the last blog. They are not very good cultural role models for me.

Read the blog, “Titus 1 • Godliness Leaves No Room for Rebellion.”

What about your family role models? Some of you were raised by mothers who loved and served Jesus. Praise God for that. But many of you were not. You might come from a household where Jesus was a curse word. Lack of godly role models leaves many women confused about living as a Christian. Old habits are hard to break. Then, we move all over the place so that our roots are always in shock. It is hard to develop deep and lasting friendships.

What is the biblical remedy? Sound teaching that leads to devotion to God so that you desire to live a life that pleases Him. That will lead you and me to desire godly relationships with other believers who can demonstrate godliness in their lives as examples for us to follow.

God has a plan to meet that need for us women. It is clearly stated in Titus chapter 2,

Teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. (Titus 2:3-5)

My Need for an Older Woman

I remember the day I first read those three verses in Titus chapter 2. Having been married just four years, I had two children under the age of three. My husband was in seminary and working full-time to support us. I had no car. My mom lived eight hours away. When I read the description in Titus 2 of a godly older woman mentoring a younger woman, I wanted that!! But where were those women in my church? Would anyone even be interested in me? So many of them had their own daughters living nearby. I felt alone.

A year later during an evening worship service, I stood up during prayer request time and asked for someone to be that Titus 2 woman for me. After the service, a woman came up to me and said, “I’ll do that for you.” So Juanita Baker became my mentor. I would go to her house with my babies. She would call them precious and interact with them while visiting with me about life.

On the outside, I appeared to be self-sufficient and courageous. But on the inside, I needed the kind of help and encouragement only another woman could give—someone who had walked the road before me and could help me find the way. Over time, the Lord added other godly women to my life who built into me and helped me learn what it was like to be a loving wife, mother, and servant of God. I am so grateful to them.

We call those mentors. Mentoring is the process of discipling someone else. Here is a simple definition.

Discipling is someone older in the Lord helping someone younger in the Lord understand and apply biblical truth to everyday life. Mentoring is the “how” of discipling.

Why God’s Plan Works

Godly mentors learn for themselves

The teaching leadership of the church is to teach everyone the truth of God and how to live it out. All women are to take that teaching and apply it to their lives as women first. Then, they are to become teachers to other women who need to be mentored in some specific ways.

Godly mentors disciple other women

Why do you think God gave the older women the responsibility of discipling and counseling the younger women? They can do it better! Who else knows the mind and body of a woman better than another woman?

Who is an older woman?

So who is an older woman? To Timothy and Titus, anyone over 40 was considered an older woman. We certainly don’t think of ourselves that way now. Many women in their 40s today are newly married and first-time mothers. So age is not the defining stat.

For the purposes of the mentoring relationship described in Titus 2, an older woman is any woman who has more life experience or spiritual maturity than another woman. If you fit in that category, you might be freaking out at the thought of training someone else. You might even feel that you don’t have anything to offer.

Jesus qualifies you to be a godly mentor

But if you know Jesus Christ and expressed that love for Him through a life that is more godly than ungodly, then you are qualified because you have experience. You have lived. You have been through stages of life that the younger woman has not been through or is now experiencing. You have the benefit of seeing from the other side. You have been through raising children, dealing with teens, emptying the nest, managing a home, going through job loss or a tragedy such as losing a loved one. Plus many more experiences of life.

Those are marketable skills in God’s economy. Those experiences make you very valuable to His service. God has taken you through all those years of life and poured all those experiences into you. We saw that in 1 Timothy 5 regarding the older women in the church.

Read the blog, “1 Timothy 5.1-16 • Know Godly Women by What They Do.”

Not restricted by age

But mentoring someone else is not restricted to age. You can always minister to your peers and to those older or younger than you regardless of your age. It depends on your Christian maturity.

Remember our definition of a mentor, “Someone older in the Lord helping someone younger in the Lord understand and apply biblical truth to everyday life.”

Be devoted to God

What is the responsibility of the older woman? She needs to adorn herself with godliness so she has something to offer another woman. Remember our definition of godliness is a devotion to God expressed in a life that is pleasing to Him. So she needs to be devoted to God first. That’s what Paul mentioned first as well.

Be Reverent in the Way You Live

Teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. (Titus 2:3)

Paul told Titus to teach older women to be reverent in the way they live. The Greek word used there refers to a priestess serving in the temple of her God. She is devoted to her God.

Our bodies are the temple of God who dwells within us. So a Christian woman devoted to God knows that everything she does in life is service to Him. Out of your devotion to God flows your daily work for God in everything—loving your family, caring for your homes, anything you do outside of your home, and serving in your church community.

What are some ways that this reverence for God is expressed? If you look at the descriptions given in Titus 2 verse 3, they aren’t much different from what we saw in the qualifications for a woman to be a deacon in 1 Timothy chapter 3. A woman who is reverent in the way she lives is worthy of respect because she is devoted to God. That she is not to be a slanderer or addicted to much wine is the same as not being a malicious talker and being temperate. Our words should be truthful, kind, and building others up rather than tearing them down. And a woman who wants her life to express her devotion to God isn’t going to want anything else to control her such as wine or other addictions.

For more explanation about these qualities, read the blog, “1 Timothy 3.1-16 • A Godly Woman Is Worthy of Respect.”

Paul adds one other thing in Titus that is implied in 1 Timothy but not specifically stated. A very important thing. The older woman is to teach what is good. What does that mean?

Be Able to Teach What Is Good

Learn what is good

What is good? Sound doctrine. Christian truth. What devotion to God looks like. How that devotion is expressed in godly behavior. “What is good” means right from wrong, truth about God, and truth about what God desires.

Remember from 1 Timothy 2 that God wants us women to be teachable. We need to be learners first. When you are devoted to God, you learn how to …

• Know God considers good by reading and studying His word.
• Apply it in your life.
• Get over mistakes you’ve made and trust Him to help you get it right the next time.
• Let go of your perfectionism and accept your weaknesses, humbly turning them over to Him to change.
• Depend on Him more than on yourself.

Life’s experiences teach us, if we are listening, to stay faithful to Christ as we are going through even the hardest times. Older women who have done that have so much to offer younger women. This is a God-ordained ministry to be developed by older women, reaching out of their homes and sharing what they have learned with those who would profit from it most.

It is the Lord who makes you able to mentor someone else. We must rely on Him even in this simple way of woman-to-woman relationships.

Read more about living dependently on God in this article, “2 Corinthians Overview • The Call to Dependent Living.”

Teach what is good

How can a woman teach what is good? She teaches by what she is and what she does as well as by words and example. One is formal and deliberate. The other is subtle and relaxed. This takes time. And an older woman generally has more time for this.

God in His infinite wisdom knows a woman should never “retire” from being committed to the development of quality life in others. A woman must feel needed and appreciated. God designed us that way and gave us an avenue to fill that need.

Why Is This Mentoring Needed?

Why would the younger women need what the older women can offer? I already mentioned loneliness in our transitional society. Then, there’s confusion about life skills and relationships and just plain old busyness, especially for a woman getting used to being married and having small children at her feet. The Lord wants the older women to prepare themselves by adorning themselves with godliness so that they can help the younger women in specific areas of life.

To restore to her senses

Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God. (Titus 2:4-5)

This NIV translation says “to urge them.” But the original Greek word Paul used has a lot more meaning. It means “to restore one to her senses.” So the duty of older women is to keep the younger women sane and to restore them to their senses when they get overwhelmed.

I laughed when I first discovered this because I needed it! I had two little ones and was up to my eyeballs in diapers. I remember the mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion from the constant watching and training of those kids. Plus, I was still a young married woman with lots to learn about how to relate to my husband in a godly way not a worldly way as demonstrated on TV sitcoms. I needed the godly older women in my life to restore me to my senses. Don’t we all need that?!

To disciple her

That same Greek word also means “to disciple.”

Discipling is someone older in the Lord helping someone younger in the Lord understand and apply biblical truth to everyday life. Mentoring is the “how” of discipling.

Younger women don’t just need to know some life skills, but they need to know how to develop that devotion to God for themselves. They need to see what godliness looks like in another woman.

And that will be displayed in her life experiences, including managing her household well. The word translated “worker at home” actually refers to someone who observes, guards, or preserves something valuable. It is similar to 1 Timothy 3:11 about a woman being trustworthy. A trustworthy woman considers her home life valuable and guards it well. That’s a whole lot more than housecleaning!

To share what godliness is like

It all goes back to adorning yourself with godliness. You do it first because you love God and are grateful for what He has done in your life. That means you need to know that. So the older woman needs to make sure the younger woman knows Jesus, knows how to pray, and knows what her identity in Christ is.

You adorn yourself with godliness because you want to have the life of Christ displayed in your life. So the older woman needs to show the younger woman how to live by the Spirit rather than living by the flesh. That old sin nature in you wants you to rebel against God and do things your own way.

And you adorn yourself with godliness because others are watching. A husband, children, neighbors, co-workers, friends—all are watching. We do this so that no one will malign or speak bad of God and His word. That’s the end of Titus 2 verse 5.

Older women and younger women should all seek to adorn themselves with godliness. The woman who is older in the Lord and has learned how to do that can show any woman who is younger in the Lord what godliness looks like.

Where Do You Find Each Other?

Well, you don’t have to have a mentoring program at your church for this to take place.

If you are an older woman wanting to mentor:

• Ask the Lord to give you a desire and opportunity to mentor someone for Him.
• Make yourself available to younger women, especially those with no family close by.
• Pay attention and come alongside. Pay attention means that you listen well to what that woman sitting near you is saying. It could be in your Bible Study group. It could be someone sitting near you at a conference. Then, come alongside her. Intentionally reach out to her to get together at a time that works best for her.

It’s not hard. When you are devoted to God, He will give you a desire to share what you know with someone else. You don’t need to have all the answers. No one does anyway! Just share what you know and what you are learning about the Lord and adorning yourself with godliness for Him.

If you are a younger woman wanting a mentor:

• Ask the Lord to lead you to someone who will want to invest in you.
• Interact with older women. Befriend them. Listen to them. Many older women need “daughters” as friends when their own are no longer nearby.
• Recognize you are not self-sufficient and desire to be teachable. You must want to learn from a godly woman rather than what the world has to offer.
• Give a godly older woman a chance to restore you to your senses, to disciple, and train you.

Several years ago, I asked the Lord to give me someone to disciple. One Saturday, while attending a Bible conference at my church, a young woman walked in by herself and sat nearby. I’ll call her Kate. Kate joined my daughter and I during the small group discussion times. I learned that she had three young children. Her oldest son just started attending a Christian school that required nightly Bible reading. So Kate and her husband were reading with him. That led to her trusting Christ as her Savior. She was all excited about that. I asked her if she’d like to meet one night for a chat. We exchanged contact information. We got together for dinner the next week. During that time, I asked her if she would like to be discipled. She said, “Yes.” And we began a weekly discipling time for the next year. What a joy it was to be part of her life and see how God was growing her as a woman, wife, and mother. That began because I paid attention to someone sitting next to me and chose to come alongside her to help her grow in her faith.

Discipling someone else will lead you to rely on the Lord more than on yourself. And that’s always a good thing for anyone learning how to adorn herself with godliness.

In the next post, we will see what living in response to God’s grace looks like.

Let Jesus satisfy your heart with such love for God that you will want to live a life that pleases Him.

All of the above information is covered in the Adorn Yourself with Godliness Bible Study covering 1 Timothy and Titus in the New Testament.

Other Resources

• Titus 1 • Godliness Leaves No Room for Rebellion
• 1 Timothy & Titus Introduction • Dress with Truth That Strengthens Devotion to God
• 1 Timothy 3:1-16 • A Godly Woman Is Worthy of Respect
• 2 Timothy Theme • Staying Faithful to God by Choice
• 1 Timothy 5.1-16 • Know Godly Women by What They Do

AI was not used to generate this post.