Older Women and Younger Women and Encouragement

^{From Titus: Life in the Church}

^{Titus 2:3-5}

³ Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good,  ⁴so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children,  ⁵to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.

Encourage

In Greek, this word has the idea of encouraging someone to their personal duty.  The older women are to be teaching the young women.  It is very interesting the older women are given the responsibility to be teaching, caring for, and disciplining the younger women.  This is very important, especially in this day in age.  It is not usually appropriate for a male elder to council a young woman, especially in a one on one setting.  This is something that Paul gives to the older women to oversee and care for.  We have seen in our day, some of us from very close quarters what can happen when men and women get involved in inappropriate ways, often with the very best intentions.  It is also affected by the fact that even if nothing inappropriate happens it can raise questions in the minds of onlookers and mar the credibility of church members.  This is a massively important task without which the Local Church could fall apart completely.