Job Descriptions for Older and Younger Women
Here’s the job description from God for younger women:
“I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully” (1 Timothy 5:14).
“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).
“Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety” (1 Timothy 2:15).
Here’s the job description from God for older women:
“Well reported of for good works; if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints’ feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work” (1 Timothy 5:10).
“The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things [then it goes on to tell what the aged women are to teach the younger women]” Titus 2:3.
Do you see a common theme in these verses? Women’s job description given by God is to bear and raise children! Motherhood is our calling from God. If you are barren or single, you can still mother! It’s in our nature to mother. It’s not in our nature to leave our homes and children each day and work in the workforce. This is in a man’s nature. God created him to do this, not us. The way our bodies were created reminds us monthly (before menopause) that we are to bear children. We are to nurse them at our breasts. It’s God’s perfect will for us.
I read Facebook posts written by mothers who have many children. They will admit it’s not an easy life but it’s a good life and they wouldn’t trade it for all the things the world has to offer. They admit that pregnancy and giving birth are difficult, but the results are eternally amazing! They admit that disciplining and training children takes a lot of hard work and diligence, but it’s worth it when their children grow up walking in truth.
Read through the Bible and notice that all of the women who were barren deeply mourned over their infertility. They instinctively knew they were created to have babies but could not. From Sarah who was barren for many, many years (Genesis 11:30), to Rebekah (Genesis 25:21), to Rachel (Genesis 29:31), to Samson’s mother (Judges 13:2), to Hannah (1 Samuel 5:1-5), and finally, Elisabeth, John the Baptist’s mother (Luke 1:7). They all suffered for years with infertility, but the Lord opened up all of their wombs, some as old as 90 years old which was definitely a miracle! Elisabeth was “well stricken in years” but it doesn’t tell us how old she was.
This is what Elisabeth said when she found out she was pregnant: “Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men” (Luke 1:25). It was considered a bad thing to not have children back then. Children were valued and an expected part of being married. This is why I love the Bates’ and the Duggars’ TV shows. The young women marry, bear children, and guide the home, just as the Lord has commanded that they do. It’s a breath of fresh air in this anti-child culture in which we live.
He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the LORD.
Psalm 113:9
***I am asked frequently about infertile women and if I believe it is due to sin in a woman’s life. Infertility is a result of sin in general. We live in a fallen, sinful world. Some women are infertile from being sexually promiscuous prior to marriage so yes, sometimes infertility is a direct result of sin in a person’s life. The birth control pill and other forms of artificial birth control can also cause infertility. Abortions can cause infertility. Many things can cause infertility, but it doesn’t always mean it is a punishment of God, especially for those who have lived according to God’s principles for them. It’s simply a result of living in a fallen world. Here’s a great post for single and barren women.
19 thoughts on “Job Descriptions for Older and Younger Women”
Great post.
Over the last century, tyrannical globalist plutocrats, for the sake of greater power and profits, have urged the woman to leave the home, go to school, and get a job. They seduced her with the fruit of “equality”. The women were deceived into their own slavery.
Today, unhappy women on the left are practically a proverb. They are morally, spiritually, and intellectually barren, often, and are physically barren too.
Deprived of much of the joys and peace that God designed for women due to their being silly women laden with sins, led astray by ruthless libertines, they behind malevolent, malicious, spiteful harpies, ruthlessly attacking all who oppose their selfishness.
These termagants pervert the nurturing and affectionate nature of women, into heartless, cruel, calculating treachery.
25% of women today are on psychotropic drugs. The rates of women enslaved in p-rn and prostitution are higher than ever before in our history. The rape rate has gone from 9/100,000 in 1960, to around 100/100,000, though due to women not reporting out of fear and police cooking the books, the official rape rate is 40/100,000.
We have slaughtered 30 million girl babies from abortion in the last 46 years, and our birth rate is the lowest in our history.
Only God can redeem the nation, and men aren’t exempt either. In our pride and arrogance, we sought to subvert Gods perfect design to indulge our selfish lusts and desires.
Proverbs 31, verses 13 – 14
13 She selects wool and flax
and works with eager hands.
14 She is like the merchant ships,
bringing her food from afar.
15 She gets up while it is still night;
she provides food for her family
and portions for her female servants.
16 She considers a field and buys it;
out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
17 She sets about her work vigorously;
her arms are strong for her tasks.
18 She sees that her trading is profitable,
and her lamp does not go out at night.
19 In her hand she holds the distaff
and grasps the spindle with her fingers.
20 She opens her arms to the poor
and extends her hands to the needy.
21 When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
for all of them are clothed in scarlet.
22 She makes coverings for her bed;
she is clothed in fine linen and purple.
23 Her husband is respected at the city gate,
where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.
24 She makes linen garments and sells them,
and supplies the merchants with sashes.
25 She is clothed with strength and dignity;
she can laugh at the days to come.
26 She speaks with wisdom,
and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
27 She watches over the affairs of her household
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
28 Her children arise and call her blessed;
her husband also, and he praises her:
29 “Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all.”
These were the verses that comforted me when taught that my identity was confined to that of a traditional, American housewife. How can one buy a field without observing it, first? The work of making clothing and food was not as easy as it is today. Women would spend many hours taxing over grinding grain. Difficult, physical work. Not dainty or feminine in the slightest – unless you consider bodily strength feminine, which I have certainly come to.
Ancient societies had different requirements for survival. Gender roles circled around this fact. One of the verses I latch onto here is she “does not eat the bread of idleness”. Back in ancient Israel, it was grueling, exhausting, physical work to run the household. Nowadays, it is much different.
Sure, it’s taxing. Back when I was at home all the time, my mental health was really lacking. Part of that was the fact that I hadn’t yet found the correct medication for my major depressive disorder, but it was also largely due to the isolation and lack of identity. Sure, being s mom is nice. But it isn’t all that God has put in me.
Now that I am working 30 hours a week I and my husband, daughter, and I are doing much better. I am physically working, using my body to do labor and generate income. That’s my way of milling the grain, since factory workers do that now. I generate the money for the bread we eat. Our sweet daughter switches from spending a few hours at work with her father, to quality time with a grandma or my mentor at church. Since I can’t afford childcare, I work from 4:30 in the morning to 10:30 in the morning. It is very tiring, but so fulfilling.
I am glad that God gave me the wisdom to see that I have more capacity than just working at home. I am happy for those who are built to be home with their children 24/7, but that isn’t His calling in my life. I am hoping that other women like me will come to see that God can call us to more than a past generation’s cultural norm.
I hope that you can look beyond culture and find out the same. God’s word fits into all cultures. The culture of heaven is a culture of the heart, not of actions. That can be different for each woman – single or married, childless or child filled, working or home making. America’s way is not the only way.
The Proverbs 31 woman was NOT a career woman as much as you want her to be for she was known for looking well to the ways of her household not having a career and making money. Everything she did revolved around her home. There’s a good reason that God wants older women to teach young women to be keepers at home. They fight this idea as you do and try to use Scripture to back them up. Please read this post I did on this topic: https://thetransformedwife.com/the-proverbs-31-woman-was-a-career-woman/
Thanks for your reply! 🙂
I have read your post! loved how you pointed out how grueling and time consuming the work was. Clearly, we can’t compare these cultures accurately, like you stated. There was no time at all for the proverbs 31 woman to be a “career” woman. However, there is time for the modern woman to work while completing the duties of homemaking. The term career woman didn’t exist back then, and so we can’t draw a parallel on roles, which you are trying to do.
Some woman have jobs just like the proverbs 31 woman – self-managed businesses that generate income, from the comfort of the home. This is a blessing.
I have seen so many verses affirming the woman of the household, but none directly condemning the career woman. Perhaps you could show me some verses pertaining to the exclusivity that you are using your platform to preach.
I run my household. I do the laundry, I clean, I cook, and I gain much pleasure and fulfillment from this work. My position as a working woman doesn’t diminish that. In fact, it enriches it. The mental stimulation is essential to my health and well-being. Simply put, I work better at home when I have a job outside of it.
Nevertheless, I carry no guilt because my identity comes from the Lord and his ways rather than American gender roles.
Older women are to teach the younger women to be keepers at home so they don’t blaspheme the word of God (Titus 2:3-5).
I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. 1 Tim. 5:14
I don’t see how much clearer God could have been that He wants women’s work to be at home. Children have suffered tremendously since their mothers have left their homes and gone into the workforce. They are blaspheming His Word and giving occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.
As a housewife who desperately would love a sweet baby, I can attest that it is very sorrowful to not yet have one in my arms. I worked when my husband and I first got married, but I found that actually working outside of the home was terrible for my “mental health” as the world would call it… Because I wasnt made to work outside of the home! It was so freeing being able to stay home. My husband and I would love a baby, and we pray that the Lord will allow it. In fact, he has allowed it once, but I unfortunately miscarried. All these women who talk about not wanting children or not wanting to stay home with their children break my heart. There are so many women, me included, who pray to have children like you do. Mothers, please love your children!
God would never call anyone to do something that contradicts His Word. There are always consequences to our actions. You may not think that working is affecting your home life, but there are certainly downfalls. Based on your schedule, it sounds like your child wakes up without a mother at home, your husband also wakes alone and has to run the house in the morning, and he also has to watch your daughter while he is supposed to be focused solely on his work. That can’t be helping his career. Please also research how detrimental night/early morning work is to the body. It has been proven to affect women’s bodies more than men’s bodies too! There is a reason for this- women are not meant to be working! So many health issues are stemming from women trying to be everything, when they should be giving everything to their God-given roles as wives and mothers!
Baker’s response is the epitome of the slave mindset in America, caused by compulsory schooling and the Prussian education model that infiltrated our public education. Our American system is not an altruistic system to help educate the masses but a system of creating cogs in the wheel. “Going to work” is the end goal. Your labor is used for the betterment an outside institution not your family. The family is subject to the goals of the corporation (or government). One can’t even go on vacation when they want but needs to get approval from the bosses. It reminds me how God warned Israel against a king but since they demanded it He gave them one. It didn’t work out so well for them. God values our freedom, us, not so much.
It is true, school does not teach us to be independent. If you think for a moment is an altruistic institution, you are mistaken. I’ve been privy to attend conferences put on by our Executive Branch of the government and some of the heads of major companies are also in attendance. They openly say how they give to local schools and set up curriculum and apprenticeships so that the new labor force will be ready to populate their factories. This is lauded as a good thing. Our university system is similarly set up to support the labor force, not teach students how to be independent thinkers or entrepreneurs. The industrial revolution has decimated the family unit (which was once used as the hub of all industry in the US). It first pulled the men off the land, no more small blacksmith shop on your property but now you have to abide by a ton of federal regulations and can’t afford it. Then became compulsory schooling which ripped the children away from the home. BTW the literacy rate was higher in the US BEFORE compulsory schooling. Now the mother’s are following suite. In some ways it’s no wonder as they look around and think there is nothing left for them therefore they have no purpose in the home.
But as Christian women we should do all we can to highlight God’s ways, not walk as the world does. The world has no light and walks in slavery. We should show true freedom. The Proverbs 31 woman is the epitome of a Godly woman who highlights the usefulness and industry surrounding a home that a woman can do. Going out to work for someone else isn’t inspiring to anyone. Sure, we may not be able to convince our husbands that we are more valuable in the home, or that our children belong with us and not sent to Ceasar’s orphanages (public schools) but we need to at least stop going around with our eyes closed blinded to God’s plan for the family and actually fighting against it.
The very fact that God tells us what is good, but yet we ask to see if there is condemnation on what is not good before we will concede to His ways, is not looking to Him but looking for an excuse to continue on our merry way without regard to what He actually did tell us to do. I would not be pleased with my children if I told them to do their household chores if I left for an hour and I got home and they were watching television instead. If I questioned them and their household chores weren’t done well and they said, “well you didn’t tell us NOT to watch television”, I would not have considered them obedient. This is the same. Just because some women can still get the laundry, cooking and cleaning done, while working doesn’t mean that they are getting all the other things done God intends them to as illustrated in Proverbs 31 unless she literally didn’t sleep.
Thank you.
Lori, are there other blogs like yours? I need this!
Nancy Campbell at Above Rubies is fantastic!
Thank you!
As I don’t have children and got married late in life, I know a lot about the working world. If you are desperate for money, supermarkets are open 24 hours a day and always looking for staff. You can work while children are at school if you have to. A lot of large employers have free on site nurseries. You would only be a few steps away from your children while at work. For those who want a career, most degrees only take 3 years. You can wait until your children have grown up and still have a career. Despite not having children I’m 100% in favour of stay at home wives and mothers. I found this site while I was looking for teaching on how to be a godly wife.
Bravo Baker2395
Wonderfully said.
You’ve probably answered this already elsewhere, but what should women (and their husbands) do if they are infertile / unable to conceive or carry their own children?
Perhaps adopt? Surrogacy?
Hi Amy, It’s up to each individual couple but I believe being a foster parent and/or adopting children is a wonderful thing for infertile couples to do since women were make to mother and there are many children who need mothering. Here’s a good post on this topic:
https://thetransformedwife.com/what-about-barren-and-single-women/
“It’s not in our nature to leave our homes and children each day and work in the workforce. This is in a man’s nature.”
Is it in a man’s nature?
I’m not certain either way; I’m just musing. For most of human history, in most cultures, both men and women did their tasks within a couple of acres of their house. Men tended to do the heavy farming work (the primary occupation for most men after the invention of agriculture), carpentry, large animal handling, trading, etc. Women tended to do the lighter farming work, textile work, cooking, caring for babies, etc. Even for non-farmers such as skilled craftsmen in towns, usually the workshop would be an attachment to the home or vice versa. Yes, miners and fishermen ranged farther, but the majority of men “worked from home.”
It wasn’t until the industrial revolution in the 19th century – the same one that pulled a lot of women
(and children) out of the home and into the mills – that most men also left the home, AFAIK.
I don’t know how problematic it is for men to work outside the home or not. Certainly it’s more biologically convenient for my husband to do so than for me, since I am still nursing my one-year-old, who cannot come to most modern workplaces the way toddlers would have been able to accompany their parents in the fields. And since most paid employment these days is collaborative or involves shipping, retail inventories, or collectively used equipment, it’s clearly not practical to tell all men to return to the home.
I am not presenting this as a rhetorical argument for women’s employment (although it is worth considering, as far as it goes). Women have biologically unique powers that are not respected or accommodated by modern career tracks, so yes, I think it is important to prioritize those special abilities over the capitalist forces that want to stamp them out as an inconvenience. I am grateful to be a mother and homemaker. I wish all women had these opportunities, and were taught to value them enough to consider choosing them.
I just think we should pause and consider history before we accept men leaving the home as a natural or good thing either, rather than at best a neutral thing. When fathers are absent all day, they can’t help raise their children for a minute so mothers can do stretching or exercises, hygeine, tricky tasks that require concentration or dangerous materials, or just have a half hour break now and then. We also have less of a “village” now of other women who could step in for an absent father, just when we need them the most.
No wonder many mothers resort to daycare. I feel daycare is harmful, especially under the age of 3, but I also feel the strain of being alone with a toddler all day. It’s fulfilling and joyful and exciting, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. But it would be even better with someone else there to spot me now and then. I can’t do physical therapy without him climbing on me, I can’t mow the lawn without him running into the street, and I can’t even wash the dishes without him climbing into the dishwasher. Eventually he will be able to follow directions more, but this is a developmentally normal stage for him. It would be easier if there were other caretakers within earshot.
There’s a good reason that God commands that women be the keepers at home, Julia, not the men. I trust that the Creator’s design for us is best. Even the Proverbs 31 woman’s husband sat at the city gate (he was the king) so some men have always worked away from the home.