Do you enjoy being home full time? Some young women get bored being home all day so they find part-time jobs or other ways to fill their days away from home. With all of our modern conveniences, it’s easy to have the time to leave the home and find entertainment elsewhere. Women would rather go out shopping, go to Bible studies, play dates, eating out, and anything but look well to the ways of their household by being keepers at home.

Gill’s Exposition has this to say about the term keepers at home:

“Keepers at home: minding their own family affairs, not gadding abroad (beyond or out of the walls of a house); and inspecting into, and busying themselves about other people’s matters. This is said in opposition to what women are prone unto. It is reckoned among the properties of women, by the Jews, that they are ‘gadders abroad’: they have some rules about women’s keeping at home; they say, ‘a woman may go to her father’s house to visit him, and to the house of mourning, and to the house of feasting, to return a kindness to her friends, or to her near relations–but it is a reproach to a woman to go out daily; now she is without, now she is in the streets; and a husband ought to restrain his wife from it, and not suffer her to go abroad but about once a month, or twice a month, upon necessity; for there is nothing more beautiful for a woman, than to abide in the corner of her house; for so it is written (Psalm 45:13) ‘the king’s daughter is all glorious within’.”

Gad means “go about from one place to another, in the pursuit of pleasure or entertainment.” We are told in the Word that in the last days, many will be “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:4). I don’t think this is anything new to our day and age or why would God have the Apostle Paul command women to be keepers at home back then? It’s difficult to look well to the ways of our household if we are away from it frequently. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find women at home these days, even Christian women. Many homes sit empty all day long.

Nancy Wolgemuth in her book Adorned wrote: “Today it’s common for homes to be little more than physical structures where people park their bodies at night, take their showers in the morning, and then disperse in a hundred different directions as they start their day. The clock ticks on the mantelpiece, the thermostat cycles off and on to regulate the temperature, the microwave dings as residents run in to grab a snack and then run out again, but there’s little shared life.”

Homes are to be a place where families live. Mothers are keepers at home. Children are being raised by their own mothers in their homes. Fathers work hard to pay for their homes and provide for their families. They want to come home to peaceful and orderly homes after a hard day at work. This is how homes are supposed to function but too many women prefer to “gad about.” Many women don’t like being “stuck” at home all day.

If you find that you can relate to being bored staying at home, find productive things to do around your home and with your children. Develop a new talent that is useful in your homemaking or life. Learn to garden, can your food, learn about natural healing, create a budget and stick to it, clean more efficiently, declutter, cook new meals, read a book, write, study the Word, memorize scripture, sing new songs, knit, crochet, sew, quilt, paint, frame your windows, paint your walls, teach your children all of these things, practice hospitality and have people over for meals, exercise, and on and on the list goes.

There are many things to keep us occupied in our home. We don’t need to be always looking to be entertained. We aren’t supposed to live lives of entertainment nor be seekers of pleasure, but called to be productive (work hard) and a blessing to others, especially bringing glory to God. Being at home is your God-ordained ministry!

Many women also “gad about” by having jobs where they leave their homes every day for hours. They don’t have the time to look well to the ways of their households. Few women are superwomen and can accomplish everything. Something has to go and it is usually their marriage that suffers the most. The children suffer, too, and need their mothers in the home, making it a safe haven for them.

“And this they say is what is meant by the woman’s being an helpmeet for man, that while he is abroad about his business, she is , ‘sitting at home‘, and keeping his house; and this they observe is the glory and honour of the woman. The passage in Isaiah 44:13 concerning an image being made ‘after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man, that it may remain in the house’ is by the Targum thus paraphrased: ‘according to the likeness of a man, according to the praise of a woman, to abide in the house.” Upon which Kimchi, has this note. ‘it is the glory of a woman to continue at home, and not go abroad.'” 

Few men today seem to understand the value of having a wife who works hard at home instead of in the marketplace. It makes their lives much easier if they have a wife who looks well to the ways of their household. When a child is sick, they don’t have to worry about them because they know their wives will care for their sick children. Dinner will be ready when they come home. The housework will be done so they don’t have to do it. They can relax and enjoy their family when they come home if they have a faithful, hard-working wife at home.

He who finds a wife finds a good thing, the Word tells us. Men need a help meet and if you are married, you were created to fill that need for him. Make his life as easy as possible by staying home and looking well to the ways of your household. Learn to be content and work hard there; for this pleases the Lord and your husband!

And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.
1 Timothy 5:13, 14