Tim Peck is the minister of the Life Bible Fellowship Church of Upland California. Listen to his thoughts about wasting opportunities:
The older I get, the more I realize that there’s a lot of waste when you’re young. The young have so much idealism, but so little wisdom. They have boundless energy and enthusiasm, yet they lack many of the life skills necessary to harness that energy and enthusiasm for lasting good. They’re ready to take risks, yet often they take foolish risks, rather than calculated ones. So much is wasted during our youth.
And the older I get, the more I realize that being older has a lot of waste as well. When we finally have the wisdom of hindsight, we no longer have the guts to take the risks we did in our youth. All that wisdom, learned from the school of hard knocks, yet its wisdom we’ll probably take to our graves with us. We have the perspective of experience, yet we distrust new ideas, so we waste that perspective. Aging has a lot of waste.
But what would happen if the young and old respected each other? What would happen if the generation gap closed some, so the vigor and idealism of the young was joined with the hindsight and wisdom of the older? What would happen if the young and old had a common vision of God’s kingdom work on this earth, and instead of discounting each other, they respected each other for what each group had to offer? It would almost be like the day of Pentecost, when the church began, and God’s Spirit was poured out on both men and women, young and old, slave and free, where all without distinction received the Spirit of God because of their faith in (and obedience to) in Jesus.
Perhaps, this is why Paul singles out older men (Titus 2:2), older woman (2:3), young women (2:4), and young men (2:6), so as to encourage them all to help one another out and not let their age become a stumbling block to themselves and to one another.
Here are some qualities that ought to characterize older women in the church.
First, older women ought to be reverent in their behavior (2:3). The phrase “reverent in behavior” is actually one word in the Greek. It is known as a hapax legomenon, which simply means this word is a rare word only used here in the New Testament. The basic foot meaning refers to being priestlike and it came to refer to that which is appropriate to holiness. In other words, older women are to be godly examples of holiness.
God’s want to display in older women (and of course not just the older women, but especially them) His glory through their holiness. So when others see their virtue and godly behavior, they will honor God and see Jesus in the character and the lives of such seasoned saints.
Anna is a prime example of this. She was a widow at the age of 84, and “she had never left the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers” (Luke 2:37). Because at her age she lived for the Lord so honorably and faithfully, God allowed her to immediately recognize the infant Jesus when Joseph and Mary brought Him to the temple. The moment Anna saw baby Jesus, she began giving thanks to God and told others about God’s wondrous plan of redemption for Jerusalem (v. 38).
Now folks, this was before Jesus had done anything significant in terms of a miracle. This was before Jesus had said anything significant. How did she know that this child was the Messiah – God in the flesh? To me, one baby looks like all other babies. What made this baby so special and how did Anna know? Simply: God opened her eyes and showed her. Why? Because she was a woman of holiness and seeing the Messiah and knowing what God was about to do became her reward.
With Timothy, Paul had this to say: 9I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, 10but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God – 1 Tim. 2:9-10 NIV
God wants women to dress the part. What is their dress code? “Good deeds,” which is “appropriate for women who profess to worship God.”
Second, older women are not to be malicious gossips (Titus 2:3). That is, older women are not to listen to nor should they take part in the slander of others. This is easy to do since they are most likely as this age not to be working or bearing children. They got time on their hands and it is easy to be caught in the latest gossip club of the church. Men are capable of abusing others physically and women are capable of abusing others verbally, which in some cases can be more destructive and longer lasting.
The words “malicious gossips” is the Greek word “diabolos,” which means “slanderer or false accuser.” It is a term used of Satan, whom Jesus described as “the father of lies” (John 8:44). Thus the gossip is not so much idle chatter, but falsely slandering another person secretly to others and spreading rumors all throughout the church.
Third, older women are not to be enslaved to much wine (2:3b). Notice that Paul said “much wine” and not “some” or “little” wine. Paul is not forbidding the drinking of wine. He is forbidding becoming a slave to over indulgence. Paul is referring to drunkenness.
On the island of Crete, some had turned to wine as a stimulant and a means of ameliorating the pains, frustrations and loneliness of old age. This was not to be true of older Christian women in the church.
“Enslave” means “to be held in controlled against one’s will.” Thus the idea of bondage is pictured here. Therefore, “much wine” becomes more of a prison than a means of escape. When older women do such things, three things happen:
1. They bring dishonor to the Lord.
2. They give to the church a bad reputation
3. They lead others (especially younger women) into their ungodly example.
Paul just laid out the negative things that can tarnish the life and testimony of older Christian women. But are there positive things older women are to do?
Yes, there are and we will see what they are in Part 4.
