… a sister … has questioned what right some of our younger women, throughout the brotherhood, have in teaching at lectureships (to ladies), ladies inspiration days and such. She argues that Titus 2:3-4 states that this should only be done by older woman. Some are getting the idea that no female can teach at any time unless she is an “aged woman.” They are also taking the definition that can be found in the Gospel Advocate Commentary of a youth being anyone from 18-40 to say that an “aged woman” allowed to teach must be at least 40, thus excluding anyone under than the age of 40 from teaching.
Titus 2:2-8 is a rare occasion in Scripture where each age group of accountable souls is addressed in a single context: aged men, aged women, young women and young men. The references to the aged women and young women primarily concern the God-ordained, feminine domestic role, that is, in the home. The passage presumes that the aged women previously were the successful recipients and faithful practitioners of what they were expected to convey to younger women. The information that the aged women were to pass on to younger women pertained mostly how to be godly wives and mothers.
Significantly, the elders were not entrusted with the training of young married women, a function that pertained to the godly older women in the congregation. There are seven qualities to be instilled in the younger women, two mentioned in this verse, five in the next. They are: (1) husband-lovers, (2) children-lovers, (3) sober-minded, (4) chaste, (5) workers at home, (6) kind, and (7) in subjection to their own husbands. (Coffman, James Burton, James Burton Coffman Bible Study Library, (Abilene: ACU Press) 2001.) [Emphasis added, ler]
Titus 2:1 To aged and young women (vv. 3-5) considerable emphasis is placed on the foundation of the home. (The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1962 by Moody Press) [Emphasis added, ler]
The type of information with which the “aged women” were charged to teach to the “younger women” was not confined to a classroom situation. It involved the type of interaction one would expect between generations within a family or an extended family and in the family of God.
Further, the Titus 2:2-8 passage does not purport to be the totality of what the Bible has to say about women teaching or what they should teach. Aquila and his wife, Priscilla, taught a preacher and taught him subject matter other than that listed in Titus 2 (Acts 18:26). The apostle Peter quoted the prophet Joel (who wrote through the guidance of the Holy Spirit) and announced that “daughters” would “prophesy” (Acts 2:17). Philip the evangelist’s virgin daughters were prophetesses (Acts 21:8-9). Both the definition of the Greek word for “daughter,” which is “female child,” and the description of Philip’s daughters as virgins indicate that they were not “aged women.” Though whom prophetesses would instruct and under what circumstances is regulated by 1 Timothy 2:11-12 and 1 Corinthians 14:34, the content is not necessarily confined to teaching about domestic responsibility (Acts 18:26; 2 Timothy 1:5).
The Greek word translated “aged women” occurs only once, here, in the New Testament. It refers to “an old woman” or “an adult female advanced in years” (Louw, Johannes P. and Nida, Eugene A., Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains, (New York: United Bible Societies) 1988, 1989.) The “aged women” of Titus 2:3 is similar in the Greek and its use in 1 Timothy 5:2, “The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.”
Essentially, the Titus 2 passage requires women who are experienced and otherwise apprised of the female role in the home to teach younger women respecting their domestic role. Nothing in the passage either prohibits women from teaching other subjects or from younger women teaching as well, if they have something to teach, irrespective of whether it pertains to the domestic role of the woman or some other Christian doctrine. All that can be said confidently respecting Titus 2 about “aged women” is that they must teach the younger women, not that younger women are either incapable or not to teach, too.
