Copyright © 2012 The Black and White Forum. All Rights Reserved. Snowblind by Themes by bavotasan.com. Powered by WordPress.
Keeping the Bible in mind as much as possible how would you define femininity? I am especially curious about femininity as a single woman. There seems to be numerous verses on how to be a good wife and mother but very few on how to honor God through your femininity if you are single.
God has given us His Word as a guide for our lives, so of course He would give us an example of what godly feminity looks like, single or married, children or no children, divorced or widowed.
The first passage that comes to mind would be Titus 2. Titus is a book on conduct, the way we ought to live as models of christian living.Verse 5 says, “This instruction is so that the Word of God may not be dishonored,” and verse 8, “So that the opponent may be put to shame, having nothing bad to say about us.” Verse 10, “So that we may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect.” And we see in verse 11, “God’s grace has appeared, bringing salvation to all men.” It is through our conduct, our obedience to the Word of God that the opponent is put to shame and God’s salvation is brought to people.
John MacArthur says, “If the saving grace of Christ is to reach all men, it’s going to depend on the character of the church. If we honor the Word, silence the critics and demonstrate that God is a saving God by our transformed lives, then the gospel will be powerfully effective.”
In Titus 2 we are given very specific roles and responsibilities, a job description if you will. We see there are instructions for older men, younger men, older women and younger women. The phrase ‘older women,’ refers to women who are past child bearing/child rearing age which during that time, a time of no birth control, women could be having children late into their forties and thus rearing them until their teenage years which means ‘older women’ are those probably above the age of 60. So, I will assume that you are among the ‘younger women’ in that passage and although it does include responsibilities for both a wife and a mother, it also includes other helpful information for living a life that is pleasing to God as a woman who is single or not. ‘so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.’
sensible – to have sound judgment, common sense, right thinking, right priorities, very basic. (i.e. knowing your priorities, thinking right and applying wisdom.)
pure - morally pure, virtuous, sexually faithful to their husband (or if they are single, to their future husband.) In 1 Timothy 2, you see the words “modestly and discreetly,” that there is thought behind your actions, your dress, your words, and that thought is: “I never have intentions of distracting someone from worshiping God or potentially causing another believer to sin.”
kind – gentle, tender-hearted, merciful, thoughtful
A perfect Biblical example of those characteristics would be Ruth. Ruth was a widow, but single nonetheless so studying her life is a great way to see how God desires a single woman to honor Him.
Ruth was loyal, sacrificial and selfless (she gave up EVERYTHING to follow after God – what do we need to give up in order to follow whole-heartedly after God?), she is a woman of action, a hard worker, responsible and diligent (she would have had to get up early in the morning and would have worked in the fields all day in the heat…), she wasn’t looking for hand outs and was willing to do whatever it would take to make sure that those she loved (Naomi – mother-in-law) were taken care of, she made no excuses, we never see her complain about her situation which was devastatingly bad from a world’s perspective, a giver (2:18), through her suffering she maintained emotional stability and made good decisions (especially important with women and our tendency to run off of emotions), she is a risk-taker (chapter 3), respectful: seeks the advise of an older, wiser follower of God and heeds her advice, she is sweet, tender, gentle, we see her patiently seeking God, waiting, listening to and loving God, she has integrity and character (3:10 – she could have had any guy she wanted), she had a great reputation (3:11 – people knew who she was and were in awe of how she was sacrificially, selflessly living; so much so that they were talking about it)… most importantly we see from the very beginning and throughout the book, Ruth’s love and pursuit of God “Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.”
1 Peter 3 says ‘but you worry about the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, precious in the sight of God, for in this way in former times, the holy women also used to adorn themselves.’
Focus on your pursuit of God, of becoming more like Christ rather than the external, rather than what the world and our culture tells us what defines and makes up a woman, what we should act like, look like. Look to the Bible for your answers to those questions, not the world, and you will no doubt be molded into exactly who God wants you to be.