OLDER WOMEN

Last week we looked at how God used older men in His service. Today we consider older women. “Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good… to train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure. To be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands” (Titus 2:3-5). They are to set a good example for the younger by being “submissive to their husbands” and by their “good behavior” as wives (I Peter 3:1-6). Sarah is an example of what a holy woman should be. She “obeyed Abraham and called him her master” and did “what is right.”Further advice is given in I Timothy 5 about older widows who should be recognized and supported if they have “put their religion into practice by caring for their own family.” The widow who is “really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help.” But the woman who “lives for pleasure… is dead even while she lives.”
In Thessalonica “a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women” were persuaded to become Christians (Acts 17:1-4). Paul also preached in Berea where notable men and women “examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (vs 11).
Ask for more about Ruth, Hanna, Mary and Martha.

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