WOMEN'S MINISTRIES -- Devotional for March 15, from "Good Seeds"

Guide older women into lives of reverence so they end up as neither gossips nor drunks, but models of goodness. By looking at them, the younger women will know how to love their husbands and children, be virtuous and pure, keep a good house, and be good wives. We don't want anyone looking down on God's Message because of their behavior. (Titus 2:3-6 TM)

This term has a dual meaning: 1) People ministering to the needs of women; 2) Women ministering to the needs of people. In today’s Scripture we see both angles in action. Paul is telling his young protégé, Pastor Timothy, what instruction to give the women in his church regarding certain attitudes and behaviors. But Paul knew Timothy couldn’t teach these things to the women in his church as effectively as the women could teach them to one another. So, after gathering together the more mature women for moral and practical instruction, he was to delegate them to infiltrate the homes and personal lives of all the church members, through the young women. What a blessed privilege, and awesome responsibility, to be entrusted with eternal truth, as seed to be sown in the lives of those looking up to them! Thus began “Women’s Ministries” in the local church! Just as in the qualifications for church leaders, the emphasis here is on personal character. Paul told his friends, “Be followers of me, even as I am of Christ” (I Corinthians 11:1). So the older women in any church must be able to say the same to the younger ones. Some of the instructions have to do with marriage, but the emphasis is on inner and outer purity, regardless of marital status. Solomon would call that beauty. So should we! Paul gives two reasons for these instructions: 1) The best teaching is modeling: we learn by casual imitation much better than by formal instruction; 2) The reputation of Christ and the gospel is at stake. It sounds like the most important ministries in any church are those carried out to and by the women! Timothy’s task was daunting: to find excellent women, to mentor them, and then send them out as “missionaries” right inside the church! Again Solomon speaks: “An excellent woman who can find, for her worth is far above jewels!” I know of a single gal who used to say, “I’m thinking about the man who hasn’t found me yet. I feel sorry for him, but I’ll keep praying for him!” On last account, she remains unmarried, but she’s been discovered by another Husband: the Lord and His church – and she continues to shine like a diamond in her witness for Jesus in the households of the church and highways and byways of the world!