Our Responsibility

Ruth and Naomi with Obed

Our Ladies Meetings do not take place the three summer months. Last Tuesday we started the new year and our Pastor’s Wife gave the lesson – and our marching order.  She started with scriptures giving our position in our homes.  Since older attendees out numbered the younger, we were pretty much head nodding – in agreement! Not nodding off!  Acknowledging facts, she turned us to Titus 2:4, not dwelling on 2:3 because even the youngest lady there has a younger audience to be a teacher of good things:

That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, (Titus 2:4 KJV)

It might seem that those things wouldn’t need to be taught, until you watch a family go through a divorce.  Wives and husbands who love each other work together, not tear each other apart.  How do we teach someone to love?

By knowing what love is and does.

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. (1 John 4:8 KJV)

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 of the Love Chapter lists very specific attributes of love.  The first verses tell us how we are without love and the bottom line is, “Nothing.”  When we gain love, we can accomplish our task of teaching young women to love their husbands – by example:

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

Most of us fail that first part.  If we ‘suffer’, everyone around us hears about it.  We tend not to be patient, don’t we?  The truth now!  Kindness?  Are we affectionate, mild, gentle, forgiving?  All of those fall under the definition of 'kind.'  Which one do we do best?  Worst? Do we hold envy, clinging to desires of what others have, reluctant to rid ourselves of that feeling?  Wanting to be, or have, better than someone else?  To be looked up to?

Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

Moving from what we should be to what we shouldn’t, how do we define unseemly?  Do we watch unseemly things on television, in the movies?  Are we selfish, seeking our own pleasures?  How easily do we become angry and vindictive?  What do we wish upon others?

Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

Really, do we?  Or do we say, “Serves them right,” or when hearing of another’s difficulties we think, “Hope they get what they deserve.” Perhaps we even pass along the detrimental information, whether it’s the whole truth or not?

Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

All things?  Surely not this “thing!!” that eats at me and angers me? “I’m supposed to bear this burden? If God loved me, this wouldn’t have happened!!”  God does love each and every one of us.  A personal God who is interested in our lives, but does not place us in a protective bubble.  He does give us hope that we might endure, living to see the results of His will.

Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

Lots of questions – what are our answers?