Jerry C. Brewer
Growing out of the responsibility to perpetuate humankind is the responsibility of parents— one woman and one man—to provide both material and spiritual necessities for their offspring. This was, and remains, the primary responsibility of the father, as Paul reminds us. “But if any provide not for his own, and specially those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Tim. 5:8). It also was, and remains, the God given responsibility of the mother to be a keeper at home and guide the children. This is absolutely the only pattern for the home that can, and will, produce morally upright citizens.
In more than the half-century since World War Two ended, women of all ages have filled the work place. Additionally, the Feminist Movement began agitating a few decades ago for “equality” on the job between males and females. Ask a young girl today what she wants to be when she becomes an adult and, chances are, she won’t say, “A homemaker” or “A mother.” A secular, humanistic society has so tainted even the thinking of Christians that it is now expected that females will all grow up to pursue careers outside the home. These things ought not so to be. Nothing is clearer in the New Testament than that young women should be keepers at home in their God-ordained roles as homemakers.
We often quote Paul’s injunction to Titus about “sound doctrine” and exclusively apply it to such things as the plan of salvation, the church, etc. But, have you ever looked at Titus 2:1 in its immediate context? The “sound doctrine” he delineates in the verses immediately following includes, (1) that older men be sober, grave, sound in faith, (2) that aged women behave themselves properly in holy behaviour and as teachers of good things, and (3) that the older women teach the younger women “to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.” (Titus 2:4-5). The home as God ordained it in the beginning is the home where fathers, under Christ’s authority, provide for their families and mothers, under that same authority, guide their households.
The modern phenomenon of so-called “day care,” or what I call “Kiddie Kennels,” where mothers drop off their children as they would a pet puppy and head off to work in the outside world, has produced a generation of adults who have no direction in life but the natural urges of the flesh. That is not God’s plan for rearing children, and even some people in the secular world now recognize that “Feminism” has created a society where it’s legal to neglect one’s child—so long as he’s placed in day care. That is pointed out in the following:
“Bernard Goldberg’s new book, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News, deserves to be a best-seller. …Goldberg — an Emmy-winning broadcast journalist who spent three decades at CBS — seeks to disprove the notion that media are fair. Best of all — from my perspective at least — he blasts one of the most protected bastions of political correctness: working mothers. In a chapter titled ‘The Most Important Story You Never Saw on TV,’ Goldberg documents the steady decline in the behavioral, emotional and physical health of America’s children that has taken place as the percentage of latchkey and day-care children has increased. …Goldberg asks why the major media have not done more reporting on this. Why haven’t Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and their counterparts at the other major news networks shone their probing spotlights on growing evidence that great numbers of America’s children are getting the old short shrift by parents who decide that making more money and gaining status are more important than providing the best life for their children? Because this is about women, and in America’s newsrooms, women are a ‘protected class.’ Feminists are highly threatened by the sort of evidence Goldberg cites. …‘And so,’ writes Rich Lowery in the May 2001 National Review, ‘We are willing to do anything for the children except suggest that their mothers should stay with them; we are committed to leaving no child behind unless it is by his mother hustling off to make her career” (John Rosemond, “Author Cites Working Moms In Deterioration of Morality,” in his column, “Parental Guidance,” The Daily Oklahoman, Mar. 11, 2002, 5B).
The pattern for developing children into decent, God-fearing, adults was given by inspiration centuries before modern child-sociologists and psychologists created their industries upon humanism. There are four ways in which a child must develop to be a decent citizen of any society, and those are expressed by the inspired Luke regarding the human maturing of Jesus. “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52).
The development of the child Jesus began with Himself. He “increased in wisdom and stature.” The order of these two things indicates the importance of them. Of first importance are the mental and physical development of the child. The next order is also revealing. He increased “in favor with God and man.” Thus, Jesus matured mentally, physically, spiritually and socially. But parents today are more concerned with the social and physical aspects of a child’s life than with the mental and spiritual. They want popular, athletic children with impoverished souls. And all of this springs from the greed that drives mothers to the workplace with the blessings of today’s fathers. These things ought not so to be, and will not be in the homes of godly parents.
