Aged women are to "teach the young women to be... keepers at home" (Titus 2:3-5). This is in harmony with 1 Timothy 5:14: "I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully."

Controversy surrounds the fact that Paul says that young, married mothers are to be "keepers at home." Does this forbid a woman to work outside the home? "Yes," say some, "it is a sin for a woman to have a public job." Those of this persuasion should live by their conscientious conviction and not become contentious because others do not share their viewpoint.

Note, however, that the passage does not say a woman sins by working at a public job. It implies that she sins whenever she fails to be a keeper at home. Some women are home all day, but they are not keepers at home. There is no virtue in the fact that a woman stays at home, that is, that she does not have a job outside the home. She may be home all day and be lazy, or she may be a busybody "wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not" (1 Tim. 5:13).

On the other hand, a woman may work several hours a day outside her immediate household and not neglect her family in any respect. She may still be a keeper at home.

The virtuous woman of Proverbs fame is described as one who "looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness." Yet, "She perceiveth that her merchandise is good... she maketh fine linen and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the merchant" (Prov. 31:18, 24). Whatever a woman does outside the home, whether it be as a tentmaker like Priscilla, or as a servant in the gospel like Phoebe, she should not let that detract her from her duties in the home (Acts 18:3; Rom. 16:1; Phil. 4:3). A woman may, therefore, perform certain tasks outside the home so long as she does not abandon her responsibilities in the home.

A Christian, like Paul, may give himself wholly to the work of an evangelist while working at secular work. Paul "ceased not" to "warn every one night and day," but, at the same time, he employed his hands to provide the necessities of life for himself and his companions (Acts 20:31, 33-35). Likewise, a woman may be a keeper at home while finding time to labor at outside work.

The Bible teaches that a woman is to be a keeper at home. She may fail her obligation through idleness or by spending too much time outside the home at another job. However, to say that a woman is automatically guilty of sin because she has a job outside the home is to misunderstand the teaching and meaning of Titus 2:5. See Proverbs 31:10-31.

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