“That’s demeaning!”
It’s a familiar retort to texts like Titus 2:3–5, which implores women to work hard at home, or to 1 Timothy 5:14, which encourages women to manage their households, or to Proverbs 31:27, which portrays the ideal woman as one who is not idle but looks well to the ways of her household.
Did God give women this work to demean them?
Home Work Is Divine Work
God himself is the best of home workers.
He delighted in crafting this world and then ordering it, establishing days and nights according to the lights he had hung in the sky. He custom-designed homes for the creatures he had yet to bring to life — high mountains for the wild goats, fir trees for the storks, craggy cliffs for the rock badgers (Psalm 104:17–18). He then filled the earth with food for their delight. He had something else in mind for his image-bearers, whom he would charge with ruling his world. These he planted in a beautiful garden home he had prepared for them, a place where he would walk with them in the cool of the day and where they would delight in their own work of keeping, ruling, and filling it.
Our first parents failed to keep their home, but day after day, generation after generation, God continues his home work. He opens his hand to feed his creatures until the birds sing, the lions roar, and the earth is “satisfied with the fruit of [his] work” (Psalm 104:13). He clothes them too — some in spectacular patterns and others with astonishing plumage. For those dearest to his heart, he covered the shame of their nakedness with animal skins, and then he completed another work and robed them in righteousness.
God nurtures his people — body and soul. In ordaining the Sabbath, he ensured their bodies could rest and their minds could remember how he worked for them. He instituted a festal calendar, marking seasons of solemn reflection and exuberant feasting. He gifted his people with prophets, priests, and kings to impart his precious words to them, because bread alone was not enough to satisfy. Today, his people gather at the communion table to feast on his spiritual food and bask in their new robes of righteousness.
All these works are reflected in our homemaking. If God delights to do these things, how could they possibly demean a woman?
Home Work Is Good Work
A wise woman, whether single or married, delights to imitate God as she builds her home, orders her environment, and custom-designs places for the creatures she will bring into it. As God has done for her, she too will open her hand to feed and clothe those in her care, until her household is “satisfied with the fruit of her work.” She will labor to nurture them, dishing up bread for the body and bread of life for the soul. She will help establish routines and traditions, perhaps days of feasting and fasting, to train her household in the good ways of their God. She will provide good work for her creatures to do. In short, what God has done for his people, a good home worker will do for hers.
A woman’s home may swell to include a husband, children, strangers in need of hospitality, aging parents, weary neighbors, love-starved orphans, bereaved women, visiting missionaries, grandkids — or it may shrink with the launching of children, the parting of death, and the separation of moving. Her dominion may also expand as she adds animals, plants, properties, and other ventures into her care, and it may diminish with the onset of age. There is never-ending variety to the work as the needs and resources of a home change over time, but a wise woman weathers the storms of change, grows with added responsibilities, and engages her whole being as God’s image-bearer to embrace the work her home requires.
Home work is good work. Home work is divine work.
Home Work Is Hard Work
And yet, home work is hard work. When God cursed the ground, it became as barren as the fallen human heart, and the fruitful work of the garden devolved into the wearisome toil of life east of Eden. But into this cursed world, Jesus was born. Born to be a servant, he filled his life with many housekeeping-like acts. He spent his strength feeding the hungry, washing dirty feet, nurturing the sick, rejoicing at weddings, weeping at tombs, listening to fears, warning of danger, and instructing in truth. And though he repeatedly instructed his disciples that he would die at the hands of the religious leaders, they understood nothing (Luke 18:34). Nevertheless, Jesus labored at his repetitive and seemingly futile work.
Did God give Jesus this work to demean him?
Jesus never entertained such an idea. He embraced his work just as his Father gloried in his own work, declaring, “I delight to do your will, O my God” (Psalm 40:8; Hebrews 10:7).
Perhaps you feel like you repeat yourself a lot; maybe you think you’re exhausting yourself but accomplishing nothing. Home work is hard work. No one understood this better than Jesus. But Jesus’s work speaks a better word into our weariness. He — the Lord’s servant — may have cried, “I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing at all,” but his faith shines in his next breath: “Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand, and my reward is with my God” (Isaiah 49:4 NIV).
Our paths will mirror Jesus’s path. Home work — divine as it is — will weary us, but God will reward us for it. Jesus believed this, so he did not give in to despair, though he had more reason to than any. He served until death and then rose to a crown of glory.
And those who belong to him will surely do the same.
Home Work Is Rewarding Work
We do not build and order our homes, nurture their inhabitants, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and teach truth in vain. Through every diaper change, every truth lovingly imparted, every meal prepared, God, in his mysterious way, accomplishes his glorious plans for you and for this world. Indeed, the work of the home shapes us for a better home kept in heaven — the city of the living God, where Jesus now prepares a better place for us, where he will clothe us in bright white bridal garments, adorn our heads with the crown of righteousness, and seat us at the table where we will feast and be forever satisfied with the work of his hands.
This week, as you go about the work of your home, generously open your hand and your heart to satisfy those the Lord has given you. When weariness and the seeming futility of it all confront you, try on Jesus’s words for size. “I delight to do your will” (Psalm 40:8). “My reward is with my God” (Isaiah 49:4 NIV).
Desiring God