IFB Churches: Patriarchy and Keeping at Home (Part Four)

“The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young 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 2:3-5 KJV)

Is it not a wonderful picture that pastors paint? This beautiful, modest young woman with children running around her immaculately decorated house while she dusts, joyfully singing hymns as her feet glide gingerly down the hall? One of my favorite scenarios is from a lecture where a woman had deep frown lines on her face from the stresses of working a secular occupation, but when she obeyed God’s principles, becoming a stay-at-home mother, the lines suddenly disappeared within a few months, revealing a cheerful smile and glow! If only it were that simple.

According to IFB churches, being a “keeper at home” typically requires living off the husband’s income as the mother homeschools the children, instilling a specifically Biblical foundation, all while managing home-cooked, nutritious meals, dishes, laundry, vacuuming, cleaning, scrubbing, dusting, diapers, potty training, bodily fluids, and still sacrificing to stay home with puking children so her husband can receive the Word of God. These women fulfill their “God-called duty” by isolating solely to church and home, taking themselves out of the workforce for a minimum of eighteen years and accruing the emotional burden of being solely responsible for their children’s development and education, keeping their homes pristine for visitors at any time of day, preparing multiple meals, and being presentable to their husbands, makeup and all, by the time he arrives home with dinner on the table. Their children must walk as ducks-in-a-row outside of the home, and all the wives’ duties completed with a joyful, grateful heart, lest a rebellious spirit finds a stronghold, destroying their marriage and their husbands’ ministries. How preposterous of IFB churches to base entire lifestyles and doctrine on three words in a verse, claiming to “rightly [divide] the word of truth”! Titus 2:5 exhorts the aged women to teach the younger to be “keepers at home,” but not before God rebukes a man for not keeping at home.

“Yea also, because he transgresseth by wine, he is a proud man, neither keepeth at home, who enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people” (Habakkuk 2:5).

How peculiar that without this verse, a “keeper at home” is a home-maker or at stay-at-home mother, but immediately after men are introduced into the picture, the description quickly becomes “one who spends time with his or her spouse” and is not a busybody. Suddenly a “keeper at home” is equivalent to 1 Thessalonians 4:11, “And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business,” not to be idle, busybodies, and tattlers (1 Tim 5:13)! IFB churches take a warped view of the Proverbs Thirty-One Woman, “God’s bare-minimum standard for godly ladies and wives,” to establish women as house-wives, sewing late hours into the night, toiling in the kitchen all day, and being a testimony to their husbands in public. What they neglect to emphasize are the maidens she employs (Prov 31:15) and how she considers a field and buys it herself (vs. 16) with the product of her own labor (vs. 13). How strange it would be in IFB churches to recognize that the woman considers the field herself, and buys it with her own money, rather than asking her husband’s permission to use his income.

While greatly under-emphasized, God gives women the ability to use discernment not just within the family, but in the outside world, even in secular occupations, to provide for the well-being of their families. If women were truly less than men, God would never have referred to “wisdom” as female. In Proverbs, Solomon says “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her” (Prov. 4:6-7). If women are truly the weaker vessel intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually, why does God use a woman, specifically a mother, to teach King Lemuel how to identify a virtuous woman to marry? Nowhere in the Bible does God command women to work solely from home, but He does desire for husbands AND wives to keep at home. Both men and women can be drawn away excessively through friends, hobbies, work and activities, leading to neglect of the children and home, and leaving the other spouse longing for love and affection in other places. Despite God’s rebuke in Habakkuk, however, allowing women out of the home is often met with frustration and disdain because it does not fit perfectly in the IFB mold of a woman’s place under the man. Just yesterday, we heard yet another pastor say, “The Bible is clear: a woman’s place is in the kitchen.” These ideals, though seemingly honorable and acclaimed to place women on a pedestal, create the perfect storm of long-term, hidden abuse.

*Disclaimer* This series, “Why Am I a Baptist?” is NOT an exhaustive list of IFB doctrine. Because of the autonomous nature of IFB churches, this evaluation is of the movement as a whole, rather than a hard-and-fast rule. It may be possible to find healthy IFB churches, but they are few and far between because of various associations known as “camps,” typically surrounding well-known preachers or preference of worship style.

Why Am I a Baptist?
IFB Doctrine: The Baptist Distinctives
IFB Churches: Patriarchy in Church Polity (Part One)
IFB Churches: Patriarchy and the Leading Lady (Part Two)
IFB Churches: Patriarchy in Marriage (Part Three)
IFB Churches: Patriarchy and Keeping at Home (Part Four)
IFB Churches: Patriarchy and Sexual Obedience (Part Five)
IFB Churches: Patriarchy and Domestic Abuse (Part Six)
IFB Standards: Rigid Music and Dress Standards (Part One)