Married Christians: Serving God While Married
Married Christians
31 Days of Women from Scripture
Volume 2
Day 30
Serving God While Married
Day Thirty: To the Married Woman
1 Corinthians 7:32-34
We have spent the last month studying many different women from Scripture. Yesterday I noted a couple of statistics:
Combined, the 31 Days of Women from Scripture Volume 1 and 2 covers eighty (80) different women.
Of those eighty women, how many are single women? By my count, twenty-seven.
That means fifty-three of those women are married.
I’m going to hazard a guess as to why married women are dealt with more prominently:
One is obvious: married women outnumber unmarried women because this is how the population grows.
I want to suggest a second one: that God speaks to married women and their situations more often because of what they have to focus on.
As we noted with the single women, they can be single-minded. While they do still have to consider other people and work to be an encouragement to them, they are not daily responsible for pleasing someone else. The married woman has to worry about pleasing her husband (1 Cor. 7:34).
As Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 7:28, 33 being married is not sinful, but it does cause one to be focused on worldly things.
To help us to live as we should while navigating the ins and outs of marriage, submission, and sexual intimacy God has given us many examples and many scriptures that teach on these topics.
Older women are given the charge of teaching younger women how to love their husbands and their children (Titus 2:4). The married (or those who are going to be) need to know how to be sensible (level-headed), chaste, how to keep a home, to be kind, and how to function in subjection to a husband’s authority (Titus 2:5).
The danger can be that women who do not know these things could dishonor the word of God and give unbelievers reason to reproach those who believe (Titus 2:5; 1 Tim. 5:14).
Being married does not make one a better or more valuable Christian. It simply gives a woman more things to consider.
A benefit to marriage, in Paul’s eyes, is that it is an outlet for sexual desires. It is better to marry than to always be suffering from the temptation and needing to be in control of yourself (1 Cor. 7:9).
Marriage does also give an understanding of the relationship between Christ and the church (Eph. 5:22-24, 32).
While often we may think that our best service to the Lord comes when we are married, because we have a home that is easy to share, our husbands can be elders or deacons (1 Tim. 3:2, 12), and interact more easily with other married women in serving.
As was discussed regarding the single women, we need to be careful that we are serving God the best we can where we are right now. Not holding out to do this or that once we are married. Service can be done at any time. While men may be limited because only married men can serve as elders or deacons, there is no such limitation for women. Everything a woman can do to support a congregation she can do whether married or single.
The married woman’s responsibility does have a hierarchy though. Her first priority is to God. Her second is to her husband. Children, family, and brethren come after them.
This means the married woman may have to choose. She may want to be involved in social activities, help at the school, or teach classes for the young ones in Bible class. But she cannot do these things if they keep her from caring for her husband and doing the things that are needed at home.
We have to realize that this places a level of importance to the seemingly mundane things that we do as wives and mothers. Cleaning the house, washing the dishes, cooking dinner, grocery shopping, laundry – all are a vital part of how we worship God on a daily basis. These are the acts of service and obedience that we are called to do because it is part of the role we take on when we marry.
Married women, do not look at the single woman and envy her freedom to serve in ways you cannot. You have many, many ways to serve. They are valuable. God recognized in the Proverbs 31 woman all the things she did – keeping her home, feeding her family, working to bring in extra money, and always doing good for her husband.
These are not “small” things. They are the life of your home. They are the precious things that make a husband and children feel loved and nurtured. For them to go out into the world with confidence, they need a secure home life that is safe and well-managed.
Married women, being an “excellent” or “virtuous” woman is to be a warrior whose armor lies under the soft feminine nature. A meek and quiet spirit means being confident in the role you fill and not looking to step into someone else’s place.
God has given you much to do. He realizes that sometimes the men in your life will make things hard for you (1 Sam. 25). Look at the women God has given you as examples to make your path easier to navigate:
- Eve
- Sarah
- Abigail
- Deborah
- Esther (after marriage to the King)
- Priscilla
- Hannah
- Elizabeth
- The woman in Proverbs 31
These women made mistakes, but they are also given as examples of obedient faith. They did so within marriage, and some had very difficult marriages.
There is nothing – unbelieving husband, hateful husband, having children, not being able to have children, persecution, times of peace – that has to come between you and your service to God.
Marriage doesn’t hold you back. Marriage doesn’t elevate you. It simply gives you your own set of circumstances to stand up for truth.
Take those opportunities and grow in the grace and truth through them (2 Pet. 3:18; 2 Pet. 1:5-11). Serving God while married is nothing more than diligently choosing to serve God from where you are right now.
Enjoy!
Click here to get a complimentary lesson from our “31 Days of Women from Scripture Volume 2”, “Reach Out. Lessons from the Woman with an issue of blood”.
If you would like to follow the rest of the #write31days challenge series click here – 31 Days of Women from Scripture Volume 2
If you are interested in the first 31 Days of Women series – click here – 31 Days of Women from Scripture
