 If you haven't read the entire chapter of Titus 2 lately, now is a good time to get a fresh view of it. Maybe you’ve sat across from a younger woman and wondered what you could possibly have to offer her. Your life doesn’t look like a tidy testimony. Your marriage has had its hard years. Your faith has been tested in ways you don’t always talk about. You’re not a Bible scholar. You’re not a counselor. And yet — here she is, across the table, needing something you might not even realize you carry. Titus 2 has something to say about that. Not a polished, idealized version of you. The real you — the one who has walked with God long enough to have scars and stories and a faith that has been tested and held. There is a passage in Paul’s letter to Titus that women in the church have heard many times. It is quoted at mentoring luncheons, printed on bookmarks, and referenced in women’s ministry brochures. And yet, for all its familiarity, Titus 2:3–5 carries a weight that we have sometimes only skimmed the surface of. Paul instructs the older women to be “teachers of good things” — and then he names what those good things are: loving husbands and children, being self-controlled, pure, kind, working at home, submissive to their husbands. At first glance, it reads like a list of domestic virtues. Practical. Relational. Even a little ordinary. But look at why Paul gives this instruction. He closes the thought with a phrase that changes everything: “so that the word of God may not be reviled” (Titus 2:5, ESV). This is not a lifestyle column. This is sound doctrine in action. The Doctrinal Stakes of Ordinary Mentoring The passage sits in a larger context. In Titus 2:1, Paul tells Titus to “teach what accords with sound doctrine.” Then he maps out what sound doctrine looks like for different groups — older men, older women, younger women, younger men, bondservants. This is not a detour from theology. It is theology lived. What Paul understood, and what we sometimes miss, is that doctrine does not stay in the mind. It moves into the home, into the marriage, into the way a woman handles grief or conflict or disappointment. The older woman who has walked with God through decades of real life carries something the younger woman cannot yet possess: the proof that the Word holds. When she sits with a younger woman and teaches her — not just what to do, but why it matters, who God is, what He has proven faithful to do — she is guarding the credibility of the gospel. She is saying with her life: the Word of God is not reviled here. It is honored. It is true. She Is Qualified Before She Opens Her Mouth Before Paul ever assigns the older woman a teaching role, he describes who she is. Verse 3 says she is to be “reverent in behavior, not a slanderer or slave to much wine.” These are not afterthoughts. They are the foundation everything else is built on. Reverent in behavior. This is a woman whose life is oriented toward God — not just in what she believes, but in how she moves through an ordinary Tuesday. She is not performing godliness for an audience. She has internalized it. Not a slanderer. The Greek word here is diabolos — the same root used for the devil, the accuser. A woman who tears others down with her words cannot build up a younger woman with them. Her speech has to be marked by truth and kindness before her teaching means anything. Not enslaved to much wine. Paul is pointing at the broader category of self-mastery — the willingness to work on controlling her own appetites and impulses. A woman who cannot admit that she must work on her own struggles is not yet in a position to help another woman learn to do so. This is convicting, and it is meant to be. Titus 2 is not simply asking older women to show up and share their opinions. It is asking them to be women of genuine character — women whose lives are already, however imperfectly, pointing toward God. That is the soil from which real mentoring grows. Deeper Than Domestics We sell Titus 2 short when we reduce it to household tips and marriage advice. Not because those things are unimportant — Paul clearly thought they mattered — but because the deeper invitation is to formation. The older woman in this passage is being called to shape a younger woman’s understanding of what it means to be a woman of God. That includes the hard things. How do you love a husband who is difficult? How do you remain self-controlled when your emotions are screaming? How do you hold onto faith when life has been unkind? A mentor who only teaches surface-level skills leaves a younger woman equipped for the easy seasons and underprepared for the real ones. But a mentor who has suffered and stayed — who has doubted and returned — who can say “I have been in that valley, and God was there” — that woman teaches doctrine with her very life. She makes the gospel legible. The Younger Woman Has a Role Too We often read Titus 2 as a charge to older women and nothing more. But the passage implies something just as important on the other side: a younger woman who is willing to be taught. That is not as easy as it sounds. Receiving instruction requires a kind of humility that does not come naturally to any of us. It means sitting with someone whose life looks different from yours and deciding that her experience has something to teach you. It means resisting the impulse to dismiss an older woman’s perspective because the cultural landscape has shifted, or because her circumstances were not exactly like yours. The younger woman who positions herself to receive — who actively seeks out the wisdom of women further along the road — is practicing a form of trust. Trust in God’s design for how His people grow. Trust that the woman across from her carries something worth receiving, even if it is offered imperfectly. Mentoring is never a one-way transaction. The older woman pours in. The younger woman receives and, in time, pours out to someone else. That is the chain Titus 2 envisions — and it only works if women on both ends are willing to play their part. A Legacy, Not a Program There is a quiet urgency running beneath the surface of this passage. Paul is writing to a young church on the island of Crete, surrounded by a culture that does not share its values. He knows the faith will not survive on institutions alone. It must be passed on — person to person, generation to generation, woman to woman. That is still the world we live in. And that is still the call. What you pour into the women coming behind you does not disappear when you are gone. It travels forward. The younger woman you invest in today will one day be the older woman someone else is watching. Your faithfulness — your willingness to show up, to be honest, to point back to Scripture when it would be easier to offer platitudes — becomes part of her story. And part of the story she will one day tell. This is the legacy Titus 2 envisions: not programs or curricula or events, but women shaped by women shaped by the Word, stretching backward and forward across generations. So What Do You Do With This? If you are an older woman — or even a woman who is simply further along the road than someone else — start by asking God to show you who needs you. You do not need a formal program to obey Titus 2. You need eyes open to the younger women already in your orbit: in your church, your neighborhood, your workplace, your family. Someone is already watching you. The question is whether you will be intentional about what she sees. If you are a younger woman, start by asking God to show you who to learn from. Look for a woman whose faith you admire, whose life you want to understand better. You do not need her to be perfect. You need her to be willing — and so do you. And if you are somewhere in the middle, you are probably both at once. Receive from the women ahead of you. Pour into the women behind you. That is the posture Titus 2 describes — and it is one the church in every generation has desperately needed. The question is not whether you have enough to offer. The question is whether you are willing to offer what God has already given you — the hard-won wisdom, the tested faith, the scars that became testimony. Because somewhere, a younger woman is watching. And she needs to see that the Word of God holds.  Click on this image for a free download of "My Titus 2 Story". This free one-page resource pairs beautifully with this month’s post. Reflect on the post and how God has used someone to mentor you with their life experience and example. Also consider who God might be calling you to mentor. Then, share your story.  You get an extra free resource this week, because it fits so well as you consider who and how to encourage the younger woman God has put in front of you. A younger woman can do this, too; there is always someone younger than you to encourage (a teen, or a new believer). Click this image to download "A Legacy Letter" and use it to leave your legacy.
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Much of my time spent as a Biblical Counselor is focused on serving the younger generation. I have grown to love counseling and mentoring young adult women and teen girls. I am blessed to have these opportunities often, and it has sparked a passion in me for what I call “Intergenerational Ministry.”
I have written on this topic several times on blogs, in some resources I wrote for my website, and in an entire course I offer that teaches women to mentor the next generation. In the majority of these writings I have focused on the call in Titus chapter 2 for women to teach the younger women. We are all older women to somebody, even if you are still in your 20’s, so I will continue to make this my ministry focus as my hope is that more women will become equipped to do deep discipleship (Biblical Mentoring) in their sphere of influence. I want to take a bit of a different approach here. This time, I want to challenge specifically the younger generation. We are all younger than somebody, but for the sake of this challenge, let’s say that the younger generation is those of you in your 20’s, 30’s and early 40’s. Yes, you have the call to mentor those even younger than you. You can read all about that in my Biblical Mentor materials. My slightly different challenge here to you as younger women is this: Do not forget the older generation! Over the past decades, our culture has taught us to sit in classes with only those who are our age, to socialize primarily with those of the same age, to go to church activities segregated by age, to do Bible Studies specifically written for a certain age group, etc. It is well engrained in us to gravitate towards those who are closest to us in age. This is not always a bad thing. Sometimes, it is helpful and encouraging to sit and talk with people going through the same season of life that you are in. Some good iron-sharpening can happen in those contexts. But I am observing something among women in the body of Christ that troubles me. I see Women’s Ministries full of age segregated events and Bible studies. I see small groups designated only for young couples. I see that when someone from the younger generation visits our churches, those who first approach them to welcome them tend to be those in the same age group. It is rare for a young woman to approach an older couple who walks in the door to visit. (It is less rare to see an older woman greet a very young woman as she walks in the door, but this happens as well.) There are exceptions to this of course, but watch the entrance doors of your church sometime and you will probably make some of these same observations. Young women: I am concerned that you have forgotten the older generation. When you gravitate primarily to people your own age, to the disregard of the older women, you are missing out on one means of grace that God has given us: one-another. Read all of the one-anothers of Scripture sometime, and you will not find any that are only for certain generations. They are for all of us. I have heard younger women complain about the lack of mentors in their lives, and I agree with them. This is why a focus of my ministry is to equip women to mentor the younger women. Thus the need for a new season of Women’s Ministry - one that focuses on our Titus 2 calling to teach the younger generation, and not just what to teach them, but why. (Don’t stop at Titus 2:3-5 as most women’s mentoring writings will do. Read the entire chapter, and don’t miss the details!) For the sake of this challenge to you younger women - rather than passing the blame to the older women, please consider what your role is in the lives of women in your sphere of influence. Is there an older woman that you have never greeted at church? When you plan a get-together, do you invite any older women, or do you always stick to your own age group? When you sign up for a Bible Study, do you check to see if it is age segregated or if there will be mixed generations? Mentoring cannot happen unless we are in mixed situations, obviously, but we so often neglect to acknowledge this. There are Biblical consequences to forgetting the older generation: * You become self-centered. "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." Philippians 2:3-4 * You miss the blessing of wisdom that comes with age. ”Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding?" Job 12:12 * You deny an older woman the chance to fulfill her Titus 2 calling. Read the whole chapter. * You will not learn how to become a mentor when you are the older woman. Hebrews 13:7 “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” * you might be wounding someone by ignoring them and leaving them out. 1 John 4:20 "Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” * You will only receive advice from those who have no more experience than you do. Proverbs 15:22 "Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.” * You are hurting the church by sowing disunity among the generations. Ephesians 4:1-6 "As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." Can you extend grace to the older woman who seems to be ignoring you? Perhaps she is uncomfortable about approaching you because she thinks that you will not be interested. Old and young have the very same insecurities and we all need grace. Maybe you can be the one to make the first move. I bet two things will happen: 1. she will be very surprised, because it is unexpected and 2. she will be so blessed. She may end up being a very good friend. I am so blessed to consider several young women among my closest friends, but it took an intentional approach on their side as well as mine. It has been worth it. And…..it is Biblical! Young ladies, reach out to an older woman soon. I’d love to hear how it goes. TITUS 2:3-5 “Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.”
I have the great privilege of being a mentor to several younger women. It has become a passion of mine to encourage women to mentor the younger generation of women and girls. Of course it does not necessarily take a certified Biblical counselor to address the needs of the younger generation. I do believe that Biblical Counselors are uniquely qualified and positioned to address deeper discipleship needs and life struggles, but so many of people’s problems can be walked through with a gifted and equipped Mentor. I have engaged in intergenerational relationships intentionally over the past few years. God has blessed this in my ministry, and I have seen the fruit of fulfilling my own Titus 2:3-5 calling. If you are not spending some intentional time with women from generations other than your own, you are missing the mark. I believe Titus 2:3-5 is not just a suggestion - it is a command. As I write this, I have asked God to break your heart. He has broken mine - for the things that break His. My heart breaks for hurting younger women - women who have suffered from difficult circumstances, women who suffer from mental illness, women caught up in the bondage of sin and its consequences. My heart breaks for girls - girls who are from broken homes, girls who carry shame from bad choices, girls who feel lonely and insecure, girls who have no one to teach them about Jesus. In order to mentor well, your heart must be broken first. You need only to look around your church to see women and girls who need a Word of hope. Do not be fooled by outward appearances - shame, loneliness, guilt, suffering, and sin like to hide behind a facade. If you are a Christian who can articulate a clear Gospel, with the understanding that it applies not just to salvation but also to sanctification, you are able to share a Word of hope with a hurting woman. In fact, you are called to it. Once your heart is broken, remember The Gospel and all that God has provided for hope and healing. He binds up the brokenhearted and sets the captives free. I want to be in on that Good News, don’t you? What a privilege it is to walk alongside another and see what HOPE God provides for her. Everyone is a younger woman AND an older woman at the same time (unless you happen to be the rare woman who is the oldest and wisest in your sphere of influence!) I once asked a group of 40 women of all ages at a retreat to write on two notecards. One card was to be addressed to the older women (all 40 did this, even the oldest women who felt that some of the others were more spiritually mature even if not chronologically older). We called these older women the “Big Sisters.” As they addressed the older women, they were to tell them what they would like to learn from them. The second card was to be addressed to the younger women. Again, all 40 women did this because everyone has someone who is younger than they are. We called these younger women the “Little Sisters.” They were to give a Word of hope or advice to the younger women. The insights from this retreat activity were more profound than I expected. It broke my heart all over again for the younger generation of women, and it also confirmed my passion to serve them, especially the hurting. We displayed these cards throughout the retreat, but there were a few cards handed to me privately by women who asked that they not be displayed in that context. I have changed slightly the quotes in order to protect their privacy, but the insights are intact. This is just a small sampling of those insights in hopes that it will spark a desire in you to consider the ministry of Biblical Mentoring. I will not be commenting on these insights, because I think that they speak for themselves. May God break your heart for what breaks His. These messages were written as older women to the Little Sisters. “To My Little Sisters” ~ *”Fall in love with Jesus. You are not alone. You have Our Lord with you at all times. You also need to build a relationship with a Big Sister who can show you how to grow up and walk faithfully with Jesus.” *”Find your beauty, confidence, self-worth, and esteem from God alone.” *”I don’t think I have much to offer you. I don’t have a big testimony, and I don’t feel adequate to help you with your life’s struggles. I am so sorry.” *Your identity is in Christ and His love and sacrifice. That’s much more important that any self esteem.” *”I once had an abortion and I’ve never told anyone. If you have had one, please tell an older woman and ask her to help you to heal.” *”Forgive us for judging you. We, too, have our insecurities. Just ask us about that.” *”You will never regret your life, if it is spent following Jesus and seeking His face.” *”Don’t rush through the seasons of your life. They are meant to be enjoyed.” *”Don’t be afraid to come right out and ask me for what you desire from me.” *”Ask me those taboo questions. I won’t be shocked, I’ve had them too.” *”I really do want to spend time with you. I’ve just been afraid to ask. I am afraid you will reject me.” Written as younger women to the Big Sisters: “To My Big Sisters” ~ *”Be a good listener and encourage me.” *”I am afraid of how the older generation will judge me because of my past. How do I get over that insecurity?” *”You seem very busy. I hate to take up your time. I don’t think I am worth it.” *”Teach me how to love someone who says they don’t love the Lord anymore.” *”How do I move on from my mistakes?” *”I feel like I am all alone. I am afraid to approach you.” *”How do I trust God with my children who don’t want to follow Him?” *”I need encouragement through many trials. Please help me.” *”How can I keep my marriage alive?” *”I made shameful mistakes in my past that I am afraid to share. Can I trust you?” *”Why is it that no matter how much we know God, we continue to doubt His purpose for our lives?” *”Please remind me in all my daily struggles how to keep my eyes on the cross and for all that I do and say to be Gospel-centered.” *”I want to hear your life story. I know you have wisdom. Please share it with me.” |
MENTORING THAT MATTERS:
Mentoring at Bridge the Gap matters because it applies all the "one-another" passages in Scripture, which impact the lives of mentees and mentors as they follow Christ. The one-anothers in scripture speak to how we are to relate to and serve our fellow Christians. On Mentoring Matters, we will look at various aspects of one-another care and related topics. All posts are written by Ellen Castillo unless otherwise noted. 
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