New Verse "Of the Week"

My verses are more sporadic than weekly but...

Titus 2:4-5 tells older women to "encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored."

When I read this verse earlier this week it hit me in 2 different ways.

1. In my bible I wrote on the side that the "love" mentioned in the first half of this verse is phileo. I must have done it years ago, in high school. I went thru a massive translation stage duing that time of my life. But I doubt I really thought much about it. This verse really didnt mean much to me until recent years ;)

This time around however it is VERY relatable to my life and it struck me that the verse doesn't tell the young mothers to agape their kids/spouses. You see, agape is the affectionate love that is almost always used to describe a mother's love for her child or a wife's love for a husband. Phileo is more of a brotherly love, a freindship.

The more I thought about it though I realized that as mothera and as wives we very rarely reserve from agape-loving our children and husbands. It's in our nature. Of course we love them. But I also think that while our motives are filled with agape, our methods can lack phileo. I think that sometimes we can leave our children and husbands very sure that we love them but doubting that we like them or enjoy them.

2. I was also struck that this verse isn't written directly TO young wives and mother's from Paul, but rather it was a verse written to older women telling them to encourage the young women. It's so important for women to have female companionship, so important for mothers to have other more experienced mothers in their lives. To encourage them. And I am so thankful for all the experienced mom's I have encouraging me in my life.