Tonight I just started reading Praise Her in the Gates: The Calling of Christian Motherhood by Nancy Wilson. For my own purposes and hopefully for the benefit of any one or two readers that stumble upon this oft-forsaken blog, I’m going to summarize my reading here.
The first chapter discusses the “big picture” of a mother’s role in her home, to build her house, and not pull it down as the foolish (Prov. 14:1). This role takes a vision of the end result, just as builders need blueprints to get the desired end result. The results that Christian women are to be looking toward are found in Psalm 127 and 128 and Proverbs 31. Your children will be as arrows in the hands of a warrior, and your husband will be happy as he “gains stature in the community as a sign of the Lord’s blessing” (12). We see in Proverbs 31 that her husband and children rise up and commend her for her obedience. In Psalm 128, the mother is a fruitful vine that is central to the home – God uses her to bless her family, her husband, her church, and the community.
God desires godly offspring (Mal. 2:15), and women must work toward fulfilling God’s desire through diligence, hard work and faith. Though this is not always easy, we see in Proverbs 31 that this work satisfies the soul, and she can look with pleasure on her years of hard work. By the grace of God, her children will one day rise in her presence to bless her. Mothers of young children must maintain this view as they are dealing with diapers and discipline. She must, in her obedience, pass on her love for God and trust the Lord with her children.
Titus 2 also shows us the role of women in the Church. Older women should teach the younger 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 may not be blasphemed.” The older women are very important in the Church as the younger women are to turn to them for help in learning mothering and home-making skills.
The whole Church is strengthened when a woman fulfills her duties as a wife and mother. “This is actually their ‘ministry’ to the Church: being obedient wives who are raising godly children,” Wilson writes. Doing this makes for a healthy family which makes for a healthy Church.
Wilson concludes by saying: “When mothers see how valuable their contribution can be, they should be overwhelmed with gratitude to God for bestowing such good work upon them” (14).
I think my “summary” is barely shorter than the four-page first chapter. Everything seems so important that it’s hard for me to actually summarize. Perhaps I’ll do better next time.
Very nice summary. Why didn’t you tell us you had a blog?
Whoops.