Though Paul doesn’t mention disciple-making in Titus 2, his calling to older women aligns well with the definition we’ve been considering:
Older women . . . 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. (Titus 2:3–5)
Here we have the basic elements of disciple-making. Mature women invest themselves in younger women, pursuing their growth and implicitly aiming to multiply mature women who can do the same for others. But within this framework, notice one significant difference between these domestic disciplers and the patterns of Jesus and Paul: Instead of focusing on the breadth of life over a long period, they take only a slice of “all that [Jesus] commanded” (Matthew 28:20), striving to train others in a particular area of maturity God has granted to them.
“We need a vision of life-on-life discipleship for lives with little room.”
If these women had tried to disciple others just as Jesus and Paul did, they may have given up in despair — or they may have neglected their own homes to do so. But disciple younger women in the basics of being a godly wife and mom? That process might still be costly. It might call for some creative restructuring of normal routines. It would certainly require the Spirit’s power. But even within significant life limits, it would be possible.
Titus 2 invites us (older woman or not) to dream a little differently about disciple-making. It invites us to see that even a limited life can have room for others. (Hubbard)
