"Keepers at Home"

Before you read the rest of this you should go read THIS POST because my post here is in agreement with that one and reading that one first will compliment and clarify what I'm talking about here.

I think that in the Bible in Titus 2, the phrase "keepers at home," the part that people aren't tracking with is not the HOME part. It's pretty much agreed that the meaning of that is that women need to make sure their house is kept up. I think it's the KEEPERS part that people don't understand... at least it was for me at one point. People see "keepers at home" and think "housekeeper" as in maid, servant, whose duty is to cook and clean and carry out orders. Well if that's all a woman's good for then count me out! Who would sign on for that? It sounds like some sort of mindless slave. The thing people can't see is that "keepers at home" doesn't mean a maid. It means a gatekeeper of the home. A guardian of the environment which we call home. Being a keeper at home is a high calling indeed. It's not a maid, it's so much more beautiful than that! The Keeping part means guiding, guarding, and tending. It doesn't mean merely cleaning. We are to guide our children as they learn and grow physically, mentally, and spiritually. We are to guard against bad things coming into our home- like a gatekeeper keeps the enemy out of the city, so we should keep the ultimate enemy from entering our homes. We are to guard our home environment and our children from evil influences. And we are to tend our family like a gardener tends his vegetables. We are to nurture and encourage our little sprouts, and fertilize our relationships, prune out bad attitudes/clutter/anything that chokes the life out of a family like weeds, and cultivate good soil for a family to grow and thrive in by blessing our families with our attitudes and the work of our hands. The work of a keeper at home is not mindless servitude. It's an exciting and challenging daily adventure, a challenge to guard and bless those that we love. Being a keeper at home would seem to me to be more focused on being a spiritual thing, and is not just a physical do-the-dishes thing. Of course having a tidy house and dinner planned out will improve the spiritual atmosphere of the home, but that's not the whole package. It's just the icing on the cake.