Some Questions Relating To Whether or Not A Woman May Work Outside the Home

Gary Kerr
05/06/12 - Marriage and Family

QUESTION #1 – May a Christian woman work outside the home?

1. This is impossible to answer with an unqualified "yes" or "no."
2. Many Bible women performed tasks that are not directly connected to the duties of a housewife and mother who stays in the home at all times.
   1. Lydia, a "seller of purple," who was undoubtedly in Philippi (and away from her home in Thyatira) on business. (Acts 16:12-16)
   2. Pricilla, who sometimes shared with her husband the work of teaching God's Word, as well as sharing with him an occupation. "They were (not 'he was') tentmakers." (Acts 18)
   3. The N.T. occasionally speaks of women who labored with Paul in the Gospel, work not directly related to the role of a housewife or mother. (cf. Romans 16:1-3; Phil. 4:2-3)
   4. The "worthy woman" of Proverbs 31:10-31 performs many tasks not necessarily directly related to the role of housewife or mother:
      1. She makes clothes and sells them. (v. 16)
      2. She buys land and cultivates it. (v. 16)
      3. From her "profits" in business she buys grapevines for her land. (v. 18)
      4. She sells her products in the market place and works late.
      5. She does all of this while maintaining her responsibilities to her husband and her children. (vv. 11, 15, 21, 27, 28)
   5. Ruth (2:1-3), who labored in the fields in order to sustain Naomi and herself.
3. Putting all this together, it would be wrong to declare across the board that godly women cannot work outside the home under any circumstances. To make a statement like that would be to ignore many Bible examples to the contrary.

QUESTION #2 – Do these Bible examples give freedom to all Christian women to work outside the home?

1. Some must work.
   1. Widows who are not "widows indeed."
   2. Wives whose husbands have somehow become incapable of supporting the family.
   3. Women who are divorced by ungodly mates.
   4. Women whose husbands' income is not sufficient to meet family living expenses.
2.  In other cases, women work by choice, and not by necessity.
   1. Some claim necessity when in reality they have chosen a lifestyle that requires an income level higher than one breadwinner can supply.
   2. When one by choice exercises a liberty to the neglect of a direct command, that one has sinned.
   3. When a woman works outside the home to the neglect of the command that she guide, rule, or manage her household, she sins.

QUESTION #3 – Under what circumstances, then, would a Christian woman be guilty of violating the teaching of Titus 2:5 and 1 Timothy 5:14?

1. To me, this is almost completely a question of priorities.
   1. Christians are commanded to have the proper priorities in their lives.
      1. Martha was busy with those duties that we normally associate with the role of a housewife and mother. She was "distracted with much serving." (Luke10:38-42)
      2. At the same time, Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus learning God's will.
      3. Jesus told Martha that Mary had made the better choice.
      4. From this story, one learns that spiritual matters take priority over physical needs.
   2. Some might argue that with the wife and mother working, there is extra income, and more can be given to the church for the Lord's work.
      1. This is only a rationalization if it is used to ignore or neglect a clear command of God.
      2. Even though more money may be given, that does not excuse the sin of neglecting to do what God has commanded.
2. God has commanded women to be the managers of their homes. Everything they do must be either an adjunct to that command, or subordinate to it.
3. This might be the proper place to bring up the subject of farm wives. For generations, farm wives who worked "outside the home" by helping their husbands in the fields, in the barns, and in the garden, were not accused of abdicating their role of housewife and mother.
   1. Both of my grandmothers feed and milked the cows, cut and hauled hay, and did many other chores around the farm.
   2. These duties often kept my grandmothers away from "the house" during daylight hours.
   3. My father was almost literally "raised" by two of his older sisters.
   4. I am confident that my grandmothers (both of whom were Christians) were managers of their homes, and as completely as they could they fulfilled the God-given role of caring for their husbands and children.
   5. I believe that what many Christian women do today in working outside the home is no more or less than what our grandmothers have done for generations; they did whatever they could to assist the head of the family in providing a living for family members.
4. This might also be a good time to discuss the false idea that "staying at home" automatically equates with being a good wife, mother and Christian.
   1. One of the very things that Paul warns about in our text is the danger of women who become "idle, wandering about from house to house...gossips and busybodies." (1 Timothy 5:13)
   2. It is often argued that women cannot work outside the home because of the dangers of abdicating their roles as housewives and mothers.
   3. The same argument could be made about women who stay at home all day with little or nothing to occupy their time other than frivolous TV programs and dangerous conversations with other "stay-at-home" women.
   4. The point is that you cannot argue for or against a position based on a supposed abuse.
      1. Undoubtedly some women work outside of the home for the wrong reasons, or because they do not have their priorities straight.
      2. That does not prove in and of itself that it is WRONG for women to work outside the home.
      3. There are inherent dangers for a woman who stays in the house all day as well.

QUESTION #4 – Under what circumstances, then, may a woman work outside of the home?

1. When she has fulfilled, or is in the process of filling her duties as found in 1 Timothy 5:14 and Titus 2:4-5, the duties of being a manager of the home.
2. If she is properly raising her children, and scripturally making a good home for them and her husband.
   1. I see no other way to interpret the many Bible passages that speak about women working and participating in activities that are not normally associated with the role of a housewife and mother.
   2. Remember our point about priorities; she may NOT neglect her duties to the home.

QUESTION #5 – Can she "delegate" her house work and some of her child-rearing duties to someone else?

1. This seems to me to be nothing more than a quibble that doesn't really prove anything about what a woman may or may not do. It is often accompanied by "horror stories" about day-care facilities.
2. Let's use as an example fathers who are commanded to raise their children "in the training and admonition of the Lord." (Ephesians 6:4)
   1. May he "delegate" a part of that responsibility to his wife? Most Christians would say that he certainly can, and even that he MUST do this.
   2. He is NOT abdicating his responsibility when he allows his wife to take over a part of the work of training and admonishing his children.
   3. Even though she may do MOST of this work, his is still the responsibility of overseeing that work and seeing to it that it gets done, and gets done in the proper way.
   4. By the same token, I believe that a housewife/mother may delegate some of her duties to others without automatically violating Scriptural principles in doing so.
3. Once again, we come to a question of priorities.
   1. Does a housewife/mother violate her God-given responsibility to be a "keeper at home" when she assigns someone else in the family the vacuuming or laundry chores? Would that not be "delegating" some of her "housewifely" duties?
   2. b. Does she violate her God-given responsibility to her children when she leaves them in the hands of a baby-sitter for an evening? Why/why not?
   3. How long exactly may she leave her children in the care of another before she becomes guilty of violating God's Word? One hour? Four hours? Six hours? One day?
   4. How many times a week may she go out and leave the children with a babysitter? Once? Twice?
   5. May she take a trip with several other Christian ladies, or with other members of her family, or her husband, and be away overnight? Be gone for two night? Three? How often could she do this type of thing?
4. The point of the above is that these are questions that cannot be answered unequivocally from the pulpit by a preacher or Bible class teacher.

1. 1. Each husband and wife, father and mother, must determine for themselves what is best for them, what works for them, and how they are going to fulfill their God-given roles.
   2. b. This assumes, of course, that they both have their priorities right, and want to put God and His word first in their lives.

CONCLUSION:

I have known preachers and teachers who criticize women who work outside the home, and the "weak" husbands who "allow" them to do so. The presentation usually includes some boasting about the critic's own wife, who has turned her back on the world in order to obey the commands of God.

The basic problem with this type of reasoning is that it makes laws where God has made none. "Keepers at home" cannot mean "stay in the house." If it does, then there are many women in the Bible who violated that command (cf. Priscilla & Lydia). We cannot preach our opinions and bind them as God's law.

Many preachers who define "keepers at home" in this way also incorrectly define the word "housewife." A housewife is not necessarily someone who runs the vacuum cleaner, does the laundry and dishes, and cooks the meals. A woman may be a housewife who is acceptable and pleasing to God who never runs the vacuum or lifts a hand to wash a dirty dish.

To conclude that ALL women who work outside the home sin is to speak where God has not spoken. Each case must be judged individually, and even then that judgment must be made by the families involved, and not by anyone else, no matter how well-meaning they might be.

Diligent, faithful, caring, serving Christian women who happen to have paid employment "outside the house" can still be godly housewives and mothers. I certainly teach against women working outside the home for any length of time if such keeps them from being "keepers at home" or "workers at home." The sin, however, is NOT that she works outside the house (whether at a place of business or on the farm). The sin is in her not fulfilling those responsibilities that fall on her from God and His Word.

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