Women Make Great Mentors
I work for an organization that prioritizes mentoring. That fact scares me: sweaty hands, beating heart, uneven breath. I am overwhelmed when I reflect on the “go-to” passage on women’s mentoring (Titus 2:3-5). Maybe you experience similar discomfort.
I am an older woman—no matter how you define that term. Oh I know, Titus’ “older” can be interpreted as older than the potential mentee. But on almost any scale, I am older: I can’t escape my age’s implications. Not everyone is ready to mentor, but I should be. Poorly-qualified mentors undercut their curriculum and confuse their mentees. According to Paul, effective “older women mentors” model “what is good” (2:3), as they share their experiences and lessons learned while loving their family members, living self-controlled and pure lives, working at home, being kind, and submitting to their own husbands (Titus 2:4-5, ESV).
Do you see why this list is intimidating? Not just because it is hard to achieve. Even more because It implies vulnerability and bravery, the willingness to display scars even more than successes, fails more than finishes, tears more than trophies. Effective women mentors aren’t perfect. In fact, perfection and mentoring are generally incompatible. Only Jesus offers perfect mentoring. In relationship to us “older” women, our mentees don’t mirror our perfection; they mirror our realism.
And, how do we older women know how “to teach what is ‘good’”? Sadly, we often discover what is “good” after first dabbling in what is “not so good.” The Greek word for good (kalos) has muscles: in different contexts, it translates as beautiful, handsome, excellent, suitable, commendable, and admirable. We sometimes only recognize beauty after we have wrestled against the ugly, the slipshod, and the shameful. Because the older women speak out of their pain and their process, their kernels of wisdom are hard-won and genuine. We know what it is like to snap at our children, to roll our eyes at our husbands, to be jealous of the perfect homes we see on Pinterest, to eat too many nachos, to yell at the drivers on the road. We learn to repent and ask forgiveness.
Through suffering and repentance, loss and doubt, older women cement their life lessons, replacing the natural, self-serving, and easy with the commendable, excellent, and honorable. No wonder Titus 2:3 describes the worthy older woman as both reverent in behavior and disciplined in word and deed. Such learned discipleship involves both a “put off” and a “put on.” Paul offers two vivid negations to characterize this woman—1) she is not a slanderer, and 2) she is not a slave to much wine.
These negative descriptors underscore truth: godly older women reveal their character by what they refuse to do. Consider the first negation. Slander comes easily: gossip, criticism, sarcasm, snarky words jump from our mouths as we react to situations rather than reflect the Savior. The word Paul uses for “slanderers” is literally “devils “(diabolous).. By implication, people become “little-Satans” when they accuse, discourage, and demean others. Older women leaders must set an example for speech that passes the Ephesians 5:29 test. According to Paul, five adjectives define correct words: non-corrupting, edifying, fitting, timely, and gracious. And James teaches we can only achieve such edifying words if we are also wise (3:17).
In Titus 2, Paul’s second job-qualifying negation focuses more on actions than on words. Women who are “addicted to much” wine (or to shopping, Instagram, exercise, soap operas, political squabbling, for that matter) will not serve Christ well. Looking again to Ephesians 5, Paul contrasts drunkenness with wine to being filled with the Spirit (18). Addictive lifestyles demonstrate the impossibility of serving two opposing masters.Younger women need mentors who can genuinely enjoin, “Follow me as I follow Christ” (cf. I Corinthians 11:1). Biblical mentoring is as more about who the mentor is than what she says.
Mentors are sinners, sinners who face their sin bravely, daily, and fiercely. And they share their victories. Older women are like rock climbers offering to harness themselves with younger sisters in the midst of the journey. The old climbers may have a broader experience, but the rock wall is still a beast to scale. Older women educate, but only the Holy Spirit empowers. Younger women can embrace their God-given place within the protection of the Christian community if they will join with older women in the difficult, often terrorizing but always stretching, adventure of discovering how to know good, speak good, and do good.
