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The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Christian leaders join Dominic Steele for a deep end conversation about our hearts and different aspects of Christian ministry each Tuesday afternoon.
We share personally, pastorally and professionally about how we can best fulfill Jesus' mission to save the lost and serve the saints.
The discussion is broadcast live on Facebook then available in video on our website <u><b><a href="http://www.thepastorsheart.net">http://www.thepastorsheart.net</a></u></b> and via audio podcast.
The Pastor's Heart with Dominic Steele
Paul Grimmond: How godliness differs for men and women and how to teach it!
How does godliness play out differently if I am a man, a woman, a young man, a young woman, a husband or a wife?
All Christians are called to live like Christ. Why does the Apostle Paul choose to write about what godliness looks like for the older and younger and for us as men and women, rather than more generally for us as people?
Does our age and sex have implications for the challenges we face in living for Jesus?
Are these things just human constructs or elements of divine gift?
And what implications does this have for how we think about discipleship and our lived experience of complementarian ministry?
Paul Grimmond is a senior lecturer at Sydney’s Moore Theological College. Paul gave the keynote address at the Priscilla and Aquila conference.
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how does godliness play out differently if I am a man or a woman, a young man, a young woman, an old man, an old woman, a husband or a wife?
Speaker 1:It is the pastor's heart, it's dominic steel, and paul grimmond is with us. All christians are called to live like Christ. So why does Paul, in places, choose to talk about godliness as older and younger, as men and women, rather than just as for people? Does our age or sex have implications for the challenges that we're going to face in living for Jesus? Are these things just human constructs or are they elements of divine gift? And what implications does all this have for how we think about discipleship and our lived experience in Christian ministry? Paul Grimmond is a senior lecturer at Sydney's Moore Theological College. He gave the keynote addresses yesterday at the Priscilla and Aquila conference and he is here today to talk about that. Paul, looking at Paul's letter to Titus and Titus 2, it seems to me that some of these encouragements to godliness that are addressed at, if you like, specific demographics they're amongst the most contested verses in the New Testament.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it's interesting, isn't it? What I find fascinating is that there's a string of encouragements to godly living, some of which we just go of course that's what you should do as Christians and then read the next one and you go oh there's no way.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure that that's what we should be doing, which I find really interesting. So some of them are not contested at all. Some of them are deeply contested. Why is that the case? Well, I think it's actually because any time we're reading the Bible, god says all sorts of things to us, some of which feel kind of more normal and natural and some of which feel uncomfortable because of who I am in the particular time and moment in history in which I live. So, at different points in history and at different places, or even at different points in my life, something that wasn't controversial 15 years ago might feel controversial to me now because of the people that I work with or because of my life experiences, or any one of a number of different things.
Speaker 1:Just, as you say that. I'm remembering that I was teaching on Titus to a group of humanities students doing the media ministry and by far and away the most controversial verse was just that first verse of Paul, a servant of God and apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of God's elect, for their knowledge of the truth, with the definite article that leads to godliness, that there was a thing called truth and you need to hold on to that. And it does feel to me like actually some of the angst over truth has kind of I don't know softened a little over the last 10 years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think there's some merit in that. I think we isn't it interesting how, as life goes along, what feels contentious shifts and changes with kind of what's going on in our society.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and in different cultural groups In different cultural groups. So a few years ago now I was preaching on 1 Timothy 2 and the verse about women, you know, not teaching men and being silent, and I was talking to a friend about how I was struggling with that and trying to work out what to do within my context and the kind of difficulty people were experiencing with that, and he said, oh, he was from a very different ethnic background from me. He was pastoring a church with people from very different ethnic background. He said we've done that passage recently. Nobody asked a single question about that verse, the teaching part.
Speaker 2:The teaching part they did ask about women should adorn themselves in godliness and not with braided hair or gold or jewels or costly attire. He said that was the verse that really created a lot of issue for us. And so he said we had all these questions about what does the word not mean in that verse? So it's fascinating as we read parts of Scripture that feel normal to us. We'll go, of course that's true, and at other times and usually it's because of forces from our culture or our personal experience push against us, we start to read much more cautiously and carefully.
Speaker 1:In your talk yesterday you spoke about intrinsic clues in the text, about how we should approach these verses, and then extrinsic issues. Can you just give us that riff?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, I mean, I think actually, if you think about how communication occurs in the Bible, each thing that we read occurs in the context of its book. So in the case of Titus, the reason that we actually read some of these things and go, oh, of course they're just normal and natural and true, can be because of our experience. But if we're Christians, we want to go oh, actually that should be part of my experience because it fits in with the truth that God's communicating here. So, rather than just feeling comfortable or uncomfortable because of my history or cultural moment, I want to be asking the question how do these truths fit in the unfolding message that God's speaking to us at this point in the scripture? And so the most important thing as we start reading is what's internal to the book of Titus? How does Titus teach me to read these instructions? Are they for me, against me? Are they massageable? That kind of thing.
Speaker 1:So what are they?
Speaker 2:So I would say well, actually, the very first verse, paul says that he's an apostle set apart for the sake of Jesus, but for the sake of God's elect, for their knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness. And that idea of truth and godliness going hand in hand occurs right through the letter. So, chapter 1, you appoint as elders people who are godly because they have to teach the truth and teach the life that goes with it. And in fact the false teachers that they're combating are known by their lifestyle, who they are. They deny the truth that they speak by the way that they live. Truth and godliness go hand in hand. And then, for the rest of the letter, from chapters 2 to 4, paul alternates between sets of instructions. Here are things about how to live, with declarations of why we should live that way, and each time it's about the nature of what God has done for us in Jesus, or the nature of what God is like and his work through the spirit in our lives. Give us an example.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Titus 2.1,. Paul says to Titus teach what accords with sound doctrine. But he doesn't go on to give you like a lesson on justification. He says older men are to be like sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled. They're to be kind of sound in faith, in love and in steadfastness.
Speaker 1:But I always expect him to give the justification you do. Why does he get that wrong?
Speaker 2:Well, we use the word doctrine and we think these kind of big ideas, but Paul's talking about what aligns with doctrine. I think in Scripture we don't just teach truth about who Jesus is that's vitally important, and don't get me wrong but Paul thinks there is a way of life that goes together with Jesus as Lord, and you teach the whole package, and they both inform and make sense of each other. So in chapter 2, there's this set of instructions to older men, younger men, older women, younger women, to bond servants, etc. And then, in verses 11 to 14, he comes back, though, to the big principle Well, you should do these things, because the grace of God teaches us to say no to ungodliness and to put on self-control and upright and godly lives. But what I find really helpful about those verses is the way that they situate where we are in history.
Speaker 2:The grace of God has appeared. It's saved you and prepared you for godliness. Oh, and, by the way, you're waiting for the appearing of our great God and Savior, jesus Christ. You're going to meet him again. And who is the one you're going to meet? The one who died in order to redeem you from lawlessness and to purify you to be zealous for good works. So God has done this work. You're going to meet Jesus again in the future and now. This is the way that you live, as someone who has been changed by that gospel. These instructions are the godliness that goes side by side with the truth about what God has done in Christ.
Speaker 1:What about the extrinsic scriptural cues that relate here?
Speaker 2:As we read a passage, right if I had read in Titus 2, you know, because Jesus has died for you and because you're going to appear again before the throne of the one who's died to save you from all this and save you for good works, you should brush your teeth every day, you should put away some money into a retirement savings plan and you should do something nice for yourself once a week. We would all kind of go, ah.
Speaker 1:It doesn't fit with the broader tone.
Speaker 2:It doesn't fit right Now. God can say something once and we would still need to take that seriously. But the reality is that in many of the instructions in the shape of the Christian life, it's not just a one-off drip, but it's a thing that we see at many other places in Scripture.
Speaker 1:I thought that about 1 Timothy 2 that I've wondered if 1 Timothy, 2.11 or 10.11 wasn't in the Scriptures, would actually my pattern of Christian ministry be different? And I'm not sure that it would, because there's a framework of teaching Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I think that's right. So most of the commandments, even the contested ones, occur in multiple other places in the New Testament. So it's not like this is a one-off, but this seems to be the pattern of the way that Paul talks about the Christian life. So I think that those extrinsic cues kind of help us as well to go. When Paul talks about these things, he's not thinking that he's sharing something that's like this is a cultural thing that you just should do for the sake of evangelism. He's saying this is the kind of life that matches with someone who's trying to follow the lordship of Jesus.
Speaker 1:Now saying this is the kind of life that matches with someone who's trying to follow the lordship of jesus.
Speaker 2:Now, what's the argument against what you've just said? Um, uh, so I mean, what are the feminist theologians say, yeah, I mean, there's a number of options. Um, some of them will argue about that like evangelistic purpose.
Speaker 1:Paul says in this passage live this way in order to adorn the gospel and that would have adorned the gospel in the first century, but it doesn't today.
Speaker 2:So if I was to kind of characterize that argument, I'd say it's something like there's these culturally relative practices that, for the sake of the gospel, you should put aside and change, because life changes and this is what's going to honor Jesus now. That's one kind of framework. There's another one, which I've read, where a woman argues for a particular kind of ethic, a virtue ethic rather than a kind of ontological, deontological ethic where she says what's the difference?
Speaker 2:Well, so deontology would be like these are a set of commands, whereas virtue is more kind of. Here's a general picture of what a person should be like, and that picture is a bit kind of rubbery and fluid, but it describes some kind of good things that you should be trying to do and then she argues on the basis of that. Clearly, some of the things here are really culturally relative, and again it comes back to the cultural relativity piece, I think.
Speaker 1:And some of them actually saying this is a harmful teaching.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. Elizabeth Schussler-Fri enza, in the introduction to the commentary on the pastoral epistles in her kind of wisdom commentary series um, says scripture is this garden full of beauty and real danger. And at one point she actually says if you submit yourself to scripture's worldview, you will be harmed. Basically so she. So she sees herself as… Men and women. Men and women Harmed and to be protected. She says if you submit yourself to the I think it's the worldview or to the picture I think you might have the quote there somewhere, dominic yeah, she basically says if you submit yourself to this… oh, here it is …there'll be harm as critical feminist interpretation for wellbeing.
Speaker 1:this wisdom commentary seeks to elaborate the beauty and fecundity of this scripture garden and at the same time point to the harm that it can do when one submits to its world of vision.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So they're actually deeply committed to the fact that scripture is it's not God's book, it's a human book. They believe that it's a book that was written by people trying to do some good things and bad things in this world. Because it's part of a religious discourse that affects people, they feel like they need to engage with it, and even many of them would describe themselves as wanting to know God or live for God in some way, shape or form. But they have a very different view of scripture. And so Annette Huizinga, who's written the pastoral epistles commentary she's written a lot in the kind of pastoral space in the last kind of 10 to 15 years. In her commentary she argues that Titus wasn't written by Paul, it wasn't written to Titus and it wasn't written about the church on the island of Crete.
Speaker 1:Okay, whereas you're saying, actually, if I know God, then that will work for my good, for my family's good, absolutely, for my husband's good, my wife's good, yeah, and I need to trust him that this truth will lead for godliness for all of us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So what do you want us to do?
Speaker 2:What do I want us to do? What does God want us to do?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think God wants us to engage deeply with the commands that are here in the passage right and to think about well, what do they mean? How do we make sense of them in light of the rest of Scripture? How do we actually live them out in practice with one another? And I think that that means taking these commandments seriously and working out how to place them in their biblical and gospel context.
Speaker 1:Okay, Well, let me bowl them up to you, and I mean, here's some godliness commands for young men, old men, young women, old women. You Titus 2, verse 1, are to proclaim these things consistent with sound teaching. Older men are to be self-controlled, worthy of respect, sensible, sound in faith, love and in endurance.
Speaker 2:The things that really strike me there, the idea of being kind of dignified like me there, um the the idea of being kind of dignified, sober-minded, etc. Um, the commentaries talk a little bit about kind of almost as an older man wearing a halter being restrained. You know how we put halters on little children to stop them running away horses yeah, interesting. And as we get older, um, it's possible to again enter into that space where we get a bit carried away with ourselves. Isn't it To be the person who speaks, who sprouts forth their opinion, who tells others what to do, who's quick to speak.
Speaker 1:I've had 20 years of experience here, yeah, well at least 20, don't you?
Speaker 2:And so, whereas Scripture's giving this picture of this dignified, sober, restrained man who's sound in faith and in love, so a man, as he grows older, who's one of their great works under Christ, and what he's longing for the Spirit to do in him is to actually grow in love for all of these people, for the young, noisy people who make decisions too quickly, who don't respect the years and wisdom that you have. Rather than feeling the need to assert yourself in that position, what would it mean to live amongst people, to love them well, to give them an example of what godliness likes, and to speak the truth in love.
Speaker 1:In the same way, older women are to be reverent in behaviour, not slanderers nor slaves to excessive drinking. Is it only women who have difficulties older women with alcohol?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I don't think so. One of the interesting things about these commands some commands in Scripture are just universal. Like in Colossians 3, the Bible just addresses us as men and women and says do these things, don't do these things In other places. The Bible just addresses us as men and women and says do these things, don't do these things In other places. The Bible chooses to direct particular commands to particular people in particular stages of life, as male and female, as older and younger, just because maybe of the temptations that occur, or sometimes because there are specific things about being men and women that affect us in the way that we do. Relationship, godliness gets played out in the shape of life and relationship. So it's not like you're a man and you're supposed to go oh fantastic, I can get sloshed anytime I like, because that's a command only for older women. But he does say for older women, as you're thinking about being reverent in your behavior, as you're thinking about having your outward expression of life match your inward commitment to Jesus, here are some things that you might like to think about. And so he talks about slander and the drinking of much wine, which I wonder if in his context or he just sees. More generally, for older women, maybe these are things that are temptations.
Speaker 2:Now I was struck by a sister who talked to me yesterday about the fact that that verse had really affected her during the talk yesterday. Because she says sometimes when I feel insecure or difficult, I find myself going to another friend to talk about that person over there and what's going on and it's subtle slander, but it's still. I realise it's what I do and it's something that I need to work on. And I do wonder, culturally for us, whether particularly life's stressful. You're perhaps getting to that time of life when you're getting a little older and things are a bit messier. Sometimes anxiety plays more deeply. Have you gotten into the routine of using alcohol at the end of each day just to manage that situation? Is that healthy for you? Is that going in a good place? You know these things. They're just things that we need to be thoughtful about as we let godliness play its way out in our lives.
Speaker 1:Now the next line is about teaching what is good to encourage the young women to love their husbands. And then we get into submission. I'm a little surprised here that Paul doesn't have a sentence about husbands cherishing their wives, because if I was his sub-editor I would have encouraged him to deal with that first. Why do you think that is?
Speaker 2:Or did you worry about that too, I mean? So I chose in my talk to say something about husbands yesterday because I think in light and this is one of those things where you've got the extrinsic cues of the rest of Scripture there are other parts of the Scripture where he always talks about the reciprocal relationship. He doesn't choose to do in this particular place. I think that's because his sense of sensitivity around this particular issue is perhaps a little different from ours, but again, it's not like….
Speaker 1:And he's speaking to his culture.
Speaker 2:And he's speaking to his context. In many places he talks about the responsibility of husbands to love their wives, to lay down their lives, to serve them with their whole body. You know that Ephesians 5 or the picture in Colossians 3 or whatever else it is. We are told in different places how husbands are to live, and so it's appropriate for us, and not unreasonable, to make a comment about that. I mean, I found it fascinating. Um calvin, preaching on this passage 500 years ago, includes an entire section where he addresses husbands and says the fact that your wife's been called on to submit to you do you think that that gives you a right to be authoritarian, or whatever? And then he he spends an extended period of time reminding husbands of the fact that they're called to love their wives as their own body, to lay down their lives, to treat her with grace as the co-heir in Christ. Because he says, this comment is not a claim for men to do something different or to take rule into their own hands.
Speaker 2:As you're hearing comments directed to other people, you could badly misread those if you just think oh well, this gives me a right to dot dot dot. These instructions occur in the broader shape of scripture and actually we need to keep talking about all of the elements of relationship as we talk to people about these things.
Speaker 1:I just want to go into a couple of studies and we'll link to them in the show notes because you quoted them in your presentation yesterday, wilcox, I think, and really the women reporting the highest levels of satisfaction in evangelical church-attending marriages.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:And yet, conversely, on the very fringe of those congregations, there's reports of real problems.
Speaker 2:Correct. So one of the things that Wilcox did in his study which looks at a broad demographic, not just of evangelicals but people who identify as liberal or Catholic and other things, and atheists as well, massive sample sizes and he was looking at different populations and not just what their beliefs were but about the regularity of their church attendance, and what he found was patterns around satisfaction in marriage and also the occurrence of reported DV incidents or husbands having issues with anger physically or verbally in marriage and also the occurrence of reported DV incidents or husbands having issues with anger physically or verbally in marriage. Women who are married to men who said they were evangelical but went to church at least three times a month, reported the highest levels of satisfaction and the lowest levels of things like anger and violence. But the women who are married to men who identified as evangelical, who rarely or never went to church, actually reported as having the highest level of DV and anger associated with their marriage and much lower levels of satisfaction.
Speaker 2:So, I mean, I think that study is really helpful for us, you know. I think it reminds us that, as we're teaching the truth about these things that God calls us to in relationship, like headship and submission, they really need to be situated in a full-orbed understanding of what God has done for us in Christ what men are called to as well as what women are called to, that relationships are self-sacrificial and they're about partnering and other things. As these other characteristics are played out. And we need to be very aware that the people on the edges of our congregations are likely to be very vulnerable, because if you're a man who has decided that you want to live in an authoritarian way or to be in control or whatever else, you will cherry pick and find the things in scripture that suit your position and use them basically to bolster your position in relationship with other people.
Speaker 2:So we need to teach these things in a way that is absolutely clear that that kind of behaviour is abhorrent to God and abhorrent to us.
Speaker 2:And we need to teach women who are in that context, who very likely don't have very much other experience and they might think that their experience is normal.
Speaker 2:We need to help them to understand very deeply that when we're calling them to submit to their own husband very deeply, that when we're calling them to submit to their own husband, we're also calling them to honour God and serve their husband and if he is acting in ways that are economically abusive.
Speaker 2:So actually and we need to be concrete if your husband requires you to give an accounting of every cent that you have spent, or if your husband wants to know where you have been every minute of every day when he isn't with you, or if your husband demands submission and quotes these verses at you and tells you that you must submit, all of those things are actually signs that he's being very unhealthy and abusive in the relationship and if that's happening to you, it would actually honor God for you to find someone else to talk to about those things and to seek help, Because women who have had men use scripture and not scripture actually use a couple of particular verses to bolster their position in their relationship will feel like they are failing or doing something wrong to speak out about what's happening to them.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think we need to teach very clearly, not avoid these passages, but talk concretely.
Speaker 1:What does?
Speaker 2:healthy submission look like, what does genuine God-honoring leadership look like, what a healthy marriage does look like, and we need to get concrete and specific in a way that helps women and to be able to identify where they're at and to remind our whole congregation that some people will misuse this stuff and as a whole church, we need to be looking out for those who might be vulnerable.
Speaker 1:This is not just, if you like, what I'm broadcasting or what I'm teaching from the front. It's actually how I'm thinking about the people at the very edge of the community?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I mean when I think about the people on the edge of our church. I wish they were closer. I mean I wish they were hearing the Bible more. I wish they were coming under the Lordship of Christ more. I wish they were more part of let us not give up meeting together as some of the habit of doing. But I think you're saying the practical application of this is I ought to be seeing if I can see what's going on in their marriage.
Speaker 2:Well, I think you should be trying to be aware, looking for those little signs of behaviour, nervousness about going out with others. Women will express things like oh, I don't think I can do that. My husband might not want me to do that, or it might not even be that obvious. They might just be slightly nervous or anxious. They might wear lots of clothing that would hide, like long-sleeved clothing in summer that hide a bruise, but it isn't just physical, it is spiritual, it's emotional.
Speaker 2:So I mean, I'm so thankful that our diocese has taken very seriously safe ministry training and many leaders in our ministry are trained in these things. But I just think as pastors we want to keep encouraging our congregations to be aware that these truths can be deeply misused by people and we want to be aware of people who are on the fringe.
Speaker 1:Let's keep going on these verses the older woman is to teach the younger woman. They're to teach what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children. Do you need to be taught to love your husband? You've got a wife. Did she need to be taught to love you?
Speaker 2:I think absolutely. She needed to be taught to love me.
Speaker 1:I mean, you seem like a lovable guy. Yeah, thanks, Don.
Speaker 2:I just think actually, we all know what it's like to be human. Right, it's one thing, Conceptually, I have an idea of what love is and we have lots of lovely songs about it and I kind of know it. But in the practical ins and outs of doing life, what does it look like to love my husband and children? It's messy and complex and some days it's really hard work. He's going to be exasperating. He's going to be exasperating. I mean, most mothers that I've spoken to or at some point or another say to me I'm not sure that I like my children at the moment. There are moments when it's really hard work and difficult.
Speaker 2:And actually, more broadly, what does the Bible tell me? Actually, to love well means being transformed into the likeness of Christ, which only happens by the work of God's word and his spirit. But Titus is telling us it also happens through the modeling and encouragement and engagement of other brothers and sisters in our life who are training us to do these kinds of things. I think it's also helpful and it speaks to another thing about our world. You know, I think we think oh well, being a mother, that's just about being a woman, and every woman has maternal instincts and biological drives that help her in this way, or whatever else. Actually, different women's experience is quite different from one another. Some people feel very maternal. Some women don't feel very maternal at all. Whichever one of those you're in, you're going to need God's help and the help of others to learn how to fulfill these roles that God's given you in your life, if they're the roles he's given you.
Speaker 1:Let me come to verse five, to be self-controlled, to be pure, to be workers at home, kind and in submission to their husbands. It's workers at home, I mean. Just imagine, and you're up the road at the theological college, but just imagine you're in my job and we're right in the centre of inner city Sydney. Most couples can't afford to own a house here unless they're both working full time. And so is this verse saying leave this church, go and buy a cheaper house in the country.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that is such a complicated question, isn't it? What would you say? I mean that is such a complicated question, isn't it? What would you say? I would say that is one solution that may actually be more or less helpful. So you're not just thinking about you know, where could I afford, but what's going to help my godliness? Where am I going to be involved in church? How does life look? What other responsibilities do I have? I have aging parents in the area. So just simply packing up and moving somewhere else is a solution that may work for one person. That doesn't work for another. Deeply, what we're trying to do is enact godliness in the relationships and stuff around about us. So one of the things that I do find interesting about thinking about that work as a home phrase, if you go back to kind of the ancient world and the ancient literature.
Speaker 1:I mean mean that assumption of go live in the country is really working on the assumption that we should have one provider income and it should be made Absolutely. Whereas I don't think that's where you're going.
Speaker 2:No, it's not where I'm going at all. I think in the ancient worlds, and in fact really up until the time of the Industrial Revolution, the household income and functioning and everything happened because both spouses were involved in the life of the household, if I can put it like that. Very interestingly, there's a guy called Xenophon, writing about 400 years before our New Testament, who writes a little section about kind of household management where he talks about a wife being learning to run her households and the tasks include spending all of the household finances, making sure that supplies are up to date, looking after and overseeing the slaves and the bond servants, looking after the welfare of people, basically running small business from the front room where she's teaching servants how to spin and then making cloth and then selling that at the markets and doing the whole Proverbs 31 thing, like our picture of kind of oh, she stays at home and she cooks and cleans. That's a Western 1950s anachronism. The whole economic life of the household depended on him and her working together faithfully in that age and time, and so when it talks about working at home, that was an extremely honoured place to be, and particularly in Scripture, but even in the broader scope of things raising children, teaching them, training them to love the Lord, looking over, probably the financial management of the household. A whole bunch of other things were part of her scope, and the scriptures talk about not just within her household, but a household bringing blessing to the community around her, washing the feet of the saints, looking after the needy.
Speaker 2:In 1 Timothy 5, for example, our conception of working at home versus biblical conceptions vary apart from each other. So then you've got to ask what do we do with that? Now you have to translate that a bit. I think Okay, yeah, translate it. So I'm thinking post-industrial revolution. We work much more in a kind of liquid economy, so I have to earn money in order to spend it. That's the way that life functions. I need enough money to be able to function as a household. That may require both of us working.
Speaker 2:How we manage that around our desire to see our households grow and our kids love Jesus and other things is a really important thing to think about. There is really good research that, certainly between the ages of nought and three, primary attention from a primary caregiver is really significant for human development and growth, so for a woman to actually be available enough when her children, particularly, are young. To be able to attend to them, to spend time with them, to breastfeed, to be in contact with them all of the young child care literature suggests that those are all really excellent things. So we want to be careful about rushing straight back to work for the sake of my career. Long term, both men and women are going to need to work.
Speaker 2:But I think even the concept that we have, that we cling so tightly to, about career progression, is probably just putting the focus in slightly the wrong place. I think the Bible tells us that we work in order to provide for our needs, provide for those who are in need, and to love people through the work that we do. But that happens in the context of many responsibilities and, clearly, loving and caring for your household and raising children, that's a very precious thing in God's sight.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for coming and talking to us today. Thanks, dominic. My guest on the Pastor's Heart, paul Grimmond, senior Lecturer at Sydney's Moore Theological College and the keynote speaker at yesterday's Priscilla and Aquila Conference there, this is Dominic Steele. We'll look forward to your company next Tuesday afternoon on the pastor's heart.
