Older women are to cultivate virtue, yet not as an end in itself, but for the purpose of training young women. Nevertheless, it is impossible to train others in qualities oneself does not possess. There is a great need in the contemporary church for older women who are godly and who obey the biblical command to train young women in the faith. Many younger women long for more mature women to take them under their wings and to teach them how to live the Christian life, especially since many of them lack such godly models in their own family or live at a great distance from their own family. Notably, such training – usually involving private rather than public instruction – is to focus squarely on the domestic sphere.
Andreas Kostenberger