When I make the bold claim, which I will support with the Bible, that career women are a failures in the sight of God I am not talking about women who are forced to work to feed their families. I am not talking about the women who tried for years without success to find a husband and simply needed to support themselves. I am not talking about women whose husband’s became disabled, died or abandoned them. In other words, I am not talking about women who did not choose to have to have a career outside the home.

I am talking about women who planned on it from the time they were teenagers.

For these women their dream was their career. And they may or may not have wanted a husband and some kids to go on the side with that career. These are the women that are utter and colossal failures in the sight of their creator whether they realize it now or not. And one day they will stand before God ashamed of the fact that they did not fulfill the purpose for which he created them.

In Galatians 1:10 the Bible says “For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ”. This Biblical principle should be at the forefront of our minds as Christians each and every day in the decisions we make.

Recently a young woman calling herself Shary wrote me about her concerns about being seen as a failure in the eyes of her family:

“Can’t God use certain women through their careers for His will. For example I’m going to be a freshman college student starting this fall (with the intention of becoming a doctor) after taking a gap year to work. I feel conflicted because over the past several months I have been reading your blog and you write a lot that women should strive to be keepers at home. I would like to get married and have children, but at the same time I feel like I need to go to school or else I’ll just be a huge disappointment to my family. I don’t know if this is because I’ve been conditioned to think this way all my life or for some other reason, I just feel that if I don’t go to school and become a doctor I’d be a failure.”

My Response to Shary And Other Women Facing this Conflict

Shary, you asked if God can use women through their careers for “his will”? The last part of that question is the key to finding the answer to your question. So how do we know God’s will for women? For that we need to look to the Bible.

The Bible tells us for what purpose he created women in Genesis 2:18 when it states “And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him”. So, we learn from Genesis 2 that God created woman as companion and helper suitable for man. The only way she could be suitable to be man’s life companion and helper was for her to have a human nature as he had. That is why God took the woman from the man.

But what kind of companion and helper did God intend for woman to be for man? Was she intended to be his equal partner and for both of them to do the same things and go and pursue their own missions?

The answer is found in Titus 2:4-5 where the Bible states “That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed”.

God created woman not as an equal partner with man to have equal rights and to pursue a career outside the home as he does. But rather, the Scriptures are explicit on this that God intended for a woman’s life focus to be on serving the needs of her husband, her children and her home.

What About the Proverbs 31 Wife?

Some Christians who want to try and get around God’s explicit command for women to be keepers at home will attempt to skirt it by pointing to passages like Proverbs 31:16 which states “She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard”. They say “See – there is a career woman in the Bible! She is a land developer”.

As Bible believing Christians, we know that the Scriptures never contradict. So, we know that there is no conflict between the Bible saying in Titus 2:5 that women are to be keepers at home and Proverbs 31:16 showing a woman buying a piece of land and farming it for food. Those who say Proverbs 31 shows a career woman are reading something into the text that is not there and also ignoring the overall theme in the passage that the focus of her life is serving her husband and his home. Does it say she spends 50 or 60 hours a week buying and farming fields? No, it does not. It says she buys “a field”. Does it say she does not bring her children to help farm the field with her? No, it does not. Does it say she leaves her children with her maidens to watch them while she pursues her career in farming? Again, no it does not.

Those who read a career woman into Proverbs 31, a woman who spends upwards of 50 hours a week pouring her energy into things outside her home, are in error. They are ignoring not only the clear command of Titus 2:5 for women to be keepers at home, but also other parts of the same passage in Proverbs 31, like verse 27 which states “She looketh well to the ways of her household…”.

It is Impossible to be a Keeper at Home and a Keeper at a Career

It is impossible, utterly impossible, for a woman to be a keeper at home and at the same time spend 50 hours a week or more giving her energy to things outside her home.

Feminism sells women this lie. And sadly, even most of our modern churches today have bought this lie. They tell women they can spend 50 hours a week outside their home “following their dreams” while having a husband and kids on the side at home. What they don’t tell them is what really happens.

They don’t tell them about the anguish many of these women feel when they have to leave their young infants with others when they know an infant needs its mother. They don’t tell them about the anguish they will feel when their home is in utter disarray because they have such little energy to keep up with it. They don’t tell them about the fights they will have with their husband over who does what. They don’t tell them about when her career moves conflict with his career. And then after handling the job, the house and the kids many career women have little energy left for their husbands. And then marriages die.

Of course, there are the women who are “without natural affection” as 2 Timothy 3:3 alludes to. These women actually care more about themselves than their children or husbands. These are the women that murder their children by aborting them for the sake of their career ambitions. If these women do have children, they have absolutely no problem dropping off their crying infants with others to pursue their selfish ambitions. They have no problem donating the vast majority of their waking hours to endeavors outside their home and giving only the scraps left of their time to their children and their husbands.

And these women are a “success” in the view of our modern humanist and feminist culture.

Conclusion

So, we just described two types of women. The first group are women who after believing the lies of feminism later come to feel remorse for the decisions that they made. But now they are trapped because they have made their economic situation dependent on their income. Then we have the second group of more sinister women who lack natural affection and have absolutely no remorse for the impact that there career takes on their husbands, their children or their homes.

Are you one of these women that lacks natural affection? Could you drop your two-month-old infant off without it bothering you a bit? Could you see the stress your career places on your home, your children and your husband and be happy with giving them only the scraps left of your time and energy each day?

But there is something even more important to consider than just the impacts of a career on your future husband, children and home.

The Scriptures tell us in 1 Corinthians 11:9 “Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man”.

The following statement I make to women who are not keepers at home by their own choice and design, and not because of circumstances outside of their control.

If you as a woman are not a keeper at home (and you have no desire to be so), if the majority of your time and energy are not spent supporting your husband in his career, meeting his needs sexual and otherwise, bearing his children, caring for his children and caring for the needs of his home then your life will be a failure in the sight of the one who created you.

So, are you as a woman more concerned with being seen as a failure in the eyes of our humanist culture, your parents and friends or are you more concerned with being a failure in the eyes of God?

The last subject I want to briefly touch on is celibacy.

God’s rule for men and women is marriage and having children. His exception his celibacy. And God only calls us to celibacy “that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction” (I Corinthians 7:35). Celibacy is to be used for service to the kingdom of God, not for selfish ambitions or to avoid the risks or responsibilities of marriage and having children.

So, could a woman decide to dedicate her life to God by helping on mission fields or by being a doctor, a nurse, a school teacher or other such profession? Yes. But she needs to make sure that she is doing this for the right reasons.

See these two articles I previously wrote for more these subjects:

For what reasons does God allow celibacy?

Why does God make some women with a genius level IQ if he wants all women to be homemakers?