In our times, these biblical distinctives will cause our girls to stand out against the culture and frankly, that’s hard for our girls, who just want to fit in. What is the church to do?  Be the adults and refuse to let this culture steal away our girls.  Our girls need to be celebrated, valued, and protected by these Biblical truths.  Set before them the truth of a forgiving, gracious God who knows everything about them, loves them, and desires for them to know Him.

Recently, the United States’ Center for Disease Control published the results of a survey entitled, “Youth Risk Behavior Survey” which surveyed high school students over a 10-year period (2011-2021).  This report summarized trends on “youth health behaviors and experiences among high school students in the United States (U.S.) related to adolescent health and well-being.”[1]  It illustrated some alarming statistics about our nation’s girls:

Almost three in five U.S. teen girls reported feeling sad or hopeless in 2021, the highest level seen in a decade and nearly twice the rate among teenage boys.
Nearly a third of girls said they seriously considered attempting suicide, up 60% since 2011.
Eighteen percent of high school girls experienced sexual violence; 14% reported being forced to have sex.
Nearly one in five high school students do not identify as heterosexual.[2]

A report published by the National Institutes of Health[3] and other non-profits see the same kind of trend.  What is happening to our girls?
These reports, assessed as a whole, paint a dim profile of our nation’s girls.  Psychologists give numerous reasons for these statistics but the primary culprit they point to is no surprise: smart phones and social media use has exacerbated the insecurities of girls as they come of age.[4]  To counter these trends, cultural wisdom seeks to limit and monitor phone use, create more “inclusive communities” and provide more access to mental health services for our teen girls.[5]  These interventions can be helpful and worthwhile to tamp down these trends.  But the world’s diagnoses and solutions are not a complete picture of the reality our girls face.  To their credit, our culture sees the hurt in our girls, but they are unable to see it clearly, because they refuse to base their diagnoses upon the objective truths that have defined humanity for millennia.  Their solutions do not address root causes.
As Christians, we know that true help comes not from changing external behaviors but letting the gospel of Jesus Christ change the heart.  The church needs to speak loudly and clearly that there is a beautiful purpose for our girls and offer a better vision for them based on truth. How can the church give hope to our girls?
Looking across our nation’s cultural landscape, our girls are taking the brunt of changes we are experiencing.  Our girls are coming of age in a time of fierce battle over their design and purpose.  The message in our culture’s undercurrent is that girls don’t matter.

As their bodies are changing into women, they are confronted with a culture that scorns the uniqueness of what their bodies are developing to do: Bring life into the world. Instead of celebrating motherhood as a vocation, they see it as something to achieve after they are “fulfilled” by some other path.
Instead of hearing positive messages of what their bodies can do, they hear cultural shouts decrying the “injustice” of having a womb and need to protect the “right” to kill the babies inside the very bodies that are made to incubate life.
With the rise of surrogacy, women’s bodies are used only as commercial incubators for “custom made” children, disrespecting the sacred bond between a woman and child.
They are told that the fruit of their bodies is causing our earth’s overpopulation and responsible for the man-made “climate crisis” due to a high carbon footprint.
With the unleashed contagion of transgenderism, our girls are told that being a woman isn’t related at all to the body they are seeing mature in the mirror. Anyone can be a woman.
They internalize images of the female body cut and sculpted into unnatural, unrealistic shapes and sizes that undercut their confidence in their own healthy, growing bodies.
The rampant availability of pornography seers a message into their consciences that their bodies are to be used up for pleasure and in many cases, just used.

As growing girls endure the awkward changes of budding breasts, monthly menstrual cycles and unregulated hormones, if these messages are the loudest and most viral, is it any wonder why our girls don’t see value in being a woman?  Why are we letting the culture set a standard for our girls?
The Bible tells a different message for our girls.  It teaches that they do matter, a whole lot.  Here is a sample of a woman’s worth:

She is made in the image of God – Imago Dei – and has intrinsic dignity as a human being (Genesis 1:26-27).
She is different than the rest of creation. Different from man, yet equal in worth (Genesis 1:26-27, 2:18-23).
She is the crowning completion of creation. At her creation, all things became “very good” (Genesis 1:31).
She is a life giver; to bear children, yes, but also to infuse her world with life-giving nourishment in all areas of our culture so that our world flourishes (Genesis 3:20, Proverbs 31).
She is a helper who is to use her power, strength and influence not to enrich herself, but others, and in so doing, enriching her own life (Genesis 2:18).
She is fearfully and wonderfully made. Her body was formed with a purpose, inch by inch, as a unique individual, to glorify God, to fulfill His purposes for His glory and her good (Psalm 139:13-16).
She is to teach others how to love, to be self-controlled, fruitful, kind, to respect authority, to be ambitious for her loved ones and those within her care, to work hard, to care for the weak, and to walk with respect, dignity and strength (Titus 2:3-5; Proverbs 31).
She is so precious and loved that the God who made her gave up His own life so that she could know Him and enjoy Him forever; and He teaches men to treat women likewise (Ephesians 5:23-33).

This is Bible’s message for our girls.  Do they hear it?  Unfortunately, it is drowned out by loud opposition that puts every description on the above list in the cultural crosshairs. The opposition to biblical womanhood began as early as her creation when God promised that Eve’s offspring would crush the evil one in the end (Genesis 3:15). Christians should not be surprised by this. Neither should we squirm because of it.  God’s plan for our girls is to grow into strong, virtuous daughters who are as “corner pillars cut for the structure of a palace” (Psalm 144:12).
In our times, these biblical distinctives will cause our girls to stand out against the culture and frankly, that’s hard for our girls, who just want to fit in. What is the church to do?  Be the adults and refuse to let this culture steal away our girls.  Our girls need to be celebrated, valued, and protected by these Biblical truths.  Set before them the truth of a forgiving, gracious God who knows everything about them, loves them, and desires for them to know Him. This is first and foremost. So, we must pray because we know that wholeness and a desire to become women after God’s heart starts with an internal transformation.  Unless this, everything else is moralism which will not be strong enough to stand against this wave of hostility towards biblical womanhood.
Pray for their hearts.  Teach them that they are precious in His sight. Teach biblical womanhood. Model it. Defend it. Be authentic. Share your stories. Be open and less critical. Speak to them as you pass them in the church hallways. Smile at them. Have girls-only discipleship groups.  Facilitate Titus 2 mentoring among the generations of women.  Provide biblical counseling to the hurting. Acknowledge them. Love on them. Value them. Show them the better way than the world’s way.  Show them they matter.
Sharon Smith Leaman is a member of New Life in Christ Church (PCA) in Fredericksburg, Va. 

[1] Teen Girls Report Highest Levels of Sadness and Sexual Violence in a Decade, CDC Says. (2023, February 13). Time. https://time.com/6255143/teen-girls-sadness-sexual-violence-cdc/
[2] Ibid.
[3] Anderson, L. (n.d.). Youth Pastors Turn to Counseling to Help Gen Z Cope. ChristianityToday.com. https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/october/mental-health-youth-group-gen-z-resources.html
[4] Ibid.
[5] Center for Disease Control. (2021). Youth risk behavior survey. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/pdf/YRBS_Data-Summary-Trends_Report2023_508.pdf
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Good works call for our devotion. After all, they’re what we were “created in Christ Jesus for” (Eph. 2:10). We must actively “learn” to do them. The ability to do good works is infused into us when we’re born again—so the potential is there. But the actual doing of them is a learned skill (like riding a bike or reading), and part of Great Commission discipleship is teaching people to do them (Matt. 28:20).

The Bible has a lot of negative things to say about “works,” especially “works of the law.” Paul stresses repeatedly that we’re justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law. Salvation is “not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph. 2:8, NKJV).
But “good works” are another matter. By my ESV search, the phrase “good works” (plural) is used 13 times in the New Testament, with eight occurrences in the Pastoral Epistles. Without exception, the phrase is used in a positive, nonironic way to describe exemplary Christian activity.
Few chapters are as relentless in advocating good works as Titus 3. If someone tells you Paul and James disagree about the need for good works, point him to this chapter. Here we can identify three facets of good works: their foundation, their importance, and their definition.
Foundation of Good Works
No less a do-gooder than William Wilberforce once defined Christianity as “a scheme . . . for making the fruits of holiness the effects, not the cause, of our being justified and reconciled.” Good works are the fruit, not the root. Or to tweak the analogy, good works are what goes on in the house, but they’re not the foundation of the house. 
This is exactly what Paul says in Titus 3:8: “The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.”
Notice that the people who are told to devote themselves to good works are “those who have believed in God.” Saving faith and good works aren’t like our two separate hands—rather, faith in God is the foundation for good works.
Paul isn’t referring to a general faith in God’s existence but rather a specific faith in God’s loving kindness for us in the gospel. Notice how he begins verse 8. Good works are the result of Titus “[insisting] on these things.” We insist on these things so that believers will do good works. But what are “these things”? What is this “trustworthy saying”? The answer is found in the immediately preceding verses:
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (vv. 4–7)
The only message that can be trusted to produce good works is the message that tells us our works can’t save us. It seems counterintuitive, but it’s the gospel. If we want a house filled with good works, we must first lay a solid foundation for them.
Importance of Good Works
Sometimes gospel-centered people can be skittish about good works. We think, Just preach the gospel, and good works will happen on their own without any sustained focus on them. But this isn’t what we see in Titus 3. Instead, Paul says things like “let our people learn to devote themselves to good works” (v. 14) and “[let believers] be careful to devote themselves to good works” (v. 8). There’s an urgency here that’s often missing in our preaching.
Good works call for our devotion. After all, they’re what we were “created in Christ Jesus for” (Eph. 2:10). We must actively “learn” to do them. The ability to do good works is infused into us when we’re born again—so the potential is there.
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The story unfolding in culture these days often seems uneven, tragic, and even hopeless at times. As believers, though, we know that however upside-down and inside-out it may all seem, the end of the story has yet to be told. Be patient.

Growing up, our kitchen bulletin board across from the refrigerator was filled with doctor appointment card reminders, ball schedules – and lots of inspirational quotes, mostly courtesy of my mom. She would tack up clippings from the many newspapers and magazines she read.
One of the quotes that sticks out in my mind:
“The grist of God grinds slowly – but it grinds exceedingly fine.”
The expression dates back to the second or third century’s Sextus Empiricus, a Greek philosopher. It seems then, like now, people struggled with patience and wishing things would happen more quickly.
No matter the century, forbearance and long-suffering doesn’t come easily. Empiricus’ perspective came to mind the other day in the aftermath of the disappointing Ohio vote to increase the percentage threshold on state constitutional amendments. As it stands now, a mere majority will be necessary to enshrine abortion “rights” into state law this November.
The battle to protect every preborn life under law has been raging for a half-century. Many of the original pro-life advocates are no longer with us. The fall of Roe was satisfying and necessary, but the work goes on. Instead of one front in the war, there are now fifty.
The hijacking of the definition of marriage, the attack on masculinity and femininity, and the assault on religious freedom these last few years have put Christians on the defensive.
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