strive to cultivate ever greater love for all kinds of people, appreciating their fine qualities and accomplishments. We should also consider the effect our words and actions can have on others. This will do much to make us happy and contribute toward preserving good relationships with our fellowmen.

Fine “Workers at Home”

PAUL, an apostle of Jesus Christ, once urged elderly Christian women to set a good example for their more youthful spiritual sisters. Among other things, this would motivate the younger women to be “workers at home.”​—Titus 2:3-5.

What does the expression “workers at home” mean to you? In answering that question, a young Christian woman stated: “I feel that to be ‘workers at home’ would include many things. Obviously, it would mean keeping one’s home neat and clean. But, also, it would include working to care for one’s family, so that they would have wholesome meals to eat and proper clothing to wear. To put it very simply, she [the ‘worker at home’] should follow the description of a good wife and mother at Proverbs 31:10-31.” An elderly Christian woman said the expression “workers at home” reminded her of the same portion of the Bible book of Proverbs.

There we find certain “words of Lemuel the king,” possibly those of Solomon. This description of “a capable wife” was based on “the weighty message that his mother gave to him in correction.” (Prov. 31:1) But these words do not reflect merely human wisdom, for they were divinely inspired. Hence, what is said here represents God’s view and surely merits careful consideration by Christian women who desire to be fine “workers at home.”

VALUE OF “A CAPABLE WIFE”

First, King Lemuel discusses the value of a good wife. Well, what is a housewife’s economic value? Recently, the United States Social Security Administration tried to determine this on the basis of wages in that country for such jobs as babysitting and cooking. According to 1972 data and figures described as “very conservative,” a housewife’s highest worth is attained between twenty-five and twenty-nine years of age, when her yearly economic value was placed at $6,417. Of course, some may wonder how a housewife’s value can be determined at all, in view of the old saying, “Man may work from sun to sun, but woman’s work is never done.”

Even if a person does not agree with those statistics or that saying, there is no question that a good wife should be valued