Titus 2
1 But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. 2 Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. 3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. 6 Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. 7 Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, 8 and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. 9 Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, 10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. 11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. 15 Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.
In his invaluable background work on the New Testament world, Craig Keener makes a very interesting observation about the church and its place in Roman society.
Because the Romans suspected minority religions, especially religions from the East with ecstatic elements to their worship, of subverting traditional family values, minority religions often followed the philosophers in exhorting adherents to follow “household codes.” These codes instructed male heads of households how to treat each member of the household, especially wives, children and slaves. Under the broad topic of “household management,” such codes also extended to treatment of parents, duties to the state (3:1) and duties to the gods. Because the church met in homes and was viewed as a sort of extended family around the household of the patron in whose home the believers met, the instructions naturally quickly extended to categories of relationships in the church.
Early Christian adaptation of Roman social relations was valuable for the church’s witness to society and for diminishing preventable opposition to the gospel (2:5, 8, 10). Modern readers often recognize only the traditional values of their own culture, but one should recognize that Paul addresses instead the traditional Roman values of his day (including the household slavery of his day, which differed from many other societies’ models of slavery).[1]
In other words, in the book of Titus, Paul encourages the believers on Crete to order their households in such a way as to avoid unnecessary offense. The gospel itself was an offense (1 Corinthians 1:18–25) to Roman culture. Paul did not want the households and lives of the believers to be an offense through low living or a lack of integrity. In other words: To offend a skeptical culture with the gospel was inevitable. To offend through disordered homes and lives was not.
The church: A community of character.
What Paul presents in Titus 2 is a household code. He is going to address, first, Titus, then the different ages/sexes, then slaves.
Titus
Paul’s words to Titus throughout this chapter are an extension of his chapter 1 (verse 9) call for elders to teach and safeguard the truth. Thus, in verse 1:
1 But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.
It is possible that this reference to “sound doctrine” is not a general term but specifically relates to what follows: the ordering of the home and of human relationships. If so, this shows that the word “doctrine” pertains not only to what some may consider abstract theology (though, I would argue, true theology is never abstract) but also to what many would consider more “practical considerations.” Relationships in the church and in the home also have a doctrinal foundation, in other words.
After giving instructions for old and young men and women, Paul again returns to Titus with these words:
7 Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, 8 and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.
Like these older and younger men and women, Titus, too, needs “to be a model of good works.” As a leader of the church on Crete, Titus’ life must bring honor to the Lord and not be a stumbling block. His life, as Paul points out, includes his works and his words, that is, how he lives and what he says. In this way, the would-be detractors of the faith are silenced: “so that any opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.”
This is a consistent theme in Paul: the silencing of critics through right living. The premise is this: The world can disagree with Christian teaching, but they cannot disagree with a Christian life or refute genuine Christian character. When we are hypocritical, the world scoffs. When we follow Jesus as we ought, the world is silenced.
Titus is to be a person of integrity and he is to teach with boldness.
15 Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.
There is a connection between the minister’s life and the minister’s words. The former lends credence to the latter.
Older Men
Now Paul turns to the different groups within the church. We begin with older men.
2 Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.
It is telling, in each of these categories, to see what Paul thinks needs to be said to each. He calls upon older men to be:
- sober-minded
- dignified
- self-controlled
- sound in faith
- sound in love
- sound in steadfastness
Sober-minded. Self-controlled. Sound.
Concerning “be sober-minded,” George Leo Haydock writes:
Be sober. The Greek Fathers, Theodoret, and Theophylactus, translate the word, sober, attentive, or vigilant. But Latin interpreters understand it of sobriety, in the literal meaning of the word. Old men oftentimes under pretense of weakness, drink wine to excess. The ancients called wine the milk of old men; hence aquiloe senectus has passed into a proverb, to designate an old man who drinks much and eats little. (Calmet)[2]
Likely the Greek fathers were correct here and this is not a specific reference to wine. Note that in the next verse Paul mentions “wine” specifically, in reference to older women. He does not do so here. Yet, the virtues to which he calls these older men would certainly touch upon the question of alcohol consumption as well as various other areas of life.
This is a picture of stability. A picture of a firm foundation. These older men are to be people to whom the church can look and in whom the church can trust. They are not unstable. They are not given to fits of temper. They are solid: in their faith, in their love for the Lord, in their love for the brethren, in the way they live their lives.
Older Women
For older women, Paul says:
3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good
This list of virtues is likewise telling:
- reverent in behavior
- not slanderers
- not slaves to much wine
- teaching what is good
Older women, Paul says, are to control their tongues and control their alcohol consumption. They are to be founts of wisdom, teaching what is good. The slander they are to avoid is to be replaced with “what is good.” Elderly women are to be sources of wisdom, temperance, careful speech, and love.
Let me say this to older people: It is not too late to be what God has called you to be. It is not too late to make a difference. It is not too late to do some great thing for God.
Paul R. Dekar writes:
I concluded by citing a story of a famous French military figure, Louis Hubert Lyautey (1854-1934). Having retired to a farm, he was into his eighties when he approached his gardener about planting an orchard. “But,” protested the gardener, “the trees will not bear fruit for twenty years.” Lyautey responded, “Then we must begin planting at once.”[3]
And there you have it. Your life, when fully given to Jesus, will produce effects that will long outlive you. Do not waste your days worrying about the end. Spend them now doing some great thing for Jesus. Like Lyautey, “begin planting at once.”
Young Women
One of the “good” things that older women are to teach is the way for younger women to love their families.
4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
This is interesting. We might thing that loving one’s spouse and children is something that people just naturally know how to do. But let us remember that the church and the Christian home is anything but “natural.” Our nature is fallen. The “natural” thing is the sinful thing. No, we are to learn and grow into our redeemed nature through Christ.
Young women are to:
- love their husbands
- love their children
- be self-controlled
- be pure
- work at home
- be kind
- be submissive to their own husbands
Concerning “working at home,” this needs to be understood contextually. Paul is not saying it is a sin for a woman to have a job. In the first century, young women and wives and mothers would have been at home. Paul is telling them to conduct themselves rightly there. They are to work well in their homes. Paul is not condemning work outside the home, though we can certainly say that the New Testament would call upon parents of any age not to neglect their children in the years of their rearing. So long as children are not being neglected and are being raised well, the question of work outside the home should be one of Christian freedom.
Here, too, as with the other categories, young women behaving well will result in the word of God not being “reviled.”
Young Men
The list for young men is much shorter.
6 Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.
Just one bullet-point on this one!
- self-controlled
Young men are often full of passion, impulse, intense feeling, intense desires, aggression, testosterone, and the like.
Do you remember, in John 8, when the Pharisees and teachers brought to Jesus a woman caught in adultery. They wanted to stone her. They questioned Jesus about it. Jesus stoops and writes something in the dirt. He then says, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” Then, John writes:
9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
If the older men left first, that means the young men left last. It was harder for the younger men to drop their stones in the dirt. They wanted to do something! They wanted to act! They wanted action! It can be hard for young men to reign this in.
It is not surprising that Paul tells them to be self-controlled. Given the way that pagans approached human sexuality, there is likely a note of that here as well. Young men are to be sexually self-controlled, loving and caring for and being faithful only to their wives.
Slaves
Slavery was an unavoidable reality in the ancient world. To slaves, Paul writes:
9 Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, 10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.
Some point out that, in context, this is likely addressed to household slaves, who had more freedoms than slaves who worked in the fields. I doubt that sidesteps the obvious question we would have: Why would Paul not outright condemn the institution of slavery itself.
It has been argued that Paul likely thought the Lord would return in his own time (notice he turns to this topic in the verses that follow) and so expending energy on the abolition of the institution of slavery would have sidetracked the church from the task of gospel proclamation in the limited time they had. It would have thrown them into a political vortex which they, as a small, religious minority, would not have been able to handle. It would effectively have shut any and all chance for gospel proclamation had Paul called for a social revolution at this point on the question of slavery. Perhaps that is what Paul thought.
Others observe that these verses need to be put alongside a text like the book of Philemon and other passages (Galatians 3:28). In these texts, we see that while Paul did not attack the institution of slavery he did fundamentally undermine its assumptions and redefine it in the context of the church family.
In the context in which Paul wrote the book of Titus, he did not feel that a frontal assault on the institution itself (and institution deeply embedded in the Roman Empire) was the right approach. He does undermine the reality of it in numerous ways throughout his writings. His goal is the salvation of the watching world.
Jesus Come and Jesus Coming: The Foundation of the Church’s Character
What is the reason why Christian men and women should live upright and orderly lives? There are two reasons: Christ has come and Christ is coming again. There is, then, a first advent and second advent basis for the Christian life and for Christian relationships.
First, the first advent basis.
11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,
14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
The grace of God that brings “salvation for all people” is Jesus, as is made clear in verse 14: He “who gave himself for us to redeem us…” The first coming of Christ, Paul tells us in verse 11, saves, but it also (he tells us in verse 12) trains “us to renounce ungodliness and world passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.”
This is the grace of God: our lives transformed into conformity with the life of Jesus!
This is the grace of God: our growth into Christlikeness.
Because Christ has come, we can be this kind of people!
Then, the second advent basis:
13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ
It is not merely that Jesus has come. It is also that Jesus is coming! We “wait for our blessed hope.” And what is that? “[T]he appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.”
We live now between the advents.
The first brought us salvation and redemption. The second compels and encourages us toward godliness because our King, Jesus, is coming again. We need both advents! Christ has come and Christ is coming! We are alive because He came lowly and humbled Himself to the point of death on a cross! We live in power and holiness because He comes again and we will stand before our King!
Our lives, our homes, our families, our relationships: We bring all of these to the King who has come and who is coming! How we conduct ourselves is fleshed out between the cross and the trumpet that will sound! We are a people in the time between the times and we must live now in victory and power and in a joy that the world finds irresistible!
[1] Keener, Craig S. The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. (IVP Bible Background Commentary Set) (p. 628). InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.
[2] https://catenabible.com/ti/2
[3] Paul R. Dekar, Community of the Transfiguration (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2008, p.122.