Titus 3:1. DUTY TO RULERS. Crete, formerly self-governed on a popular basis, bad since B.C. 67 been attached to the Roman province of Cyrene, and was restive under the yoke. Similar reminders that Christians should avoid sedition are frequent in the apostolic letters. The hand of Rome was a very hea... [ Continue Reading ]
_What Titus is to teach on the duties of social life_ (Titus 3:1-2) _enforced by a long argument drawn from the change which Christians had them-selves experienced through grace_ (Titus 3:3-7) _Exhortation to Titus renewed_ (Titus 3:8-11).... [ Continue Reading ]
Titus 3:2. Duty to general (heathen) society. The general idea is, for the rude violence customary in Crete to show the gentle and patient and kindly spirit characteristic of the Gospel. MEEKNESS is the social grace of character that results from religious brokenness of spirit; shows itself in abu... [ Continue Reading ]
Titus 3:3. Such conduct becomes people who (1) were once like the heathen, but who (2) have been changed through Divine grace and no merit of their own. The argument turns on the vast change conversion to Christ had made in Cretan Christians. SOMETIMES should be ‘sometime' or ‘once.' WE takes in... [ Continue Reading ]
Titus 3:4. Two very human words are selected to describe God's grace in its manifestation, because Paul is enforcing kindness among men. God set the example of benevolence and philanthropy. Read ‘love-toward-man' as one word. GOD OUR SAVIOUR; rather, ‘our Saviour God,' cf. 1Ti 1:1; 1 Timothy 2:3-5... [ Continue Reading ]
Titus 3:5. SAVED is the main word: what precedes describes its source, negative and positive; what follows, its manner, in outer rite and inward influence. ‘Not in consequence of works,' ‘which we (emphatic) did.' The undeserved sovereignty of grace frequent in Paul; see Romans 3:20; Romans 4:2; Gal... [ Continue Reading ]
Titus 3:6. WHICH, _i.e._ the Holy Ghost. SHED, or poured out (allusion to act of baptizing), including both Pentecost and all the subsequent effusion of the Spirit on the successive members of the Church. ABUNDANTLY; literally, ‘richly.' THROUGH the mediation and merits of Christ. Note the par... [ Continue Reading ]
Titus 3:7. Design of the Spirit-baptism is to make sons of God, therefore heirs, of those who have been justified by His (that is, God's) grace. The filial standing and character of believers are by Paul uniformly connected with the gift of the Holy Ghost (cf. Galatians 4:4). The inheritance conform... [ Continue Reading ]
Titus 3:8. Paul reverts to the idea of Titus 3:1, emphasizing his admonition. FAITHFUL SAYING only found in Pastoral Epistles 1 Timothy 1:15; 1 Timothy 1:3; 1 Timothy 4:9; 2 Timothy 2:11. Alford thinks it describes a class of statements already current in the apostolic Church as accepted formulae o... [ Continue Reading ]
Titus 3:9. THE QUESTIONS to be avoided were such controverted points as were worse than unimportant, silly. Such were many disputed over by the errorists, notably those about Old Testament genealogies in their spiritual significance, and those about trivial details of the ceremonial law. See Titus 1... [ Continue Reading ]
Titus 3:10. Thus far of Titus' attitude to the errors; now, to the errorists. In Paul's sense, heretic comes nearer schismatic than what we now describe by the word. As in 1 Corinthians 11:19 and Galatians 5:20, so here, he speaks of making party factions to divide the Church, rather than of false d... [ Continue Reading ]
Titus 3:11. Such failure in admonishing shows the man had become ‘perverted' a self-condemned sinner, because ‘doing in his own case what in general he condemns' (Ellicott).... [ Continue Reading ]
_Conclusion: Personal Directions_, 12-15. Titus 3:12. Titus was soon to be replaced that he might rejoin the apostle. ARTEMAS is unknown; by tradition, Bishop of Lystra. TYCHICUS, of the province of Asia (Acts 20:4), who carried from Rome the letters to Colosse (Colossians 4:7-8), and to Ephesus... [ Continue Reading ]
Titus 3:13. Hospitality to Christian travellers was an urgent virtue in the early Church. Of Zenas nothing is known. Tradition calls him one of the seventy, and later a bishop at Diospolis. LAWYER may mean either a Jewish scribe or a jurisconsult of the Roman Empire. BRING ON THEIR JOURNEY, etc.... [ Continue Reading ]
Titus 3:14. Not Titus alone, but (OURS, a unique phrase) the Cretan brethren were to share in this fitting out of the two travellers. It would be an exercise in Christian beneficence and a lesson to ‘practise' similar ‘good works,' as often as ‘necessary wants' (not ‘uses') arose.... [ Continue Reading ]
Titus 3:15. Them that love, etc., _i.e._ Cretan Christians who had come to know Paul during his stay in the island.... [ Continue Reading ]