Skip to content
mannafest.faith
Read
Titus

Tituschapter 2

15 verses · BSBTitus book hub →

Speaks with:1 Peter 2×41 Timothy 5×2Ephesians 2×2Matthew 16×22 Timothy 4×21 Timothy 6×2

Summary

Chapter summary

Speak thou the things which become sound doctrine. The aged men to be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith; the aged women in behaviour as becometh holiness; that they teach the young women to love their husbands, to love their children. Young men likewise. Sober-minded. Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. Teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, to live soberly, righteously, and godly. Calvin reads the chapter as the grace-taught household.

Context

Epistle · Paul — Titus overview

  • A. 1–10 Sound Doctrine for Every Age in the House
  • B. 11–15 Grace Teaches Us to Wait for the Blessed Hope

The outline

  1. A.Sound Doctrine for Every Age in the Housevv. 1 to 10

    Read vv. 1 to 10 →

  2. B.Grace Teaches Us to Wait for the Blessed Hopevv. 11 to 15

    Read vv. 11 to 15 →

Threads

Each of these runs on past this chapter. The passage you have just read is marked.

Them that love his appearing

Pattern

The last letters of the canon give the church one posture toward the future: loving, looking, longing. The crown of righteousness goes to all them that love his appearing, the blessed hope is looked for, and the Bible's final prayer is come, Lord Jesus.

Prophecy in these letters is never curiosity about dates; it is affection for a person. Each beat ties conduct to expectation: Paul's finished course, the sober life grace teaches, the salvation waiting for them that look for him.

  1. 2 Timothy 4:8

    The crown for them that love his appearing

    Not to Paul only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.

  2. Titus 2:13 you are here

    Looking for that blessed hope

    The glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.

  3. Hebrews 9:28

    Unto them that look for him

    He shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

  4. Revelation 22:20

    Even so, come, Lord Jesus

    The canon closes with the church answering the promise of his coming.

The world behind this chapter

Titus 2
When
After Paul's first Roman imprisonment · c. AD 63–65
Where
Instructions sorted by age, sex, and status inside a Cretan household
Who first heard it
Older men and women, young couples, and household slaves who all met as one church

The history

Greek and Roman writers produced household codes — lists of duties owed by husbands, wives, fathers, children, masters, and slaves. Everyone recognized the form. What is different here is that the wives, the young women, and the slaves are addressed directly as people who can decide, not merely described as property to be managed.

The instruction that older women train the younger reflects real life. A young wife might be fifteen or sixteen, running a household with servants, small children, and no schooling for the job. Her teacher was an older woman, and the chapter makes that informal apprenticeship a church office in all but name.

The warning against older women being slaves to much wine had a local edge; Crete's reputation for indulgence was part of why Paul quoted the poet in the previous chapter.

Slaves are told not to pilfer. Petty theft by household slaves was so common that Roman writers treated it as expected, and a slave who could be trusted with the stores was a rarity worth remarking on — which is exactly the point of saying such behavior makes the teaching about God attractive.

What it meant to them

The hearers lived in a culture that judged a religion by whether it produced decent households. This chapter takes that standard and accepts it: the doctrine gets adorned, or discredited, at the level of daily behavior.

For slaves in particular, being told their honesty could make God's teaching beautiful gave a person with no legal standing a genuine role in the church's witness.

Sources cited

  • Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius
  • Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on Titus 2. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

← Back: Titus 1Continue: Titus 3 →