Titus 2

Today’s Passage: Titus 2

After a first chapter spent on elders and on the loud, empty talkers who were upsetting whole households on Crete, Paul turns to Titus and says, in effect, you do the opposite. Chapter two opens with a contrast: “But as for you, speak the things that are consistent with sound doctrine.” Then follows a list that does not look like theology at all. Older men. Older women. Young women. Young men. Titus himself. Slaves. Six groups, and to each a handful of plain instructions about temper, speech, drink, honesty, and how a person behaves inside an ordinary house on an ordinary Tuesday. It is all about what the neighbors can see. And twice in the first ten verses Paul tells you why he is bothering: “so that the word of God will not be discredited,” and “so that in every respect they will adorn the teaching about God our Savior.” The way a congregation lives is doing something to the reputation of the message it carries. Then, at verse eleven, the chapter opens up like a door, and everything changes register. Paul stops giving instructions and starts preaching, and what he preaches is the ground under every instruction he has just given. The grace of God has appeared. It saves. It trains. It teaches us to wait. And the One we are waiting for is the One who gave Himself to buy us out of lawlessness and make us His own. The chapter ends where it began, with a charge to Titus to speak these things with all authority.

As you read, hold this: Everything God asks of an ordinary life is the fruit of grace and never its price, for the same grace that appeared to save us also trains us while we wait for the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Titus 2:1–5 (BSB)

¹ But as for you, speak the things that are consistent with sound doctrine. ² Older men are to be temperate, dignified, self-controlled, and sound in faith, love, and perseverance. ³ Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in their behavior, not slanderers or addicted to much wine, but teachers of good. ⁴ In this way they can train the young women to love their husbands and children, ⁵ to be self-controlled, pure, managers of their households, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be discredited.

Notice the first thing Paul asks of a preacher, because it is not what we might expect. He does not tell Titus to be interesting, or forceful, or to have an answer for every objection raised by the talkers in chapter one. He tells him to speak the things that fit sound doctrine, and the word behind “sound” is the word a physician would use for a body in health. Healthy teaching produces a healthy life, and Paul now spends ten verses describing what health looks like when it walks around. Then he begins with the old, for Scripture does not file the elderly away as finished. Older men are to be temperate, dignified, self-controlled, and sound in faith, love, and perseverance. Every one of those has to be grown over years, and the last, perseverance, cannot exist without a long stretch of road behind it. An older believer is not a person whose usefulness is spent. He is a person carrying evidence.

Older women come next, and their instruction turns almost at once into a commission. They are to be reverent in behavior, and the word carries the sense of bearing oneself as though one were serving in a temple, as if the ordinary rooms of a house were holy ground. Then two warnings that must have been needed or he would not have written them: not slanderers, and not addicted to much wine. Old age can go sour, and a lonely evening can be filled with a cup as easily as with prayer. And then the positive charge, which is the whole point: they are to be “teachers of good,” and specifically so that they can train the young women. This is the church’s own succession plan, and it does not run through a program. It runs through a kitchen, through years, from one woman to another. Paul does not tell Titus to gather the young wives and lecture them. He tells him to see that the older women are the kind a young woman would want to learn from.

What they are to teach is deliberately unglamorous: to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, managers of their households, kind, and submissive to their own husbands. Two things should be said carefully. “Managers of their households” is a word of real authority, not of drudgery: in that world the woman ran the oikos, a considerable office involving stores, servants, accounts, and the health of everyone under the roof. And the submission Paul names is to “their own husbands,” not to men generally, belonging inside the covenant union of one man and one woman which Scripture treats as the only home for such a union. It is a voluntary ordering within a marriage, and the New Testament everywhere pairs it with a charge to husbands that costs everything, on the pattern of Christ laying down His own life for the church. Teach it soberly and without heat, as Paul does, and read his stated reason: “so that the word of God will not be discredited.” That is what is at stake. Not a social arrangement, but whether the message about Jesus can be spoken of well by the people watching.

Titus 2:6–10 (BSB)

⁶ In the same way, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. ⁷ In everything, show yourself to be an example by doing good works. In your teaching show integrity, dignity, ⁸ and wholesome speech that is above reproach, so that anyone who opposes us will be ashamed, having nothing bad to say about us. ⁹ Slaves are to submit to their own masters in everything, to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, ¹⁰ not stealing from them, but showing all good faith, so that in every respect they will adorn the teaching about God our Savior.

The younger men get one word, and it is the same word already laid on the older men and the young women. Self-controlled. Sensible. A mind that governs itself. Paul rings it four times in this chapter, and once more in verse twelve over the whole church. Whatever else grace does in a person, it puts a hand on the reins. Then Paul turns to Titus himself, and that is the reason the charge to the young men is so short. The most powerful thing a young man will hear is not a talk about self-control. It is watching an older brother live it. So Titus is to be an example by doing good works, and in his teaching to show integrity, dignity, and speech above reproach. Note that Paul cares about the manner of the teaching and not merely its accuracy. A man can be entirely correct and still cheapen the message by how he delivers it, with sarcasm, or showmanship, or the loose talk that wins a laugh at somebody’s expense. And there is a beautiful realism in the goal: not that opponents will fall silent, but that they will be ashamed, “having nothing bad to say about us.” Opposition will come. Paul only insists that when the critics reach for ammunition, their hands come up empty.

Then verses nine and ten, and we must handle them honestly. Roman slavery was not a metaphor and it was not gentle. Perhaps a third of the population of some cities was owned. A slave had no standing as a person, could be beaten, worked to death, or crucified for a crime that would earn a free man a fine, and had no protection from a master’s appetites. It was a brutal institution, and Scripture nowhere calls it good. Paul is not endorsing it here. He is speaking to believers who woke that morning already inside it, telling them how to live for Christ where they actually stood, and that is not the same thing as approval. We must not soften what the institution was to make the verse more comfortable, and neither should we apologize for Scripture or congratulate the text for a decree it does not issue. Notice, though, the direction the New Testament’s own logic runs. The same apostle wrote to the same era, “You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men.” And in a few days you will read his letter to Philemon, a private note asking a Christian master to receive back a runaway slave “no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a beloved brother.” Put a master and his slave at the same Table, calling each other brother, and the institution has been handed a death sentence, even if the sentence takes centuries to be carried out.

And then look at what Paul says the honesty of such a person accomplishes, because it is one of the most astonishing sentences in the letter. A slave, the lowest person in that entire world, a man or woman with no name in the records and no voice in the assembly, is told that by not talking back and not pilfering from the stores, he will adorn (κοσμέω) kosmeō, pronounced koss-MEH-oh. Strong's G2885, to adorn, to set in order, to make beautiful. The verb is kosmeō, and its family reaches us through two English words that seem unrelated. One is cosmos, the ordered universe, because the Greeks looked at the heavens and saw arrangement rather than chaos. The other is cosmetic, the art of adorning. Both meanings live in the one word: to set in order, and thereby to make beautiful. It is used of trimming a lamp so it burns clean, and of a bride putting on her jewels. Now hear what Paul has done. He has attached this word of adornment, not to the eloquence of a preacher or the splendor of a building, but to the honesty of a household slave. The teaching about God our Savior is a jewel, and the plain faithfulness of the least regarded believer is the setting that shows it off. Nobody was argued into the kingdom on Crete by a proof that Christian doctrine is beautiful. They saw it worn. Whatever small and unwatched place you occupy, the doctrine of God can be made lovely there, in the way you keep your word and handle what is not yours. the teaching about God our Savior. The doctrine of God is made beautiful by the quiet reliability of a servant nobody in Crete would have noticed. Sit with that for a moment. There is no such thing here as an insignificant Christian life. The message about Jesus has a visible setting, and it is made of ordinary people doing ordinary work without stealing and without arguing.

Titus 2:11–15 (BSB)

¹¹ For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to everyone. ¹² It instructs us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live sensible, upright, and godly lives in the present age, ¹³ as we await the blessed hope and glorious appearance of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. ¹⁴ He gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds. ¹⁵ Speak these things as you encourage and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you.

Everything now depends on one small word, and if you miss it you will misread the whole chapter and, quite possibly, the whole Christian life. The word is For. “For the grace of God has appeared.” Verses one through ten are a list of duties, and a modern reader instinctively hears such a list as a set of terms: do these things and God will accept you. Paul says the exact opposite, and he says it with a conjunction. Everything commanded in those ten verses hangs on the For of verse eleven. The instructions are not the price of grace. They are the fruit of it. They could not be anything else, because the grace was there first, appearing before anyone had done a thing. Stop and look at the order, because it is the difference between religion and the gospel. Religion says: behave, and perhaps God will come. The gospel says: God has come, and now, at last, you can behave. Every older man’s patience, every older woman’s reverence, every young household’s steadiness, every servant’s honesty, all of it stands on ground that grace laid down before the first command was ever spoken. Never let it turn around. The moment good works become the ground of your acceptance before God rather than the fruit of it, you have lost the very thing this chapter was written to give you. And what a word Paul chooses for the coming of that grace. He says it has appeared (ἐπιφαίνω) epiphainō, pronounced eh-pee-FIE-no. Strong's G2014, to appear, to shine forth, to dawn. The verb is epiphainō, and it belongs to light. It was used of the sun breaking over the rim of the sea, of stars coming out to a sailor running blind through a storm, of a lamp carried into a dark room. In the wider world of Paul’s day it had a second life as the language of an epiphany, the manifestation of a god, or the ceremonial arrival of an emperor in a provincial city, when the gates were opened and the crowds turned out for a visible glory. Paul takes that word and puts it on the grace of God. Grace did not develop, and it was not achieved, and it was not discovered by anyone reasoning upward. It dawned. It broke over the world from outside, at a fixed point in history, in a Person, and the light does not depend on the quality of the eyes it falls on. Think what that means for a soul that feels late, or unqualified, or too far gone. The sun does not rise because the sleeper deserved a morning. Grace appeared. It was shining before you thought to look for it, and it is shining still. , and the word is one for a sunrise.

And it appeared “bringing salvation to everyone,” which is Paul’s way of saying that this grace is not a private benefit for a class of insiders. Crete had its mysteries and its initiations, its inner circles where the good things were kept for those who qualified. The gospel has no such door. Salvation is offered here to every sort of person on the island, old and young, free and enslaved, and every group named in the first ten verses of this chapter is standing inside that “everyone.” Then verse twelve does something we do not always expect grace to do. It instructs us (παιδεύω) paideuō, pronounced pie-DYOO-oh. Strong's G3811, to train, to instruct and discipline as a child. The word is paideuō, and it comes from pais, a child. It is the whole business of raising one: teaching, forming, correcting, bringing a young person up over years into a settled character. The Greeks built their ideal of education on this word, and Hebrews uses it of the Lord disciplining the sons He loves. Notice, then, what Paul is telling you about grace. Grace is not indulgent. Grace is not a fond relative who lets the child do whatever he pleases. Grace has taken us into the house as sons and daughters and has now begun the long, patient, sometimes painful work of raising us. That is a wonderful thing to know when the training hurts, and equally wonderful when you are tempted to think grace has grown careless about how you live. It has not. The same grace that pardoned you is at this moment forming you, and it will not stop halfway. See the tenderness in the word. A schoolmaster drills a stranger. A father raises a child. God is not drilling you. He is bringing you up. . Grace is not only the pardon that saves; grace is also the teacher that trains. And what it trains us to do is stated in two directions, one negative and one positive. It teaches us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, which is a decisive word, the turning down of an offer, the saying of a flat no. And it teaches us to live sensible, upright, and godly lives in the present age. Not in a monastery, not in some better century, not once conditions improve. Here, in this age, with these neighbors and this work and this body.

And while grace trains us, it also teaches us how to wait, “as we await the blessed hope and glorious appearance of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” There is that word again: the appearing. Grace has already dawned once, quietly, in a manger and on a cross. It will dawn again, and the second time it will not be quiet. Hold this at full strength, because it is not negotiable: the Lord Jesus Christ will return personally, bodily, visibly, in glory, and He will be seen. Faithful believers who love this book differ, sometimes sharply, about the order and timing of the events surrounding that day, and we will not settle that argument for you or make it a test of fellowship. But no one who reads Titus may be vague about the fact. Our hope is not an idea or an influence. Our hope is a Person with a face, and He is coming. Notice, too, how the Greek reads most naturally: our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, one article covering both titles, one Person named. Paul calls Jesus God, plainly, in a letter about running a church on a rough island. Blessed be His name.

Then verse fourteen tells you what this great God and Savior actually did, and every phrase of it is worth its own hour. “He gave Himself for us.” Not sent something, not spared something, gave Himself, which is the whole of the gospel in three words. He did it to redeem us (λυτρόω) lutroō, pronounced loo-TROH-oh. Strong's G3084, to redeem, to ransom, to buy out of bondage by paying a price. Lytroō is the language of the slave market and the prisoner of war. The noun lytron was the ransom price, the sum laid down to release someone who could not release himself, and the verb means to pay it and bring the person out. It carried weight in a household on Crete, where manumission was a real and expensive transaction and everyone knew that freedom cost somebody money. The Greek Old Testament used this same family for what God did at the Red Sea, buying a nation of slaves out of Egypt with an outstretched arm. So when Paul says Christ gave Himself to redeem us from all lawlessness, he is not speaking in poetry. A price was named and a price was paid, and the price was His own life, and the bondage He bought us out of was not Rome or Pharaoh but our own lawlessness, the one master no one has ever run away from successfully. Consider what that does to the question of your worth in His eyes. He settled it by what He was willing to spend. And consider who owns you now. A redeemed slave does not belong to himself. He belongs, gladly, to the One who bought him. from all lawlessness, and then, having bought us, “to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.” That last phrase is lifted out of the Old Testament, where the LORD called Israel His treasured possession out of all the peoples of the earth, and here it is laid on a scattering of congregations in Cretan houses. He was not merely acquitting individuals. He was making a people, His own, purified, and marked by an eagerness for good works. And there is the whole chapter tied in a knot. Good works are not how we purchase Him. Good works are what He purchased us for.

And so verse fifteen sends Titus back to work. “Speak these things as you encourage and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you.” Three verbs: speak, encourage, rebuke. A faithful ministry does all three, and one that only ever does one of them will produce a lopsided church. The authority is not Titus’s own, and that is the comfort in the last line. He was a younger man handling older men, a Gentile among Cretans, with no rank the world would recognize. But he carried a message that came from the God whose grace had appeared, and a man carrying that need not be intimidated by anyone. He is not to throw his weight about. He is simply not to shrink. Speak these things, Paul says, and notice which things: not clever things, not novel things, these things, the plain shape of a life under grace and the glory of the Savior who bought it.