Titus 2: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul tells Titus what to teach each group in the churches on Crete: older men, older women, younger women, younger men, and slaves, and tells Titus to be an example himself in how he lives and teaches. The aims given are that God's word is not spoken against, that the opponent is shamed and has nothing bad to say, and that servants make the teaching about God our Savior attractive. Paul then grounds these instructions in the appearing of God's grace, which trains believers to live self-controlled and upright lives while they wait for the appearing of the great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for them. The chapter closes by telling Titus to speak, urge, and correct with full authority.

Claim by Claim

1. 2:1
   • Titus is told to speak the things that are fitting for sound doctrine.
2. 2:2
   • Aged men are to be sober and temperate in drink.
   • Aged men are to be dignified and serious.
   • Aged men are to be self-controlled.
   • Aged men are to be sound in faith.
   • Aged men are to be sound in love.
   • Aged men are to be sound in patient endurance.
3. 2:3
   • Aged women likewise are to be reverent in their demeanor.
   • Aged women are not to be slanderers.
   • Aged women are not to be enslaved to much wine.
   • Aged women are to be teachers of what is good.
4. 2:4
   • The purpose is that the aged women may train the young women to be self-controlled.
   • The aged women are to train the young women to love their husbands.
   • The aged women are to train the young women to love their children.
5. 2:5
   • Young women are to be discreet and self-controlled.
   • Young women are to be chaste and pure.
   • Young women are to be workers at home.
   • Young women are to be good.
   • Young women are to be submissive to their own husbands.
   • The purpose of this is that the word of God not be blasphemed.
6. 2:6
   • Titus is to exhort the younger men likewise to be sober-minded and self-controlled.
7. 2:7
   • Titus is to show himself in all things a pattern of good works.
   • Titus is to show incorruptness in his teaching.
   • Titus is to show dignity and seriousness in his teaching.
   • Titus is to show sincerity in his teaching.
8. 2:8
   • Titus is to use sound speech that cannot be condemned.
   • The purpose is that the opponent may be put to shame.
   • The purpose is that the opponent have no evil thing to say about us.
9. 2:9
   • Servants are to be obedient and submissive to their own masters.
   • Servants are to please their masters well in all things.
   • Servants are not to answer back or contradict.
10. 2:10
    • Servants are not to pilfer or steal from their masters.
    • Servants are to show all good fidelity.
    • The purpose is that servants may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.
11. 2:11
    • The grace of God has appeared.
    • That grace brings salvation.
    • That grace has appeared to all men.
12. 2:12
    • The grace of God teaches us to deny ungodliness.
    • The grace of God teaches us to deny worldly lusts.
    • The grace of God teaches us to live soberly in this present age.
    • The grace of God teaches us to live righteously in this present age.
    • The grace of God teaches us to live godly in this present age.
13. 2:13
    • We are to look for the blessed hope.
    • We are to look for the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.
    • It is ambiguous whether the great God and the Saviour Jesus Christ are one person or two.
14. 2:14
    • Jesus Christ gave himself for us.
    • He did this in order to redeem us from all lawlessness.
    • He did this in order to purify for himself a people of his own possession.
    • That people is zealous of good works.
15. 2:15
    • Titus is to speak these things.
    • Titus is to exhort.
    • Titus is to rebuke with all authority.
    • Titus is to let no one despise him.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

2:1

"Become" here is the old sense of befit or suit: teach what is appropriate to sound doctrine. "Sound" translates a Greek medical word meaning healthy or free of disease, and it runs through the letter: teaching is described as either healthy or sick.

2:2

Four separate words sit behind this line. "Sober" is a term for not being under the influence of wine. "Grave" means dignified and worthy of respect, not gloomy. "Temperate" is a wider word for self-command. "Charity" is simply the KJV's usual word for love; it has nothing to do with almsgiving here.

2:3

"As becometh holiness" renders one Greek adjective meaning "fitting for sacred things," the way a person behaves in a temple. "False accusers" translates diabolos, slanderers; it is the same word used elsewhere as a title for the devil, and its plain meaning is someone who runs others down with talk.

2:4

"Sober" again is the Greek word for self-controlled and level-headed, not a comment on drinking in this verse.

2:5

"Chaste" means sexually pure. "Keepers at home" is a rare word meaning workers or managers in the household; in a first-century home that was a substantial job, covering supplies, money and the direction of servants. "Blasphemed" in Greek means simply to be spoken of abusively; the word was used of insulting anyone, not only of cursing God.

2:6

"sober minded" translates a Greek word, sophron, that means having your mind under control, thinking clearly, not being swept along. It is the key word of the whole chapter, showing up behind "sober" in verse 2, "sober" in verse 4, "discreet" in verse 5, here, and "soberly" in verse 12.

2:7

"Pattern" translates typos, the mark left by a stamp or die, so a model meant to be copied. "Uncorruptness" means integrity, teaching with nothing adulterated in it. "Gravity" again means dignity or seriousness, not heaviness of mood.

2:8

"He that is of the contrary part" means the person on the other side, an opponent or critic.

2:9

"Servants" here translates douloi, slaves: people legally owned by their masters, which was ordinary in Roman households. The KJV's "servants" hides that. "Not answering again" means not contradicting or talking back.

2:10

"Purloining" is 1611 English for pilfering. The Greek word means holding back a little from money or goods passing through your hands, a standing concern with household slaves who did the buying and carrying. "Adorn" translates a word used of arranging jewels or trimming a lamp: the idea is making the teaching look well.

2:11

The Greek can be read two ways, and translators divide: either the grace of God has appeared to all people, or the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people. "Appeared" is the verb behind the noun in verse 13.

2:12

"Lusts" in 1611 meant strong desires of any kind, not only sexual ones. "This present world" translates aion, meaning the present age or era, a stretch of time rather than the planet.

2:13

"Looking for" means waiting expectantly. "Appearing" is epiphaneia, the standard Greek word for the visible arrival of a god or the state visit of an emperor to a city. The phrase "the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ" is grammatically ambiguous in Greek. It can be read as two figures, God and Jesus Christ, or as one, with both titles applied to Jesus. Translations split on it, and the wording itself does not settle the question.

2:14

"Redeem" translates a word for paying a price to set someone free, as when a slave or prisoner was bought out of captivity. "Peculiar" in 1611 English meant belonging exclusively to one owner, so a people that are God's own property; it did not mean odd or strange. "Iniquity" here is a Greek word meaning lawlessness. "Zealous" means eager or keen.

2:15

"Exhort" means urge or encourage; "rebuke" means correct someone who is in the wrong. "Despise" translates a verb meaning to disregard or think past someone, treating them as beneath notice, rather than to hate them.