Titus 3: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul tells Titus to remind believers to submit to rulers, to do good, and to treat everyone with gentleness. He reminds them that they themselves once lived in disobedience and hatred, and that God saved them by mercy rather than by their own good deeds, through the washing of new birth and the renewal of the Holy Spirit. Titus is told to insist on these things, to avoid pointless arguments about the law, and to reject a divisive person after two warnings. The letter closes with travel plans for Artemas, Tychicus, Zenas, and Apollos, and with final greetings.

Claim by Claim

1. 3:1
   • Titus is to remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities
   • Titus is to remind them to be obedient
   • Titus is to remind them to be ready for every good work
2. 3:2
   • Titus is to remind them to speak evil of no one
   • Titus is to remind them not to be quarrelsome
   • Titus is to remind them to be gentle
   • Titus is to remind them to show all meekness toward all people
3. 3:3
   • We ourselves were once foolish
   • We ourselves were once disobedient
   • We ourselves were once deceived
   • We ourselves were once enslaved to various desires and pleasures
   • We ourselves once lived in malice and envy
   • We ourselves were once detestable
   • We ourselves once hated one another
4. 3:4
   • The kindness of God our Savior appeared
   • The love of God our Savior for mankind appeared
5. 3:5
   • God did not save us by works of righteousness that we had done
   • God saved us according to his mercy
   • God saved us by the washing of regeneration
   • God saved us by the renewing of the Holy Spirit
6. 3:6
   • God poured this out on us abundantly
   • God poured it out through Jesus Christ our Savior
7. 3:7
   • We are justified by his grace
   • The purpose is that we should be made heirs
   • We are made heirs according to the hope of eternal life
8. 3:8
   • The saying is faithful
   • Paul wants Titus to affirm these things constantly
   • The purpose is that those who have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works
   • These things are good for people
   • These things are profitable for people
9. 3:9
   • Titus is to avoid foolish questions
   • Titus is to avoid genealogies
   • Titus is to avoid contentions
   • Titus is to avoid strivings about the law
   • Such things are unprofitable
   • Such things are vain
10. 3:10
    • Titus is to reject a divisive man after a first and second admonition
11. 3:11
    • Titus knows that such a man is perverted
    • Such a man sins
    • Such a man is condemned by himself
12. 3:12
    • Paul will send either Artemas or Tychicus to Titus
    • Titus is to be diligent to come to Paul at Nicopolis when that happens
    • Paul has determined to spend the winter at Nicopolis
13. 3:13
    • Titus is to diligently send Zenas the lawyer on his journey
    • Titus is to diligently send Apollos on his journey
    • The purpose is that nothing be lacking to them
14. 3:14
    • Our own people are also to learn to maintain good works
    • The good works are for necessary needs
    • The purpose is that they not be unfruitful
15. 3:15
    • All who are with Paul greet Titus
    • Titus is to greet those who love us in the faith
    • Grace be with all of you
    • Amen

Words Worth Explaining

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

3:1

The King James "principalities and powers" here means human government, the Roman governor and the local officials under him, not spiritual beings; the same English pair renders different Greek words elsewhere in the New Testament. "Magistrates" was the ordinary word for any public official.

3:2

"Brawlers" in 1611 meant quarrelsome people, those who pick fights in words as readily as with fists. "Meekness" then meant a controlled gentleness in dealing with others, not timidity or weakness.

3:3

"Sometimes" in 1611 English meant "at one time, formerly," not "now and then." "Divers" is the old spelling of "diverse," meaning various kinds. And "hateful" here means hated by other people, not full of hate; the hating comes in the phrase that follows.

3:4

"Love of God our Saviour toward man" renders a single Greek word, philanthropia, love of humankind. In the Greek world it was a stock term of praise for a generous ruler or public benefactor. "Saviour" was likewise a public title in ordinary use, applied to gods, kings and Roman emperors.

3:5

"Holy Ghost": in 1611 "ghost" simply meant spirit, with none of the modern sense of a haunting. "The washing of regeneration" uses the everyday word for a bath or a washing basin, and "regeneration" means being born again, made new. The Greek leaves it open whether "of the Holy Ghost" belongs only to the renewing or to the washing as well.

3:6

"Shed" in 1611 meant poured out, as liquid is poured. What is poured out is the Spirit named at the end of the previous verse.

3:7

"Justified" is a courtroom word: declared to be in the right, acquitted, rather than made to feel better. "Grace" means favor freely given to someone with no claim on it. "Heirs" carries its plain legal sense of those who come into an estate.

3:8

"A faithful saying" is a tag marking a short formula the readers already knew and accepted; it appears several times in these letters. In "I will that thou affirm constantly," "will" means want or intend, and "constantly" in 1611 meant firmly and confidently, not repeatedly. "Careful" meant intent on a thing, giving it real attention.

3:9

"Genealogies": in this period lists of ancestors were used both to claim standing by descent and as raw material for elaborate speculative teaching spun out of the names in scripture. "Strivings about the law" points to disputes over the Jewish law. "Vain" means empty, producing nothing.

3:10

"Heretick" does not mean here what the English word later came to mean, a person holding wrong doctrine. The Greek word describes someone who forms a faction, breaking a group into rival parties. "Admonition" is a warning meant to correct. "Reject" means to stop dealing with him, not to punish him.

3:11

"Subverted" means turned around or twisted out of shape, turned off the right road. "Condemned of himself" means condemned by himself: no one needs to pass sentence, because his own conduct has already done it.

3:12

Nicopolis, the name means "victory city," stood on the west coast of Greece. Sea travel across the Mediterranean largely shut down from about November to March because of storms, so anyone traveling had to settle in one place for the winter and wait for spring. Artemas and Tychicus are fellow workers; Tychicus appears elsewhere as the man who carried Paul's letters.

3:13

"Bring them on their journey" is old English for sending travelers off properly equipped: food, money for the road, and letters of introduction to people along the way. Inns were few and had a bad name, so travelers depended on hosts and hosts' friends. "Lawyer" may mean an expert in the Jewish law or a jurist in the Roman sense; the Greek word covers both, and nothing here settles which is meant. "Wanting" means lacking.

3:14

"Ours" means our own people, the believers. "Maintain good works" can mean either giving themselves to good deeds or taking up honest occupations to earn a living; the Greek phrase carries both senses. "Necessary uses" means pressing needs as they come up. "Unfruitful" is a farming image, a tree or a field that yields no crop.

3:15

"Salute" in 1611 meant simply to greet. Letters of this period normally closed with greetings passed along from the people around the writer, and this one ends in the usual way. "Amen" is a Hebrew word meaning roughly "so be it," said to endorse what has just been spoken.