Titus
Chapter 2
Overview
This chapter turns teaching into daily conduct. Titus is told what to teach older men and women, younger women and men, and enslaved people living under masters. In a world organized around households, public behavior could either strengthen a message or make it look hollow. The chapter therefore moves from practical self-control, love, integrity, and trustworthiness to the reason beneath them: God’s grace is training people for a different way of life as they wait for Jesus to appear in glory. The quiet work of character becomes the public face of belief.
1But you must teach the kind of conduct that agrees with sound teaching.
2Older men are to be clear-minded, worthy of respect, and self-controlled. Their faith, love, and endurance must be strong and healthy.
3In the same way, older women are to behave with reverence. They must not slander others or be enslaved to heavy drinking. Instead, they should teach what is good.
4Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children,
5to be self-controlled and morally pure, to work faithfully at home, to be kind, and to recognize the authority of their own husbands. Then no one will speak abusively about God’s message.
6Likewise, urge the younger men to exercise good judgment and self-control.
7In every respect, make yourself a model by doing what is good. Show integrity and dignity in your teaching.
8Speak in a sound way that cannot rightly be condemned. Then anyone who opposes us will be ashamed because there is nothing bad to say about us.
9Enslaved people are to obey their own masters in everything and try to please them. They must not talk back
10or steal from them. Instead, they must prove completely trustworthy. In this way, everything they do will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.
11For God’s grace has appeared, bringing salvation to all people.
12That grace trains us to reject ways that dishonor God and desires shaped by this world. It teaches us to live with self-control, to do what is right, and to be devoted to God in this present age.
13At the same time, we wait with joyful hope for the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus the Messiah, to appear.
14He gave himself for us to set us free from every kind of wrongdoing and to make us clean as a people who are truly his own, eager to do what is good.
15Teach these things. Encourage people and correct them with full authority. Do not let anyone dismiss you.