Live as responsible persons
1 Let your words strength en sound doctrine.
2 Tell the older men to be sober, serious, wise, sound in faith, love and perseverance.
3 The older women in like manner must behave as befits holy women, not given to gossiping or drinking wine,
4 but as good counselors, able to teach younger wo men to love their husbands and children,
5 to be judicious and chaste, to take care of their house holds, to be kind and submissive to their husbands, lest our faith be attacked.
6 Encourage the young men to be self-con trolled.
7 Set them an example by your own way of doing. Let your teaching be earnest and sincere,
8 and your preaching be yond reproach. Then your opponents will feel ashamed and will have nothing to criticize.
9 Teach slaves to be subject to their masters, and to give satisfaction in every respect, instead of arguing.
10 They must not steal from them but be trust worthy. In this way they will draw everyone to admire the doctrine of God our Savior.
11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to
all,
12 teaching us to reject an irre ligious way of life and worldly greed, and to live in this world as responsible persons, up right and serving God,
13 while we await our blessed hope – the glorious manifestation of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus.
14 He gave himself for us, to redeem us from every evil and to purify a people he wanted to be his own and dedicated to what is good.
15 Teach these things, encourage and reprove with all authority. Let no one despise you.
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Comments Letter Titus, Chapter 2
• 2.1 Here, there is a reminder of the duties of the faithful according to their situation in life. In the society of the time, far simpler than ours, all was reduced to slaves or the free, men or women, young or old. In our age, it would be necessary to ask people to look more closely at their responsibilities in life.
There is insistence on our duty to bear fruit: the following paragraph will say that if Christ has sac ri ficed himself for us, such a sac ri fice must not remain fruitless.
God Savior has revealed his loving plan to all (v. 11). Here Paul returns to the essence of the Christian message: it is a gift of God and so it must produce the fruits of goodness and reconciliation and draw people away from the self-centeredness which paralyzes them.
He gave himself for us (v. 14). As in Eph 5:25 and 1 Cor 11:25, Jesus’ sacrifice is primarily to purify those who become his people. In fact, it is by looking at Jesus that, little by little, we let go of what is evil and violent in us.
Teaching us to reject an irreligious way of life (v. 12). God brings us to purify our motives and our hearts.
– Responsible, because the practice of Chris tian living brings us to a more serious attitude.
– Just with others by being primarily just with God.
– Serving God: this means first of all being sincere with God.