Titus 2

Titus 2:1-15 . DIRECTIONS TO TITUS: HOW TO EXHORT VARIOUS CLASSES OF BELIEVERS: THE GRACE OF GOD IN CHRIST OUR GRAND INCENTIVE TO LIVE GODLY.

1. But . . . thou--in contrast to the reprobate seducers stigmatized in Titus 1:11 Titus 1:15 Titus 1:16 . "He deals more in exhortations, because those intent on useless questions needed chiefly to be recalled to the study of a holy, moral life; for nothing so effectually allays men's wandering curiosity, as the being brought to recognize those duties in which they ought to exercise themselves" [CALVIN].
speak--without restraint: contrast Titus 1:11 , "mouths . . . stopped."
doctrine--"instruction" or "teaching."

2. sober--Translated "vigilant," as sober men alone can be ( 1 Timothy 3:2 ). But "sober" here answers to "not given to wine," Titus 2:3 , Titus 1:7 .
grave--"dignified"; behaving with reverent propriety.
temperate--"self-restrained"; "discreet" [ALFORD], ( Titus 1:8 , 1 Timothy 2:9 ).
faith . . . charity [love] . . . patience--combined in 1 Timothy 6:11 . "Faith, hope, charity" ( 1 Corinthians 13:13 ). "Patience," Greek, "enduring perseverance," is the attendant on, and is supported by, "hope" ( 1 Corinthians 13:7 , 1 Thessalonians 1:3 ). It is the grace which especially becomes old men, being the fruit of ripened experience derived from trials overcome ( Romans 5:3 ).

3. behaviour--"deportment."
as becometh holiness--"as becometh women consecrated to God" [WAHL]: being by our Christian calling priestesses unto God ( Ephesians 5:3 , 1 Timothy 2:10 ). "Observant of sacred decorum" [BENGEL].
not false accusers--not slanderers: a besetting sin of some elderly women.
given to much wine--the besetting sin of the Cretans ( Titus 1:12 ). Literally, "enslaved to much wine." Addiction to wine is slavery ( Romans 6:16 , 2 Peter 2:19 ).
teachers--in private: not in public ( 1 Corinthians 14:34 , 1 Timothy 2:11 1 Timothy 2:12 ); influencing for good the younger women by precept and example.

4. to be sober--Greek, "self-restrained," "discreet"; the same Greek as in Titus 2:2 , "temperate." (But ALFORD therefore translates, "That they school (admonish in their duty) the young women to be lovers of their husbands," &c. (the foundation of all domestic happiness). It was judicious that Titus, a young man, should admonish the young women, not directly, but through the older women.