Titus 1

9. Holding fast--Holding firmly to (compare Matthew 6:24 , Luke 16:13 ).
the faithful--true and trustworthy ( 1 Timothy 1:15 ).
word as he has been taught--literally, "the word (which is) according to the teaching" which he has received (compare 1 Timothy 4:6 , end; 2 Timothy 3:14 ).
by--Translate as Greek, "to exhort in doctrine (instruction) which is sound"; sound doctrine or instruction is the element IN which his exhorting is to have place . . . On "sound" (peculiar to the Pastoral Epistles), see 1 Timothy 1:10 , 6:3 .
convince--rather, "reprove" [ALFORD], ( Titus 1:13 ).

10. unruly--"insubordinate."
and--omitted in the oldest manuscripts. "There are many unruly persons, vain talkers, and deceivers"; "unruly" being predicated of both vain talkers and deceivers.
vain talkers--opposed to "holding fast the faithful word" ( Titus 1:9 ). "Vain jangling" ( 1 Timothy 1:6 ); "foolish questions, unprofitable and vain" ( Titus 3:9 ). The source of the evil was corrupted Judaism ( Titus 1:14 ). Many Jews were then living in Crete, according to JOSEPHUS; so the Jewish leaven remained in some of them after conversion.
deceivers--literally, "deceivers of the minds of others" (Greek, Galatians 6:3 ).

11. mouths . . . stopped--literally, "muzzled," "bridled" as an unruly beast (compare Psalms 32:9 ).
who--Greek, "(seeing that they are) such men as"; or "inasmuch as they" [ELLICOTT].
subvert . . . houses--"overthrowing" their "faith" ( 2 Timothy 2:18 ). "They are the devil's levers by which he subverts the houses of God" [THEOPHYLACT].
for filthy lucre--( 1 Timothy 3:3 1 Timothy 3:8 , 6:5 ).

12. One--Epimenides of Phæstus, or Gnossus, in Crete, about 600. He was sent for to purify Athens from its pollution occasioned by Cylon. He was regarded as a diviner and prophet. The words here are taken probably from his treatise "concerning oracles." Paul also quotes from two other heathen writers, ARATUS ( Acts 17:28 ) and MENANDER ( 1 Corinthians 15:33 ), but he does not honor them so far as even to mention their names.
of themselves . . . their own--which enhances his authority as a witness. "To Cretanize" was proverbial for to lie: as "to Corinthianize" was for to be dissolute.
alway liars--not merely at times, as every natural man is. Contrast Titus 1:2 , "God that cannot lie." They love "fables" ( Titus 1:14 ); even the heathen poets laughed at their lying assertion that they had in their country the sepulchre of Jupiter.
evil beasts--rude, savage, cunning, greedy. Crete was a country without wild beasts. Epimenides' sarcasm was that its human inhabitants supplied the place of wild beasts.
slow bellies--indolent through pampering their bellies. They themselves are called "bellies," for that is the member for which they live ( Romans 16:18 , Philippians 3:19 ).

13. This witness--"This testimony (though coming from a Cretan) is true."
sharply--Gentleness would not reclaim so perverse offenders.
that they--that those seduced by the false teachers may be brought back to soundness in the faith. Their malady is strifes about words and questions ( Titus 3:9 , 1 Timothy 6:4 ).

14. Jewish Gnosticism; as yet the error was but profitless, and not tending to godliness, rather than openly opposed to the faith.
commandments of men--as to ascetic abstinence ( Titus 1:15 7:7-9 Colossians 2:16 Colossians 2:20-23 1 Timothy 4:3 ).
that turn from the truth--whose characteristic is that they turn away from the truth ( 2 Timothy 4:4 ).

15. all things--external, "are pure" in themselves; the distinction of pure and impure is not in the things, but in the disposition of him who uses them; in opposition to "the commandments of men" ( Titus 1:14 ), which forbade certain things as if impure intrinsically. "To the pure" inwardly, that is, those purified in heart by faith ( Acts 15:9 , Romans 14:20 , 1 Timothy 4:3 ), all outward things are pure; all are open to, their use. Sin alone touches and defiles the soul ( Matthew 23:26 , Luke 11:41 ).
nothing pure--either within or without ( Romans 14:23 ).
mind--their mental sense and intelligence.
conscience--their moral consciousness of the conformity or discrepancy between their motives and acts on the one hand, and God's law on the other. A conscience and a mind defiled are represented as the source of the errors opposed in the Pastoral Epistles ( 1 Timothy 1:19 , 3:9 , 6:5 ).

16. They profess--that is, make a profession acknowledging God. He does not deny their theoretical knowledge of God, but that they practically know Him.
deny him--the opposite of the previous "profess" or "confess" Him ( 1 Timothy 5:8 , 2 Timothy 2:12 , 3:5 ).
abominable--themselves, though laying so much stress on the contracting of abomination from outward things (compare Leviticus 11:10-13 , Romans 2:22 ).
disobedient--to God ( Titus 3:3 , Ephesians 2:2 , 5:6 ).
reprobate--rejected as worthless when tested