sober--towards one's self; "discreet"; "self-restrained" [Alford], (see on [1Ti 2:9]).
just--towards "men."
holy--towards God (see on [1Th 2:10]).
temperate--"One having his passions, tongue, hand and eyes, at command" [Chrysostom]; "continent."
9. Holding fast--Holding firmly to (compare [Mt 6:24]; [Lu 16:13]).
the faithful--true and trustworthy ([1Ti 1:15]).
word as he has been taught--literally, "the word (which is) according to the teaching" which he has received (compare [1Ti 4:6], end; [2Ti 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 [1Ti 1:10]; .
convince--rather, "reprove" [Alford], ([Tit 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" ([Tit 1:9]). "Vain jangling" ([1Ti 1:6]); "foolish questions, unprofitable and vain" ([Tit 3:9]). The source of the evil was corrupted Judaism ([Tit 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, [Ga 6:3]).
11. mouths ... stopped--literally, "muzzled," "bridled" as an unruly beast (compare [Psa 32:9]).
who--Greek, "(seeing that they are) such men as"; or "inasmuch as they" [Ellicott].
subvert ... houses--"overthrowing" their "faith" ([2Ti 2:18]). "They are the devil's levers by which he subverts the houses of God" [Theophylact].
for filthy lucre--([1Ti 3:3], ; ).
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 ([Ac 17:28]) and Menander ([1Co 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 [Tit 1:2], "God that cannot lie." They love "fables" ([Tit 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 ([Ro 16:18]; [Php 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 ([Tit 3:9]; [1Ti 6:4]).
14. Jewish fables--(See on [1Ti 1:4]; [1Ti 4:7]; [2Ti 4:4]). These formed the transition stage to subsequent 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 ([Tit 1:15]; [Mr 7:7-9]; [Col 2:16], 20-23; [1Ti 4:3]).
that turn from the truth--whose characteristic is that they turn away from the truth ([2Ti 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" ([Tit 1:14]), which forbade certain things as if impure intrinsically. "To the pure" inwardly, that is, those purified in heart by faith ([Ac 15:9]; [Ro 14:20]; [1Ti 4:3]), all outward things are pure; all are open to, their use. Sin alone touches and defiles the soul ([Mt 23:26]; [Lu 11:41]).
nothing pure--either within or without ([Ro 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 ([1Ti 1:19]; ; ).
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 ([1Ti 5:8]; [2Ti 2:12]; ).
abominable--themselves, though laying so much stress on the contracting of abomination from outward things (compare [Le 11:10-13]; [Ro 2:22]).
disobedient--to God ([Tit 3:3]; [Ep 2:2]; ).
reprobate--rejected as worthless when tested (see on [Ro 1:28]; [1Co 9:27]; [2Ti 3:8]).
Chapter 2
Tit 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 [Tit 1:11], [15, 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 [Tit 1:11], "mouths ... stopped."
doctrine--"instruction" or "teaching."
2. sober--Translated "vigilant," as sober men alone can be ([1Ti 3:2]). But "sober" here answers to "not given to wine," [Tit 2:3]; [Tit 1:7].
grave--"dignified"; behaving with reverent propriety.
temperate--"self-restrained"; "discreet" [Alford], ([Tit 1:8]; [1Ti 2:9]).