5  The Character of a Healthy Church—part 1  (2:1-10)

But as for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine. Older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, in love, in perseverance. Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be dishonored. Likewise urge the young men to be sensible; in all things show yourself to be an example of good deeds, with purity in doctrine, dignified, sound in speech which is beyond reproach, in order that the opponent may be put to shame, having nothing bad to say about us. Urge bondslaves to be subject to their own masters in everything, to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect. (2:1-10)

In Chapter 2, the subject changes from pastors to congregations, from leadership to laity. The entire chapter deals with the evangelistic impact of a spiritually healthy congregation and gives direct, practical instruction about how believers are to live for the purpose of showing sinners the power and joy of salvation.

But as for you indicates a transition by contrast between the false teachers in the churches, who, although they professed to know God, denied Him by their unholy living and were therefore “detestable and disobedient, and worthless for any good deed” (Titus 1:16). Those men had been tested and found to be useless, even dangerous. Titus therefore was commissioned by Paul to challenge their false teaching and false living and to speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine, in order to strengthen the testimony of the churches for the gospel of salvation.

Speak translates a present imperative of laleō, which refers to ordinary conversation. The present tense carries the idea of continuity and persistence, and the imperative makes the verb a command. Titus, and the elders he appointed (1:5), were commanded to speak about right living as well as right doctrine. They were not to deviate, capitulate, or be intimidated. They were to be as aggressive in their teaching of sound doctrine and its corresponding godly lifestyle as the false teachers in the Cretan churches were in their unsound doctrine and its consequent ungodly lifestyle. They were to give regular and careful pastoral instruction about practical Christian living and about the godly attitudes and actions that result from believing and obeying divine truth. They were to live lives that properly reflected their salvation from sin and were a worthy affirmation of the transforming power of their Savior.

About a year later, the apostle would admonish Timothy to “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come,” he continued, “when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths” (2 Tim. 4:2-4). The churches and their leaders on Crete faced the same dire prospect as would those at Ephesus.

It is important to note that the apostle is not here focusing on the teaching and preaching of sound doctrine itself, as he does in 1:9. He is rather focusing on practical instruction about the things which are fitting for, that is, based on and appropriate to, the sound doctrine that already has been taught. Prepō (fitting) carries the basic meaning of “being prominent or conspicuous” and came to be used of a distinguishing characteristic. Eventually it was used to describe that which is fitting, appropriate, proper, seemly. Truth requires certain behaviors that reflect and are appropriate to it. “Do not let immorality or any impurity or greed even be named among you,” Paul admonished Ephesian believers, “as is proper [prepō] among saints” (Eph. 5:3).

Sound translates a participle form of the verb hugiainō, which has the basic meaning of “being well and healthy” and is the term from which we derive “hygiene.” Paul uses a form of this word nine times in the pastoral epistles, five of those times in Titus, and always in relation to personal righteousness and spiritual well-being. He repeatedly emphasizes that sound doctrine (1 Tim. 1:10; 2 Tim. 4:3; Titus 1:9; 2:1) eventuates in sound faith and sound speaking (1 Tim. 6:3; 2 Tim. 1:13; Titus 1:13; 2:2, 8). Healthy doctrine produces healthy spiritual living.

The Bible never divorces doctrine from duty, truth from behavior. After presenting eleven chapters of basic New Testament doctrine, Paul then said to believers at Rome, “I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:1-2). He followed the same pattern in his letters to believers in Ephesus (see Eph. 4:1), Philippi (see Phil. 4:8-9), and Colossae (see 3:2-10). Quoting Leviticus 11:44, Peter said, “It is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Pet. 1:16). Those who claim the name of God have always been commanded to live godly lives.

What is true of individual believers is, of course, also true of the church as a body. A church that is grounded in spiritual truth and protected from spiritual falsehood is to be spiritually healthy and productive through the way in which its members live. The fruit of right doctrine is righteous living.

Pastors are to concentrate on the spiritual depth of their congregations and allow God to take care of the breadth. “I planted, [and] Apollos watered,” Paul said, “but God was causing the growth” (1 Cor. 3:6). “He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food,” he reminded believers in Corinth, “will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness” (2 Cor. 9:10; cf. Col. 2:19).

In Titus 2:2-10, the Holy Spirit prescribes a series of binding requirements that are necessary for members of a healthy church to have an evangelistic impact. In 2:11-14, the reason for such holy living is magnificently declared to be bound up in God’s redemptive plan. The admonition of verse 1 is then repeated and reinforced in verse 15: “These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you” (Titus 2:15).

The injunctions in verses 2-10 are strong, straightforward, and specific. Because they are so contrary to proud and self-willed human nature, they often have been unpopular and controversial, even in the church. At no time have they been more unpopular and controversial than in many churches today, where personal opinion and cultural standards take precedence over God’s truth and self-fulfillment is more important than holy living.

The patterns of holy living that make for effective witness are here given as the distinguishing marks of the Christian groups addressed in these verses: older men (v. 2), older women (w. 3-4a), young women (w. 4b-5), young men (w. 6-8), and bondslaves/employees (w. 9-10).

OLDER MEN

Older men are to be temperate, dignified, sensible, sound in faith, in love, in perseverance. (2:2)

Old age is often associated with such things as maturity, wisdom, and patience. Ideally, “Wisdom is with aged men, [and] with long life is understanding” (Job 12:12). But that is not always the case. Increased age typically brings decreased energy, diminished vision and hearing, more aches and pains, and often more depression, hopelessness, and cynicism. In the last chapter of Ecclesiastes we are told, “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, ‘I have no delight in them’; before the sun, the light, the moon, and the stars are darkened, and clouds return after the rain; in the day that the watchmen of the house tremble, and mighty men stoop” (12:1-3).

As we grow older, change can become harder to accept. Life can become less fulfilling, less satisfying, and more disillusioning. It is easy to become a creature of habit, and the longer a habit is practiced, the more deeply entrenched and formidable it becomes. Besetting sins can become such an integral part of daily living that they cease to be recognized as sins at all.

For a Christian, however, old age should bring greater love for God, for the people of God, and for the sacred things of God. Those who have walked with Christ for many years should rejoice in that privilege and in the prospect of one day seeing Him face to face. A church should value and honor those who have spent many years in fellowship with the Lord, in the study of His Word, and in service to and through His church. A church is blessed when it has believers who can say with Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7) and who can pray, “O God, Thou hast taught me from my youth; and I still declare Thy wondrous deeds” (Ps. 71:17).

Moses was 80 years old when God called him to lead Israel out of bondage in Egypt and to the land of promise. But, like his poor speaking ability (Ex. 4:10-12), advanced age did not excuse him from the Lord’s work.

At the age of 83—after having traveled some 250,000 miles on horseback, preached more than 40,000 sermons, and produced some 200 books and pamphlets—John Wesley regretted that he was unable to read and write for more than 15 hours a day without his eyes becoming too tired to work. After his 86th birthday, he admitted to an increasing tendency to lie in bed until 5:30 in the morning!

Godly older saints who bring strength, stability, and wisdom to a church should be cherished. Ancient Israel was told by the Lord, “You shall rise up before the grayheaded, and honor the aged” (Lev. 19:32; cf. Prov. 16:31). The godly are assured that they “will still yield fruit in old age” (Ps. 92:14) and that “the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, that shines brighter and brighter until the full day” (Prov. 4:18).

In itself, however, old age does not make a believer more godly, more faithful, more satisfied, or more effective in service to God. As Paul’s injunctions in this verse indicate, even older men sometimes need to be admonished to exemplify certain basic virtues.

Both the Old and New Testaments teach that older men and women, whether believers or not, are to be treated with special respect and consideration by those who are younger. That principle applied with special force in regard to children and their parents. As Paul pointed out to believers in Ephesus, the command to “honor your father and mother … is the first commandment with a promise” (Eph. 6:2; cf. Ex. 20:12). Under the old covenant, striking a parent was a capital offense (Ex. 21:15).

It is not, of course, that older people are beyond correction. But when an older person commits an offense, he is to be reproved with respect and care. “Do not sharply rebuke an older man,” Paul warned Timothy, “but rather appeal to him as a father” (1 Tim. 5:1).

Older men translates the single Greek term presbutēs, which Paul used of himself (Philem. 9) when he was in his sixties. The only other time it is used in the New Testament is of Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, who questioned the angel about his becoming a father, saying, “for I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years’” (Luke 1:18). Zacharias obviously thought that both he and his wife were then past normal childbearing age. In ancient Greek literature the word sometimes was used of men as young as 50.

Paul does not use the word “admonish” in his injunction to older men, older women, or younger women, as he does in regard to young men and bondslaves (w. 6, 9). But the use of “likewise urge” in verse 6 clearly indicates that the apostle expected Titus to personally admonish believers in the first three groups as well.

All older men are to live holy, exemplary lives before the Lord, before the church, and before the world. They are to abandon the recklessness, impetuosity, thoughtlessness, and instability that are characteristic of youth.

First, they are to be temperate. The adjective nēphalios (temperate) carries the root idea of being free from intoxication. In the New Testament it is used metaphorically of someone who is moderate (see also 1 Tim. 3:2, 11). A temperate person avoids extravagance and over-indulgence. Paul and Peter used a related word in admonishing believers to be sober-minded (1 Cor. 15:34; cf. 1 Pet. 1:13; 4:7).

The temperate older man is able to discern more clearly which things are of the greatest importance and value. He uses his time, his money, and his energy more carefully and selectively than when he was younger and less mature. His priorities are in the right order, and he is satisfied with fewer and simpler things.

Second, older men are to be dignified. Semnos (dignified) originally carried the idea of revered and venerable, but later came to be used generally of a person or thing that is honorable and dignified. The word does not carry the idea of haughtiness or high class but of somberness in its best sense. The dignified person is never frivolous, trivial, or superficial. He never laughs at immorality, vulgarity, or anything else that is sinful and ungodly. Nor does he laugh at that which is tragic or at the expense of others.

Older believers have lived long enough to see many people, including good friends and close family members, experience serious misfortune, suffer great pain, and perhaps die at an early age. They may have seen a spouse or a child suffer leukemia or some other form of cancer or debilitating disease. They have learned the value of time and opportunity. They better accept and comprehend their own mortality, the imperfections of this present world, and the inability of material things to give lasting, deep satisfaction. They have seen Utopian ideas fail and have learned how short-lived and disappointing euphoric emotional experiences can be, even those—or perhaps especially those—that purport to be of a higher spiritual order.

Third, older men are to be sensible. They should have the discernment, discretion, and judgment that comes from walking with God for many years. They control their physical passions and they reject worldly standards and resist worldly attractions. Like Paul, by God’s grace they “think so as to have sound judgment” (Rom. 12:3).

Fourth, older men are to be characterized by three positive attributes. They should be sound in faith, in love, [and] in perseverance.

Sound is from the same verb (hugiainō) used in the previous verse in regard to doctrine. It refers to that which is healthy, proper, whole, to that which is as it ought to be.

First of all, older men who have been through 50, 60, 70, or more years of life are to be sound in faith, having learned that God indeed can be trusted in every way. They do not question His wisdom or power or love, and they do not lose trust in His goodness and grace or lose confidence in His divine plan and divine wisdom. They do not doubt the truth or sufficiency of His Word or waver in their divinely assured hope that His sovereign plan will be fulfilled.

Second, older men are to be sound … in love—toward God, toward His people, and toward those who do not yet know Him. They love by bearing one another’s burdens and thereby fulfilling the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2). They have learned to love when their love is not deserved and to continue loving when it is rejected and even when they suffer because of it. They lovingly forgive and they lovingly serve.

In his first letter to believers in the church at Corinth, Paul explained what godly love is and what it is not, what it does and what it does not do. “Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:4-7).

The godly older man believes and practices the truth that we are to “love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7; cf. v. 11). He knows that “the one who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (v. 8) and that he has “passed out of death into life, because [he loves] the brethren” (3:14). He has come to know and believe “the love which God has for us,” that God is love, and [that] the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (4:16). He is not afraid, because “there is no fear in love; [and] perfect love casts out fear” (v. 18). He knows that he is able to love because the Lord “first loved us” (v. 19) and that the mark of our love for God is the keeping of “His commandments,” which “are not burdensome” (5:3).

Third, older men are to be sound … in perseverance. They are to exhibit the ability to endure hardship, to accept disappointment and failure, to be satisfied despite thwarted personal desires and plans. They have learned to graciously live with such difficulties as physical weakness, loneliness, and being misunderstood and unappreciated. They do not lose heart when things do not turn out the way they had hoped and expected, but have the perfect confidence “that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28).

OLDER WOMEN

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, that they may encourage the young women (2:3-4a)

Like older men, older women in the church are to be awarded special respect and deference because of their age. As noted above, “the first commandment with a promise” requires honor of both mother and father (Eph. 6:2; cf. Ex. 20:12), and the penalty under the old covenant for striking either parent was death (Ex. 21:15). Even when an older woman does something that is seriously wrong, she should be lovingly rebuked as a mother (1 Tim. 5:2).

In the passage just cited, Paul puts no qualification on such respect, which applies even to an older person who is immature and inconsiderate. When the apostle himself found it necessary to publicly reprove Euodia and Syntyche, he graciously urged them “to live in harmony in the Lord” and asked an unidentified “true comrade … to help these women who have shared my struggle in the cause of the gospel” (Phil. 4:2-3).

Paul does not specify the age a woman would have to be to qualify as older. But childbearing typically ends at about 40-45 years of age and, correspondingly, child-rearing ends at about 60-65. It therefore seems reasonable to take older women as referring to women that are at least 60 years old. That is the age that Paul mentions in his first letter to Timothy in regard to widows who qualified for being put on the list to receive financial support from the church (1 Tim. 5:9).

Such godly older women are a rich spiritual resource in the church and deserve special esteem and consideration. Paul therefore declared that a Christian widow more than 60 years old who had no family to support her and who “has fixed her hope on God, and continues in entreaties and prayers night and day,” who was a faithful and godly wife and mother, and who “has shown hospitality to strangers, … washed the saints’ feet, … assisted those in distress, and … devoted herself to every good work” not only should be honored by the church but financially supported as well (1 Tim. 5:3-10).

In New Testament times, older women served the church in numerous ways. As Paul mentions later in the present passage, a key function of older women was to teach and encourage younger women in the things of the Lord. They also ministered to each other and to women in the church of any age, single, married, or widowed. They visited the sick and those in prison. They provided hospitality to Christian travelers, especially those in some form of ministry.

In towns that were strongly pagan, Christian women would go through the streets and marketplaces searching for abandoned newborns who were unwanted and had been left to die by their parents. Since abortion was both dangerous and expensive and birth-control devices did not exist, an unwanted baby was simply abandoned at birth. Some male babies were raised to be slaves or gladiators, and some girls were trained for prostitution. Christian women who rescued these infants would give them to church families for adoption.

Paul states several qualities that should characterize older women. First, they are to be reverent in their behavior. Reverent in … behavior translates the single Greek word hieroprepōs, used only here in the New Testament. The word has the root meaning of being priestlike and came to refer to that which is appropriate to holiness. Older women are to be godly examples of holiness.

Anna illustrates such virtue. Having been “a widow to the age of eighty-four, … she [had] never left the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers” (Luke 2:37). Because she had lived so faithfully in the Lord, the Holy Spirit enabled her to immediately recognize the infant Jesus when Joseph and Mary brought Him to the temple. The moment she saw Him, “she came up and began giving thanks to God, and continued to speak of Him to all those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” (v. 38).

Women who are reverent in their behavior “adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments; but rather by means of good works, as befits women making a claim to godliness,” and they “quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness” (1 Tim. 2:9-11). They are women who, through the bearing of children, have removed the stigma of Eve’s sin and have lived “in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint” (v. 15).

Second, older women are not [to be] malicious gossips. They refuse to listen to, much less propagate, slanderous or demeaning words about others. Just as men are more inclined to abuse others physically, women are more inclined to abuse others verbally, which can be even more destructive.

Paul is not referring simply to unfavorable idle chatter about a person, bad as that is. Malicious gossips translates diabolos, which means “slanderer, or false accuser” and is used thirty-four times in the New Testament as a title of Satan, whom Jesus describes as “the father of lies” (John 8:44).

Third, older women are not to be enslaved to much wine, a strong phrase that refers to drunkenness. As many of them have done throughout history, older people on Crete sometimes turned to drink as a stimulant and a means of ameliorating the pains, frustrations, and loneliness of old age. Douloō means literally to be enslaved, “to be held and controlled against one’s will,” and addiction to much wine becomes more a prison than a means of escape. Worse still, an older believer who becomes so addicted brings dishonor to the Lord’s name, sullies the reputation of the church, and, more often than not, leads others into following his or her ungodly example.

Fourth, and in a positive vein, older women are to be known for teaching what is good. Kalodidaskalos (teaching what it good) refers to instruction in that which is noble, excellent, and lofty. In this context, it includes the teaching of what is holy and godly. Having taught their own children well, older women now have the responsibility for teaching younger women in the church and encouraging them to also be righteous and godly wives and mothers (w. 4-5).

That they may encourage the young women is the first of four purpose (hina) clauses in this passage (see also w. 5, 8, 10). Older women are to teach and model godliness in order to encourage the young women in the church in the particular ways that Paul mentions here. Sōphronizō (to encourage) literally means “to cause someone to be of sound mind and to have self-control.” It is closely related to the words translated “sensible” in 1:8 and 2:5 and “sensibly” in 2:12. A related noun in 1 Timothy 2:15, also applied to Christian women, is rendered “self-restraint.” The subjunctive verb in the present text refers to helping others cultivate good judgment and sensibilities. It is therefore another form of teaching, which, when accepted and heeded, will encourage those who are taught, in this case, young women.

Although women are forbidden to teach or have authority over men (1 Tim. 2:12), they do have the God-given responsibility to formally and informally teach children, especially their own, and younger women in the church. When godly Christian women do not infuse the younger generation with the things of God, the church comes to dire straits.

YOUNG WOMEN

[encourage the young women] to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be dishonored. (2:4b-5)

Although Paul uses the term young women, it is clear from the context that he is here speaking only to wives, to young women who are married. It is not God’s plan that all men or women marry. To some believers He gives the gift of singleness (cf. 1 Cor. 7:8-9, 17). But the apostle is here speaking first to all young women who are married (v. 4b), then to those who have children, natural or adopted (v. 4c), and then again to all young wives (v. 5).

As already noted, in this passage Paul addresses two broad age categories of both men and women. Because older women would include those 60 years of age and older, young women therefore would include those of marriageable age until about 60.

No biblical standard is more viciously attacked today than the God-ordained role of women in society. And no passage is more ridiculed or reinterpreted by assailants within the church than these two verses.

As with many worldly influences, the feminist movement has made great inroads in the church, including the evangelical church. In the name of women’s rights, the Word of God is dishonored as being sexist, chauvinistic, and unfairly limiting. Some feminists maintain that standards set forth in these and similar passages were culturally oriented to New Testament times or were simply Paul’s personal beliefs. In either case, they are considered irrelevant and nonbinding for Christians today.

The God-ordained institutions of marriage and family, which are the primary foundation of a healthy society, are attacked as archaic and outrageous or, at best, unnecessary. Tragically, many unthinking, poorly taught Christians are seduced by feminist rhetoric into believing that traditional roles of women—in the family, in society, and in the church—are outdated and oppressive. The phrase “women’s liberation” has an attractive, democratic ring, which, on the surface, seems reasonable and justified. It has special appeal, of course, to women who feel unappreciated, restricted, exploited, victimized, and trapped by the traditional roles and opportunities for women.

It should be understood that the basic tenets of feminism did not originate in modern society and were not produced simply by the self-centered ambitions of contemporary women who want to be free to be whatever they want to be and do whatever they want to do. Radical feminism is not uniquely a twentieth-century phenomenon nor the product of Western egalitarianism. The feminist agenda is ancient and, at root, satanic. It is a primeval heresy that is part of Satan’s strategy to undermine and destroy God’s plan for mankind. It began in the Garden of Eden, with Satan’s temptation and Eve’s rebellion, first against God and then against her husband. When she chose to follow her own independent way, she led the whole race into sin and made effective Satan’s first ploy against marriage and the family.

The distinctions of headship and submission were ordained by God at Creation. As a consequence of Eve’s disobedience to God’s command and her failure to consult with Adam about the temptation, God told her, “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Gen. 3:16). The desire spoken of here is not sexual or psychological, both of which Eve had for Adam before the Fall as his specially created helper. It is rather the same desire spoken of in the next chapter, where the same Hebrew word (t’shûqâ) is used. The term comes from an Arabic root that means “to compel, impel, urge, or seek control over.” The Lord warned Cain, “Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you [that is, control you], but you must master it” (4:7 NIV; emphasis added). Sin wanted to master Cain, but God commanded Cain to master sin. The curse on Eve was that a woman’s desire would henceforth be to usurp the place of man’s headship and that he would resist that desire and even more strongly exercise his control over her. The Hebrew word here translated “rule” is not the same as that used in 1:28. Rather it represented a new, despotic kind of authoritarianism that was not in God’s original plan for man’s headship.

With the Fall and its curse came the distortion of woman’s proper submissiveness and of man’s proper authority. That is where the battle of the sexes began, where women’s liberation and male chauvinism came into existence. Women have a sinful propensity to usurp men’s authority, and men have a sinful propensity to put women under their feet. The divine decree that man would rule over woman in this way was part of God’s curse on humanity, and it takes a manifestation of grace in Christ by the filling of the Holy Spirit to resolve the created order and harmony of proper submission in a relationship that has become corrupted and disordered by sin.

The core ideas of feminism, including reversal of sexual roles, are found in virtually all ancient religions, including the mother-god legends of Babylonian and Persian mythology. By New Testament times, the foremost proponent of feminism was Greek gnosticism (from the Greek gnōsis, “to know”), a general philosophical belief system that prided itself in its unique and superior knowledge about all matters of importance. Despite the attempts of some gnostics to incorporate their beliefs into Judaism and later into Christianity, gnosticism was a malevolent system designed by Satan that was anti-God, anti-Christ, and anti-biblical. In his outstanding book The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back, Peter Jones observes that “Gnosticism is a broad term to describe false anti-God religion developed before the birth of Christianity—as the meeting of the mysticism of the Eastern religions and the rationalism of the Greek west” ([Phillipsburg, N.J.: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1992], p. 15). The gnostics combined the humanistic musings of man’s mind and the esoteric and fanciful notions of eastern mysticism to produce a hybrid, and purportedly superior, system of truth. But they succeeded only in developing a more sophisticated, and especially deceptive and dangerous, form of paganism.

In all genuinely gnostic literature, the creation of the physical universe is portrayed as an act of arrogant, foolish pride by a powerful but subordinate god who tragically corrupted the heretofore perfect universe of the spirit. A recently discovered ancient gnostic text depicts the creator god as being blind, ignorant, arrogant, the source of envy, and the father of death. Much ancient gnostic literature mocked the Creator God of Scripture with a disdain that bordered on contempt. But that sub-god, or demiurge, also somehow managed to endow the men he had created with a spark of divinity, which, when properly fanned, makes a person fully divine.

Ancient gnosticism also elevated women, considering Eve to have been a spirit-endowed woman who actually saved Adam from the bungling male deity called God. Similarly, salvation for all of mankind will be brought through female power. Dame Wisdom, the Heavenly Eve, was a mystical goddess who was the source of all wisdom. She was presumed to have entered the serpent in the Garden of Eden and instructed Eve in the ultimate wisdom of self-actualization and self-fulfillment, a wisdom she passed on to Adam. As Peter Jones observes, gnosticism took redemptive history and stood it on its head, like an upside-down satanist cross in a black mass.

Although gnosticism has taken many forms during its long history of deception, its core doctrine is the consubstantiality of the human self with God. Man’s purpose is to make himself fully God, and the means to that end is elevation of self through developing self-esteem, self-knowledge, and self-realization. “It follows,” comments Jones, “that part of self-redemption is the rejection of biblical norms and the promotion of the distortion of biblical sexuality” (p. 26).

In the mythology of gnosticism, the supreme deity is androgynous, that is, both male and female. But the female role is always supreme. Consequently, biblical sexual roles for mankind are reversed, and female dominance and lesbianism are exalted.

The modern heir of gnosticism is the New Age movement, which, like its ancient progenitor, has many forms and facets. But it has the same disdain for Scripture and the God of Scripture and the same elevation of self. As just noted, it also is characterized by female domination and lesbianism. Although Hinduism has many forms and countless gods and goddesses, many of its basic tenets are gnostic, and its supreme deity is a goddess.

Radical feminism, with its homosexuality, sexual freedom, and assault on gender differences and definitions of family, has strongly influenced major Christian denominations, as seen in the rapidly growing practice of ordaining women to the priesthood and pastorate and in the publishing of gender-neutral, and even female-deity, versions of the Bible. As already noted, such unbiblical ideas are not primarily the contrivance of women to make them feel better about themselves but are no less than satanic religion. (For a more complete treatment of this subject, see Jones, The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back, pp. 19-72.)

Roman Catholic theologian Carol Christ has written, “I found God in myself and I loved her fiercely.” Peter Jones writes that New Age author Charlene Spretnak’s book The Politics of Women’s Spirituality

That is exactly the kind of rebellion and resultant divine judgment of which Paul speaks:

Sodom and Gomorrah did not survive homosexuality run rampant, nor did the Roman Empire.

How extremely different is God’s plan. He has a magnificent and wonderful design for women. It is a design that will fulfill their created purpose, maximize their uniqueness, make them a blessing to the world, and bring fulfillment to their own lives and glory to God. That design is succinctly stated in Titus 2.

Paul continues by saying that, by their godly teaching and example, older women in the church are to encourage the young women to love their husbands. Paul is not speaking of romantic or sexual love, which certainly have a proper place in marriage, but of a committed love that godly wives choose to have for their husbands, just as godly husbands choose to have for their wives (Eph. 5:25, 28). Philandros is a noun, here rendered to love … husbands, and refers to willing, determined love that is not based on a husband’s worthiness but on God’s command and that is extended by a wife’s affectionate and obedient heart. Even unlovable, uncaring, unfaithful, and ungrateful husbands are to be loved. This sort of love of husbands and wives for each other involves unqualified devotedness and is a friendship that is strong and deep.

If a wife does not truly love her husband, she must, in obedience to the Lord, train herself to love him. Contrary to popular thinking, love that is carefully built and nurtured is not artificial. It is much more common that spontaneous, “bells and whistles” romances prove to be the ones that are artificial and short-lived. The principle is reciprocal and applies equally to husbands.

Training yourself to love involves doing loving things for the other person, whether or not you feel like doing them. It involves putting their interests and welfare above your own. It involves sacrificial giving of yourself to others for their sakes, not for the sake of appreciation or returned love or favor. “For if you love those who love you,” Jesus asked, “what reward have you? Do not even the tax-gatherers do the same?” (Matt. 5:46).

“Make my joy complete,” Paul wrote believers at Philippi, “by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others” (Phil. 2:2-4). That general admonition to all Christians applies in a special way to Christian husbands and wives. When you sacrificially serve others, it becomes almost impossible not to love them. Where there is genuine practical love, genuine emotional love is sure to follow.

That is the opposite of what society is saying today to young women, who are not encouraged to love their husbands but rather to love and to follow their own way and to “love” whomever they want whenever they want. At best, marriage is held to be a matter of convenience and preference, which, when it becomes inconvenient and unpreferred, is abandoned.

This set of commands for young women, like those to the other groups in Titus 2, has immense and far-reaching ramifications for the kingdom. Even the most uneducated unbeliever can understand the meaning of what Paul is saying here.

The first command is simple and unambiguous: Young women, which in this context refers to young wives, are to love their husbands. There are no conditions or exceptions. It is not simply that love of husbands is a virtue but that not loving them is a sin.

Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15), and “He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will disclose Myself to him” (14:21; cf. 15:10; 1 John 5:3). A healthy church will have a strong witness in the world because its members are obedient to the will of their Lord.

On the other hand, an unsaved person who sees professing Christians who have no concern about their own sin and who openly follow the world’s standards instead of God’s, can hardly be expected to see the need for his or her own salvation from sin. In particular, unsaved young women who see inconsistency and hypocrisy in their Christian counterparts will have little reason to love and be faithful to their husbands, or even to bother with marriage at all. Nor will they see the power of divine transformation and love at work.

Some people, including some evangelicals, point to Paul’s declaration in Galatians that “there is neither male nor female” and claim that the apostle here teaches the total equality of the sexes. But equality in salvation, in spiritual standing before God, has no bearing on God’s order for marriage and for church leadership. The same apostle who wrote those words to the Galatian churches also wrote this letter to Titus.

A new generation of young women has been brought up in a society, including an education system and media, that touts feminism and belittles biblical standards for men and women. In many cases, young women even in evangelical churches have not had the benefit of careful “teaching [of] what is good” (v. 3) or the godly example of older women in the church, including that of their own mothers. Nor have they been exposed to the clear teaching of Scripture in Sunday School, in youth group, or from the pulpit.

Second, young women who are mothers are to be encouraged to love their children. Whether the children are born to the couple or are adopted, they are to be loved with a love that, like the love of spouses for each other, should be selfless and sacrificial. As with love for their husbands, love for their children is not an option. It is not based on the children’s physical attractiveness or personalities or intelligence but on their need. The most important responsibility of love for believing parents is to lead their children to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. But Paul’s admonition here is inclusive. Young mothers are to love their children in every way—practical, physical, social, moral, and spiritual—with a love that has no conditions and no limits. This love, to be fully expressed, is extremely demanding as the mother seeks to fulfill her obligation to raise godly children (see 1 Tim. 2:15).

Third, married young women are to be sensible. This is the same quality that should characterize elders (1:8), all older men (2:2), and, in fact, all believers (2:12). Common sense and good judgment should improve with age, but they should be evident even in early adulthood.

Fourth, young women are to be pure. Hagnos (pure) refers primarily to moral purity, and, especially in this context, to sexual purity, marital faithfulness. Like older women, in fact like all Christian women, young wives are “to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments; but rather by means of good works, as befits women making a claim to godliness” (1 Tim. 2:9-10). “Modesty” refers to a healthy sense of shame at saying anything, doing anything, or dressing in any way that would cause a man to lust. “Discreetly” refers to moral control, to keeping passions, especially sexual passions, subdued.

Also addressing Christian women, Peter said,

Fifth, married young women are to be workers at home. One of the hardest things for many contemporary wives to do is be satisfied with being a homemaker. Part of the reason is that modern appliances and other conveniences greatly simplify and reduce housework, and time that is not used for something constructive inevitably produces boredom, dissatisfaction, and often increased temptations.

But the greatest pressure on young wives today is the saturation of our culture by the ungodly precepts of radical feminists, who believe that wives being homebound is an egregious form of bondage by males, from which all women need to be freed. They unequivocally insist that women should be as free as men to work outside the home at whatever job and to whatever extent they want.

For many years in the United States, more than 50 percent of mothers with children under six years of age have held jobs outside the home. For those with older children, the percentages are much higher. It is estimated that, by the year 2000, 90 percent of all women between the ages of 16 and 65 will have jobs outside the home. That trend is frightening even to many secular observers, who recognize the damage being done to young children who spend a large part of their time with and receive a large part of their training, or lack of training, from adults other than their parents. Statistics also make clear that extramarital affairs increase exponentially with women who work outside the home, simply because of greatly increased exposure to temptation. In addition to that, they often find themselves under the authority of a man other than their husband (cf. Eph. 5:22, especially the word “own) and in an environment that is antithetical to Christian standards of morality and sexual roles.

It is tragic that many young mothers are forced to hold outside jobs because their husbands have died, been imprisoned, or have left them and pay no child support, or because they have never been married and their own families are unable, or unwilling, to help. It is also tragic that many churches and Christian friends forsake their obligation to help young women who find themselves in such straits. And when the mother is away from home, younger children most often are cared for away from home. They need to be at home as much as possible and not be deprived of their mother’s companionship and instruction.

Women who have no children or whose children are grown obviously have fewer obligations in the home and therefore much more time available, and the point is not so much that a woman’s place is in the home as that her responsibility is for the home. She may have a reasonable outside job or choose to work in the church or to minister in a Christian organization, a hospital, a school, or many other ways. But the home is a wife’s special domain and always should be her highest priority. That is where she is able to offer the most encouragement and support to her husband and is the best place for extending hospitality—to Christian friends, to unbelieving neighbors, and to visiting missionaries or other Christian workers.

In regard to being workers at home, young Christian wives today must take special care to be sensible, as they are admonished earlier in this verse. In consultation with their husbands, they must use good judgment in deciding how much time can justifiably and wisely be spent in activities outside the home, whether at a paying job or in some form of service. When they have a genuine desire to obey and honor the Lord in all things and to conscientiously seek guidance from His Word and in prayer, they can be assured that He will provide the necessary wisdom and resolution.

The true female victims today are not women who are willingly bound by love to the Lord, to their husbands, and to their children. The true victims are rather those women who have been deceived by unbiblical and satanic feminist ideas about being liberated from God and from the home.

The home is where a wife can provide the best expressions of love for her husband. It is where she teaches and guides and sets a godly example for her children. It is where she is protected from abusive and immoral relationships with other men and where, especially in our day, she still has greater protection from worldly influences—despite the many lurid TV programs, magazines, and other ungodly intrusions. The home is where she has special opportunity to show hospitality and devote herself to other good works. The home is where she can find authentic and satisfying fulfillment, as a Christian and as a woman.

Sixth, young women are to be kind, the meaning of which is obvious. They are to be gentle, considerate, amiable, congenial, and sympathetic, even with those who are undeserving and unkind to them. To be kind is to be godlike, “for [God] Himself,” Jesus said, “is kind to ungrateful and evil men” (Luke 6:35). Similarly, Paul admonishes believers to “be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32).

Seventh, and finally, married young women are to be subject to their own husbands. Like all other Christian wives, they are to “be subject to [their] own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything” (Eph. 5:22-24; cf. 1 Tim. 2:11-14).

Charles Spurgeon wrote the following beautiful tribute to his wife, Susannah:

That the word of God may not be dishonored is the second of four purpose clauses in this passage (see also w. 4, 8, 10). This one and the one in verse 10 focus on glorifying God’s Word.

In his first letter to Timothy, Paul gives a similar admonition, with a negative objective, to young widows, whom he wanted “to get married, bear children, keep house, [in order to] give the enemy no occasion for reproach, for some have already turned aside to follow Satan” (1 Tim. 5:14-15; cf. 3:7; 6:1). Whenever and in whatever way Satan’s will is accomplished, God’s glory is tarnished and His word is dishonored.

Dishonored translates blasphēmeō, which means “to blaspheme or defame.” William Kelley translates this phrase, “so that God’s Word may suffer no scandal.” Paul’s point is that not only the evil things we say and we do, but also the good things that we fail to say and do, dishonor God and His Word before the church and before the world. Unbelievers judge the genuineness and value of our faith more by our living than by our theology. In doing so, they judge the truth and power of the word of God by the way in which we live. The world judges the gospel, which is the heart of the word of God, by the character of the people who believe and claim to be transformed by it. The nineteenth-century German philosopher Heinrich Heine said, “Show me your redeemed life and I might be inclined to believe in your Redeemer.”

Many husbands have rejected God and mocked His word because of the ungodly behavior of a Christian wife who is not loving and submissive (cf. 1 Pet. 3:1-2). It is equally true, of course, that the hypocritical lives of Christian husbands, children, parents, and other relatives and friends have had, and continue to have, the same tragic effect.

Because of his adultery with Bathsheba and his causing her husband, Uriah, to be killed, the Lord said to David through the prophet Nathan, “Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in His sight? … Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. … Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household” (2 Sam. 12:9-11). Even after David confessed and was forgiven, the Lord promised still greater punishment. “Because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme,” Nathan explained, “the child also that is born to you shall surely die” (2 Sam. 12:14).

Paul excoriated unfaithful Israel, saying, “If you bear the name ‘Jew,’ and rely upon the Law, and boast in God, and know His will, and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law, and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, … you, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? … You who boast in the Law, through your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God? … For ‘the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,’ just as it is written’” (Rom. 2:17-19, 21, 23-24; cf. Isa. 52:5).

Because “the house of Israel [while] living in their own land, … defiled it by their ways and their deeds,” the Lord reminded His people, “I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed throughout the lands. According to their ways and their deeds I judged them. When they came to the nations where they went, they profaned My holy name, because it was said of them, ‘These are the people of the Lord; yet they have come out of His land’” (Ezek. 36:17, 19-20). Because Israel lived like immoral and ungodly pagans, their true and holy God was despised, held in derision, and thought to be no more righteous or powerful than the false and debauched pagan gods.

The positive concern that corresponds to living so as not to dishonor God and His Word, and thereby put a barrier between the unsaved and the gospel, is that of living so as to attract the unsaved to our gracious Lord.

Jesus commands His followers: “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). Paul said of believers in Corinth, “You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men; being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Cor. 3:3). Whether they intend to be or not, Christians are “living letters” of Christ and sometimes are the only testimony to the Lord and to His saving gospel that the world has.

There seems to be an almost limitless number of strategies, methodologies, and techniques that have been developed to win people to Jesus Christ. In most cases, the goal is noble and the desire is admirable. And although our human ideas, methods, and planning have a proper place in the work of Christ’s church, they must always be consistent with and subordinate to the foundational requirements and principles for evangelism that God sets forth in His Word. Those include a clear proclamation of every man’s innate sinfulness and lostness and his need for salvation, which can be attained only through faith in the atoning, substitutionary work of Jesus Christ, who paid the full penalty for sin and whose righteousness is credited to the penitent and forgiven believer.

The only platform from which Christians are to so preach and witness is a transformed life marked by godly virtue. We are to live in a way that will “prove [ourselves] to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom [we are to] appear as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15). As children of God, we should be godly, just as He commands: “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:16). We “are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that [we] may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called [us] out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9).

For a person to be convinced that God can save him from sin, he needs to be shown someone who has been saved from sin and who, as far as possible, lives a life separated from sin. For a person to be convinced of God’s hope, he must be shown someone who has hope where there was once despair. For a person to be convinced that God can miraculously provide us with love, peace, and happiness, he needs to be shown someone who now radiates those blessings.