CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Titus 3:1. Principalities and powers.—The two words stand thus together to give fuller expression to the notion of authority. To obey magistrates.—R.V. “to be obedient.”
Titus 3:2. To be no brawlers.—R.V. “not to be contentious.” As in 1 Timothy 3:3. Gentle.—Such a man recognises that very often the summum jus is summa injuria, and therefore goes back from his legal rights. His opposite is Shylock.
Titus 3:3. Serving divers lusts and pleasures.—As in Titus 2:3 we saw the women needed to guard against the slavery of wine, so here various desires and pleasures are said to have had sway. Living in malice and envy.—Passing the life in the indulgence of what we could get, and envy of what we could not.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Titus 3:1-3
Christianity and the Civil Powers.
I. Christianity is on the side of law and order (Titus 3:1).—The Cretans were easily excited to rebellion, and the Jewish element in the island fostered any disposition to violence against Christianity. Hence Titus is urged to enforce on his people a ready obedience to magistrates, and to render cheerful help in maintaining the public peace. Christianity is ever on the side of law and order, and does more to prevent war and suppress rebellion than thousands of soldiers and policemen. The civil powers find powerful allies in all Christian Churches and institutions.
II. Christianity does not sanction the disparagement of civil officers.—“Speak evil of no man … be no brawlers” (Titus 3:2). Especially not to speak evil of dignitaries and magistrates. The civil officer is the embodiment and representative of law; and whatever his character may be otherwise, the law must be respected in him. The civil powers have often made great mistakes in harassing the Christian Church, and the only retaliation the Church has made has been to defend the rights and privileges of the magistracy. The warning against brawls was not only applicable to the Cretans, who were notoriously quarrelsome, but is directed against all who would disturb the peace of the Church or of the community by giving way to a petulant and fault-finding spirit.
III. Christianity teaches becoming behaviour towards all men.—“But gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men” (Titus 3:2). The Christian spirit is forbearing and kindly, not urging its rights to the uttermost, lest by doing so it should stir up wrath and bitterness. Instead of indulging a passionate severity, it disarms opposition by meekly enduring wrong. “Morning by morning,” writes Maclaren, “God’s great mercy of sunrise steals upon a darkened world in still, slow self-impartation; and the light which has a force that has carried it across gulfs of space that the imagination staggers in trying to conceive, yet falls so gently that it does not move the petals of the sleeping flowers, nor hurts the lids of an infant’s eyes, nor displaces a grain of dust. So should we live and work, clothing all our power in tenderness, doing our work in quietness, disturbing nothing but the darkness, and with silent increase of beneficent power filling and flooding the dark earth with healing beams.” If God is so kind and beneficent to all, we ought to be meek and gentle towards each other.
IV. Christianity enforces obedience to the civil powers by reminding us of our former lawless life (Titus 3:3).—The recollection of our own wild and reckless conduct in the past, and the forbearance often shown to us, should teach us to stand by those whose duty it is to maintain public order and decorum.
Lessons.—
1. Christianity is the guardian and promoter of peace.
2. Civil authority is potent as it is imbued with the Christian spirit.
3. Sin is the cause of rebellion and disorder.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Titus 3:1. The Authority of Law.
I. Law is of God.
II. Authority is derived from God.
III. Obedience to law an essential preparation for good works.
Lessons.—
1. Duty once learned may be and often is forgotten.
2. Duties of every-day life are most readily forgotten.
3. Christian ministers are required to remind their hearers of duty, as well as to proclaim privileges.
Titus 3:2-3. The Transforming Power of the Gospel.
I. What even Christians were.—
1. They were distinguished by folly.
2. Disobedience.
3. Liability to deception.
4. Sensuality.
5. Passion.
6. Unloveliness.
7. Unbrotherliness.
II. What Christians become.—
1. Their lives display humility of spirit.
2. Gentleness in action.
3. Truthfulness in word.—F. W.