Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Titus · About this commentary
Older Men, Older Women
Titus 2:1-3
1 But say the things which fit sound doctrine, · WEB
Against teaching that ruins households, Paul sets a household — and begins with the people whose age is supposed to have taught them something.
But you, says verse 1, speak what fits sound doctrine — the same health word, and the contrast is with the fables just dismissed. What follows is not a new doctrine but the conduct that suits the one already held. Sound teaching is expected to produce a recognizable kind of person, and chapter 2 simply describes them, group by group.
Older men come first: temperate, dignified, sober-minded, and sound in faith, love, and perseverance. The three that must be sound are Paul's familiar triad 1 Corinthians 13:13, here with endurance in hope's place, which is what hope looks like after decades. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not enslaved to much wine — and then a positive charge that turns them from examples into workers: teachers of what is good. The letter gives them an assignment, and the next verse says whom they are to teach.
settled What this mark means