Titus 2:3 Commentary and Bible Study

The next of these very practical exhortations is addressed to the older women. ‘The aged women likewise’, which doesn't mean that similarly they are to be instructed, but in quite different ways, according to their specific class. It means rather that they are to be instructed in precisely the same way that you instruct the older men. The aged men are to be ‘sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.’ These all apply to the older women also, because they are to be instructed similarly. The aged women, the older women are therefore to be restrained and moderate in tastes, awake and alert, watchful in defence of the church, dignified, genuine, honest people. People who are concerned about the deeper things of life. They are to be temperate, sober minded, and sound or healthy in the exercise of faith, of love, of patience, waiting for Christ, the great calming influence.Then the following are particularly singled out. ‘That they be in behaviour’, and this translates a word which really has in mind bearing, or deportment, how we hold ourselves. ‘In [bearing] as becometh holiness.’ So the bearing and deportment of the older woman should always agree with the standards of holiness – what fits, what is appropriate for holiness. An older woman is set apart for the Lord to bring glory to God, to honour him, to reflect him. She won't be a worldly; she won’t be after the things of this world. She is set apart like the implements in the temple for sacred use. That is true of us all, but it is here particularly attached to the older women.‘Not false accusers.’ Was there a tendency for people to be false accusers, slanderers, among the older women in the church? No, it doesn't suggest that. But that was typical of society generally, unsaved society. The people of God are to be so different. The fiction of television and the soap operas and all the rest of it: they all centre around slander and tittle tattle. It is what unsaved society loves. Let the older women lead the way in being distinctly different, and setting the standard for us all. ‘Not given too much wine.’ The wine that was drunk in those days was a kind of sanitary drink. It was weak anyway; that's all they could achieve, but the evidence is that it was generally diluted. Yes, you could sip and sip and sip all day, if you lack self-control, and that was perhaps that was the regional tendency. But we apply it more widely: not given to much wine or anything of similar influence. It would apply to covetousness. The woman is particularly the person who keeps the home beautiful. It is her palace. Though she is a working mum, it is still her palace. She is the organiser. It is her touch that makes it what it is; it is her heart that fills the home. But we don't want her to be intoxicated by anything, spending too much time on the furnishings and the fittings. It is wonderful if it can be a really nice comfortable place to live, but how easy to go over the top and to become hooked on these things. ‘Teachers of good things’, which translates teachers of right, teachers of that which is right: every woman a teacher. Now there is a tendency these days, especially from the people who have found some success (women preachers) on Internet sites, to take the words that follow here – ‘teachers of good things, that they may teach the young’ – as their licence to be special teachers. That is foolishness because the apostle Paul is speaking to all older women, not just to one here and one there who may be public teachers. This is all older women, middle-aged and over, ‘teachers of right so that they may teach the young.’ So if all the older women are teaching these good things, it clearly doesn't apply to formal teaching. This is about example and advice, obviously, because all without exception are charged with the responsibility. This is person-to-person teaching as opportunity arises. It is not about dominating the young, bullying the young, but as opportunity arises with due modesty and kindness, by example and advice, teaching great things and passing on the pattern of godliness.