Titus 2:9 Commentary and Bible Study

‘Exhort servants’ – our King James Version is quite tasteful here and tactful. The original says, ‘Exhort slaves.’ Urge them ‘to be obedient unto their own masters’. Is Paul sanctioning an evil social order in which there were slaves: ‘Obey your masters’? No, of course he isn't sanctioning an evil social order. But he is showing the slaves who are stuck in that social order, how to live for Christ in it, and how to triumph in Christ while that social order persists. The Bible is against slavery. The sixth commandment says: ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Foolish people say the Bible is not against slavery, but if they only read on from Exodus 20 through the rest of the books of Moses, and they read into Deuteronomy and they saw the explanation that Moses gives of the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’, they would see among the examples of killing is the evil of destroying somebody’s liberty and freedom, and enslaving them. So the murder commandment is the chief commandment, the head commandment, in a family of commandments. Moses also goes on to say, hatred is in the family of murder sins, and Christ repeats that, Christ who is after all the original author of the books of Moses. Christ is the word; he knows what it means, of course, and he interprets the commandment against murder to include hatred. Moses has that quite clearly by inspiration, and slavery is another instance of it. To deprive someone of their life is a terrible sin. To deprive someone of their liberty is a terrible sin. Are you an unworthy son or daughter, growing up now not treating your elderly parents well? Be very careful. To deprive people of their happiness and their reason for living is placed by Moses under the murder family of sins. But slavery too is one of them, and we could expound that at great length. But here Paul is showing slaves – those who live under an evil social order – how they must live. ‘Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters.’ The reasoning is powerful if you look at it in this way: if this exhortation is given to slaves, how much more is it given to privileged 21st-century employees, who have many legal protections against abuse and mistreatment! So if it is true to slaves that they must be obedient, how much more does it apply to those in employment today! ‘Exhort servants’, slaves, employees – all of us – ‘to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things.’ We are not just to do what is required, but to be motivated to please them. That is convicting for all of us. To please them well in all, in every respect. That is the opposite of feeling resentment towards them, of letting the mind go round and round, dwelling on the injustice of the situation. Our version adds in italic the word ‘things’: ‘to please them well in all things.’ ‘Please them well in all’ is actually better: because it includes in manner, as well as in deed. We are to aim to please. ‘Not answering again.’ The meaning of that is obvious: not contradicting, not rebelling, not having to have the last word, and refusing to accept your lot.