Titus: the bad guys

Read Titus 2:1-5

Ever noticed, in adventure stories, how the bad guys aren’t happy to just do bad things? They want to take over the good guys. In fact, sometimes they want to take over the whole world. The really evil ones will add “bwa-ha-ha” to their speech.

That’s what Paul and Titus were battling in Crete. The bad guys wanted the believers in the church to act like them. Paul spent the last half of Titus 1 describing the bad guys, so that the believers could see the difference.

Now, in Titus 2:1, what did he advise Titus to do?

Then came the directions for those within the church. There are five groups that Paul spoke to:

• Older men
• Older women
• Younger women
• Younger men
• Believing slaves

When you’re young, the responsibilities of the older men and women may not interest you. But those are the leaders in your churches and families so their abilities affect all of us.

Paul used an interesting phrase in verse 3: “in the way they live.” The word in Greek is katastema, which carries the idea of revealing. So Paul was saying that the actions of the believers should reveal what was in their hearts.

If their actions didn’t measure up to Paul’s description, they had some spiritual growing to do.

From verse 2, what traits did Paul expect from the older men?

How about the older women, in verse 3?

Who trains the younger women (verse 4)?

And what traits did Paul want to see in the younger women? (verse 5)


Next time: A slave and his master