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November 6, 2022
Character in Action¹, Pt. 1
Titus 2:2-15

Title: Character in Action
Intro: The Bible is serious in all the word entails. The Creator of the universe has given orders to the people He has created and are made in His image. Our God has expectations of His Church. He is our King, Lord, Master, God, and Hope, and we should work and strive to live our lives under his Headship. We have common commands that we are need to adhere to throughout the Bible. But here we see commands for sub-groups. Following these instructions that follow will ensure we do not defame God but instead adorn the doctrine of God.

2:2 Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.

• All older Christian men ought to be the people in the Church where the younger men can see a good example of the faith.
• are to be sober-minded in the ESV
  • Gk. is “sober” alone (KJV, NKJV, Strong)
  • Greek literally means “unmixed with wine” (LSJ)
  • NASB, NET somewhat interpretive >> temperate; CSB is interpretive >> self-controlled.
  • Literally or metph? Opinion of the translators. But you know I prefer the actual when available, so in this case I prefer KJV and NKJV = older men are to be “sober”
• Older men are to be dignified
  • inspiring reverence² COMMENT (Thayer)
  • Older men must always push to inspire the next generation towards reverence.
• self-controlled
  • broad term in the Greek = safe in mind, discreet, sober, temperate. (Strong)
    • i.e. (moderate as to opinion or passion)
      • Monte has fought impetuousness.
      • opinionated = everything is worthy of blast mode >> lack of self-control
  • sound in faith
    • “sound” = to be sound, to be well, to be in good health … metaphorically, … used of one whose Christian opinions are free from any admixture of error (Thayer, cf. LSJ)
    • (today’s slang: solid; As, “He is solid.”)
    • faith of course is a core virtue.
      • working out one’s day to day faith in God.
      • worry, anxiety, worldly cares?
    • … in love = agape
    • … in steadfastness OR constancy
      • Citing Thayer here, “in the NT the characteristic of a man who is not swerved from his deliberate purpose and his loyalty to faith and piety by even the greatest trials and sufferings.” (in Blueletter, LSJ, et al.)
  • The older men who would be examples practice and have taken hold of the core principles in the faith hand, namely love and faith, and the man is able to endure the trials of life in tangible ways.
• Men change physiologically.
• Many older men are becoming sweeter or angrier and cynical. Mr. Rogers or Mr. Scrooge
  • Older men have spent much of their lives growing in love and faith or drifting and there is a real danger in older men to drift into criticaliness. TIME WILL TELL.
• Godly older men, looking back with honesty, see the failed choices they have made. So the addition of years ought to bring what Barclay called, “increasing sympathy … with the mistakes of others.”
  • Or the very high goal of running well the Part Three of their story.
• What potentially kicks this the bitter and cynical stage of life for some is men’s menopause–otherwise known as a mid-life crisis.
  • Here one often finds regret too but it gets mixed with anger mixed, a desire to hold on to youngness, and a purchase of a Corvette.

ILLUSTRATION

• Promise Keepers Dallas Texas >> Finish Strong
• We have to be committed to finish our races. Forgetting what is behind and pressing on towards what is ahead in Christ Jesus.

APPLICATION MacLaren QUOTE

‘Have you any cases? Can you quote any cures?’ So when we Christians stand up and say, ‘We have a faith which is able to deaden men’s minds to the world; which is able to make them unselfish; which is able to lift them up above cares and sorrows; which is able to take men and transform their whole nature, and put new desires and hopes and joys into them’; it is quite fair for the world to say: ‘Have you? Does it? Does it do so with you? (MacLaren)

3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, 4 and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

• Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior
  • reverent = to stand out, to be conspicuous, to be eminent; 2. to be becoming (Thayer)
  • These older women are to attract attention for the right reasons, due to there walk with the Lord.
• ILLUSTRATION: Babitha Kallimmel
• not slanderers OR false accuser,
  • from the Greek word diabolos.³ Translation? Devil (the Accuser). Therefore > diabolos is defined metaphoically: to side with the devil.
  • Gossip is the beginning of what turns to slander seeming effortlessly.
  • despite a common idea, women do not have the market cornered on gossip.
  • We should always remember Proverbs 10:19, “When words are many, sin is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise.” (BLB)
• not slaves to much wine
  • temperate
  • drunkenness is a sin period
    • adultery, manslaughters, murders

ILLUSTRATION

E. F. Brown [was a missionary to India.] A friend of his on furlough in England was asked: “What is it you most want in India?” And his surprising answer was: “Grandmothers.” … [B]ecause those engaged in the administration of the country almost invariably came to the end of their service and returned to Britain while still fairly young; and the lack of older women was a serious want. E. F. Brown [went] on to say: “Old women play a very important part in society–how large a part one does not realize, till one witnesses a social life from which they are almost absent. Kindly grandmothers and sweet charitable old maids are the natural advisers of the young of both sexes.” The older women to whom the years have brought serenity and sympathy and understanding have a part to play in the life of the Church and of the community which is peculiarly their own. (Barclay)

Let’s take a look at what the younger women need to do as the older women teach them by living the same things out.

• They [the older women] are to teach what is good so train the young women
• teaching = training. Therefore be taught by successful women who have raised godly adults.
• to love their husbands and children
  • American professing Christian divorce at the same rate as the world.
  • Christian women are no better skill wise at showing agape (love) to their families as the unbelieving women are.
• to be self-controlled is mentioned for old and young alike, for both women and men.
• pure COMMENT
• working at home
  • Culture has ruined people.
  • The greatest “responsibility and privilege” in found in the home. Culture would tell us that the women should not degrade themselves by staying in the home, but Scripture says it is duty.
  • Can a woman have a career and raise a family. Yes. COMMENT
  • There is a cost to it.
  • ILLUSTRATION: - 2 young children, career, master’s program … at what cost? The family needs mom and not a shell of a mom. A superwoman mother is a myth. Ask them … more importantly ask their grown kids.
  • Barclay said it best, speaking from the vantage point of the women in view here in Scripture he wrote, “If only I could be done with all this, so that I could live a truly religious life.” There is in fact nowhere where a truly religious life can better be lived than within the home." (Barclay)
  • Via marriage, mothers sign up for the most important of duties: to help train the next generation of God followers.
• From the text older women are to be kind and submissive to their own husbands.
  • Kind
  • Most women call the next word the “s” word.
  • But submission is not involuntary slavery to one’s husband.
  • Def.: place under or arrange under, assign, post in the shelter of, draw up behind (LSJ)
  • from the garden woman have an innate desire to change the family structure in their flash.
  • A lot of blame is due to men’s passivity, but much is also on the Christian women who desire a role which God did not create them for.
  • Taxis in the Godhead.
• that the word of God may not be reviled
  • the application of the word in one’s life either reinforces what God has said or tears it down.
    • to what degree? reviled = βλασφημέω (transliteration = blasphēmeō) = blasphemed
      • blaspheme = to attribute evil to God
    • We may not want the responsibility of God’s glory, but we have it.

APPLICATION

• Biblical word view for the family.
• A #1 priority: be a godly woman and do what God has said.
• Satan loves to assist disobedient women and men in role reversal > destroy the family model > destroy communities > destroy cultures and the world.
• Culturally based ideas that do not line up with God’s word are to be rejected.

Notes:

¹ The title is from a Barclay sentence.

² Chain of this definition: Thayer had “august” as a definition for Strong’s G4586 σεμνός (Blueletter); Webster had “inspiring reverence” for “august.”

³ In part from Thayer (LSJ): prone to slander, slanderous, accusing falsely, false accuser, slanderer, is applied … Satan, the prince of demons, the author of evil, persecuting good men. Job 1 … to be of the devil, properly, to derive their origin from the devil, tropically, to depend upon the devil in thought and action, to be prompted and governed by him: … children of the devil, … is figuratively applied to a man who, by opposing the cause of God, may be said to act the part of the devil or to side with him.

Bibliography and Works Cited

• NOTE: Please click here to access the web-page for all of the works cited—save those above in “Note(s)” (if any) and those below under the “Other Works Cited” (if any). Most of the works cited on the web-page, correspond to the verses they are outlined with. In the case of background information and other general reference citations, one will find cited material with the Bible books the citations are associated with.
• Scripture quotations [unless otherwise noted] are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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