THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO TITUS - Chapter 2 - Verse 5

Verse 5. To be discreet. The same word rendered in Tit 2:2, temperate, and explained in Tit 2:4.

Chaste. Pure—in heart, and in life.

Keepers at home. That is, characteristically attentive to their domestic concerns, or to their duties in their families. A similar injunction is found in the precepts of the Pythagoreans— tan gar gunaika dei oikouren kai endon menen. See Creuzer's Symbolik, iii. 120. This does not mean, of course, that they are never to go abroad, but they are not to neglect their domestic affairs; they are not to be better known abroad than at home; they are not to omit their own duties, and become "busy-bodies" in the concerns of others. Religion is the patron of the domestic virtues, and regards the appropriate duties in a family as those most intimately connected with its own progress in the world. It looks benignly on all which makes home a place of contentment, intelligence, and peace. It does not flourish when domestic duties are neglected; and whatever may be done abroad, or whatever self-denial and zeal in the cause of religion may be evinced there, or whatever call there may be for the labours of Christians there, or however much good may be actually done abroad, religion has gained nothing, on the whole, if, in order to secure these things, the duties of a wife and mother at home have been disregarded. Our first duty is at home, and all other duties will be well performed just in proportion as that is.

Good. In all respects, and in all relations. To a wife, a mother, a sister, there can be no higher characteristic ascribed, than to say that she is good. What other trait of mind will enable her better to perform her appropriate duties of life? What other will make her more like her Saviour?

Obedient to their own husbands. See Barnes "Eph 5:22, seq. See Barnes "Col 3:18".

That the word of God be not blasphemed. That the gospel may not be injuriously spoken of (See Barnes "Mt 9:3,) on account of the inconsistent lives of those who profess to be influenced by it. The idea is, that religion ought to produce the virtues here spoken of, and that when it does not, it will be reproached as being of no value.

{*} "blasphemed" "evil spoken of"