Verses 1-15
Chapter 3
3:1-2 Remind them to
be duly subject to those who are in power and authority, to obey each
several command, to be ready for every work so long as it is good, to
slander no one, not to be aggressive, to be kindly, to show all
gentleness to all men.
Here is laid down the public duty of the Christian; and it is
advice which was particularly relevant to the people of Crete. The
Cretans were notoriously turbulent and quarrelsome and impatient of all
authority. Polybius, the Greek historian, said of them that they were
constantly involved in "insurrections, murders and internecine wars."
This passage lays down six qualifications for the good citizen.
The good citizen is law-abiding. He recognizes that, unless the
laws are kept, life becomes chaos. He gives a proper respect to those
who are set in authority and carries out whatever command is given to
him. Christianity does not insist that a man should cease to be an
individual, but it does insist that he remember that he is also a member
of a group. "Man," said Aristotle, "is a political animal." That means
that a man best expresses his personality not in isolated individualism
but within the framework of the group.
The good citizen is active in service. He is ready for every
work, so long as it is good. The characteristic modern disease is
boredom; and boredom is the direct result of selfishness. So long as a
man lives on the principle of, "Why should I do it? Let someone else do
it," he is bound to be bored. The interest of life lies in service.
The good citizen is careful in speech. He must slander no one.
No man should say about other people what he would not like them to say
about him. The good citizen will be as careful of the words he speaks as
of the deeds he does.
The good citizen is tolerant. He is not aggressive. The Greek word is amachos (Greek #269),
which means not a fighter. This does not mean that the good citizen
will not stand for the principles which he believes to be right, but
that he will never be so opinionated as to believe that no other way
than his own is right. He will allow to others the same right to have
their convictions as he claims for himself to have his own.
The good citizen is kind. The word is epieikes (Greek #1933),
which describes the man who does not stand upon the letter of the law.
Aristotle said of this word that it denotes "indulgent consideration of
human infirmities" and the ability "to consider not only the letter of
the law, but also the mind and intention of the legislator." The man who
is epieikes (Greek #1933) is ever ready to avoid the injustice which often lies in being strictly just.
The good citizen is gentle. The word is praus (Greek #4239),
which describes the man whose temper is always under complete control.
He knows when to be angry and when not to be angry. He patiently bears
wrongs done to himself but is ever chivalrously ready to spring to the
help of others who are wronged.
Qualities like these are possible only for the man in whose
heart Christ reigns supreme. The welfare of any community depends on the
acceptance by the Christians within it of the duty of demonstrating to
the world the nobility of Christian citizenship.
3:3-7 For we too were
once senseless, disobedient, misguided, slaves to all kinds of desires
and pleasures, living in maliciousness and envy, detestable ourselves,
and hating each other. But when the goodness and the love to men of God
our Saviour appeared, it was not by works wrought in righteousness,
which we ourselves had done, but by his own mercy that he saved us. That
saving act was made effective to us through that washing, through which
there comes to us the rebirth and the renewal which are the work of the
Holy Spirit, whom he richly poured out upon us, through Jesus Christ
our Saviour. And the aim of all this was that we might be put into a
right relationship with God through his grace, and so enter into
possession of eternal life, for which we have been taught to hope.
The dynamic of the Christian life is twofold.
It comes first from the realization that converts to
Christianity were once no better than their heathen neighbours.
Christian goodness does not make a man proud; it makes him supremely
grateful. When he looks at others, living the pagan life, he does not
regard them with contempt; he says, as Whitefield said when he saw the
criminal on the way to the gallows: "There but for the grace of God go
I."
It comes from the realization of what God has done for men in
Jesus Christ. Perhaps no passage in the New Testament more summarily,
and yet more fully, sets out the work of Christ for men than this. There
are seven outstanding facts about that work here.
(i) Jesus put us into a new relationship with God. Till he came,
God was the King before whom men stood in awe, the Judge before whom
men cringed in terror, the Potentate whom they could regard only with
fear. Jesus came to tell men of the Father whose heart was open and
whose hands were stretched out in love. He came to tell them not of the
justice which would pursue them for ever but of the love which would
never let them go.
(ii) The love and grace of God are gifts which no man could ever
earn; they can only be accepted in perfect trust and in awakened love.
God offers his love to men simply out of the great goodness of his heart
and the Christian thinks never of what he has earned but only of what
God has given. The keynote of the Christian life must always be
wondering and humble gratitude, never proud self-satisfaction. The whole
process is due to two great qualities of God.
It is due to his goodness. The word is chrestotes (Greek #5544)
and means benignity. It means that spirit which is so kind that it is
always eager to give whatever gift may be necessary. Chrestotes is an
all-embracing kindliness, which issues not only in warm feeling but also
in generous action at all times.
It is due to God's love to men. The word is philanthropia (Greek #5363),
and it is defined as love of man as man. The Greeks thought much of
this beautiful word. They used it for the good man's kindliness to his
equals, for a good king's graciousness to his subjects, for a generous
man's active pity for those in any kind of distress, and specially for
the compassion which made a man ransom a fellow-man when he had fallen
into captivity.
At the back of all this is no merit of man but only the benign
kindliness and the universal love which are in the heart of God.
(iii) This love and grace of God are mediated to men through the
Church. They come through the sacrament of baptism. That is not to say
that they can come in no other way, for God is not confined within his
sacraments; but the door to them is ever open through the Church. When
we think of baptism in the earliest days of the Church, we must remember
that it was the baptism of grown men and women coming directly out of
paganism. It was the deliberate leaving of one way of life to enter upon
another. When Paul writes to the people of Corinth, he says: "You were
washed, you were sanctified, you were justified" (1 Corinthians 6:11).
In the letter to the Ephesians he says that Jesus Christ took the
Church that "he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing
of water with the word" (Ephesians 5:26). In baptism there came to men the cleansing, re-creating power of God.
In this connection Paul uses two words.
He speaks of rebirth (paliggenesia, Greek #3824).
Here is a word which had many associations. When a proselyte was
received into the Jewish faith, after he had been baptized he was
treated as if he were a little child. It was as if he had been reborn
and life had begun all over again. The Pythagoreans used the word
frequently. They believed in reincarnation and that men returned to life
in many forms until they were fit to be released from it. Each return
was a rebirth. The Stoics used the word. They believed that every three
thousand years the world went up in a great conflagration, and that then
there was a rebirth of a new world. When people entered the Mystery
Religions they were said to be "reborn for eternity." The point is that
when a man accepts Christ as Saviour and Lord, life begins all over
again. There is a newness about life which can be likened only to a new
birth.
He speaks of a renewing. It is as if life were worn out and when
a man discovers Christ there is an act of renewal, which is not over
and done with in one moment of time but repeats itself every day.
(iv) The grace and love of God are mediated to men within the Church,
but behind it all is the power of the Holy Spirit. All the work of the
Church, all the words of the Church, all the sacraments of the Church
are inoperative unless the power of the Holy Spirit is there. However
highly a Church be organized, however splendid its ceremonies may be,
however beautiful its buildings, all is ineffective without that power.
The lesson is clear. Revival in the Church comes not from increased
efficiency in organization but from waiting upon God. Not that
efficiency is not necessary, but no amount of efficiency can breathe
life into a body from which the Spirit has departed.
(v) The effect of all this is threefold. It brings forgiveness
for past sins. In his mercy God does not hold our sins against us. Once a
man was mourning gloomily to Augustine about his sins. "Man," said
Augustine, "look away from your sins and look to God." It is not that a
man must not be all his life repentant for his sins; but the very memory
of his sins should move him to wonder at the forgiving mercy of God.
(vi) The effect is also present life. Christianity does not
confine its offer to blessings which shall be. It offers a man here and
now life of a quality which he has never known before. When Christ
enters into a man's life, for the first time he really begins to live.
(vii) Lastly, there is the hope of even greater things. The
Christian is a man for whom the best is always still to be; he knows
that, however wonderful is life on earth with Christ, the life to come
will be greater yet. The Christian is the man who knows the wonder of
past sin forgiven, the thrill of present life with Christ, and the hope
of the greater life which is yet to be.
3:8-11 This is a
saying which we are bound to believe--and I want you to keep on
affirming these things--that those who have put their faith in God must
think and plan bow to practise fine deeds. These are fine things and
useful to men. But have nothing to do with foolish speculations and
genealogies and contentious and legalistic battles, for they are no good
to anyone and serve no useful purpose. Avoid a contentious and
opinionative man, after giving him a first and a second warning, for you
must be well aware that such a man is perverted and stands a
self-condemned sinner.
This passage stresses the need for Christian action and the danger of a certain kind of discussion.
The word we have translated to practise fine deeds is proistasthai (Greek #4291),
which literally means to stand in front of and was the word used for a
shopkeeper standing in front of his shop crying his wares. The phrase
may mean either of two things. It might be a command to Christians to
engage only in respectable and useful trades. There were certain
professions which the early Church insisted that a man should quit
before he was allowed even to ask for membership. More probably the
phrase has the wider meaning that a Christian must practise good deeds
which are helpful to men.
The second part of the passage warns against useless
discussions. The Greek philosophers spent their time on their fine-spun
problems. The Jewish Rabbis spent their time building up imaginary
genealogies for the characters of the Old Testament. The Jewish scribes
spent endless hours discussing what could and could not be done on the
Sabbath, and what was and was not unclean. It has been said that there
is a danger that a man may think himself religious because he discusses
religious questions. It is much easier to discuss theological questions
than to be kind and considerate and helpful at home, or efficient and
diligent and honest at work. There is no virtue in sitting discussing
deep theological questions when the simple tasks of the Christian life
are waiting to be done. Such discussion can be nothing other than an
evasion of Christian duties.
Paul was certain that the real task of the Christian lay in
Christian action. That is not to say that there is no place for
Christian discussion; but the discussion which does not end in action is
very largely wasted time.
It is Paul's advice that the contentious and opinionative man
should be avoided. The King James Version calls him the heretic. The
Greek is hairetikos (Greek #141). The verb hairein means "to choose"; and hairesis (Greek #139)
means "a party, or a school or a sect." Originally the word carries no
bad meaning. This creeps in when a man erects his private opinion
against all the teaching, the agreement and the tradition of the Church.
A heretic is simply a man who has decided that he is right and
everybody else is wrong. Paul's warning is against the man who has made
his own ideas the test of all truth. A man should always be very careful
of any opinion which separates him from the fellowship of his fellow
believers. True faith does not divide men; it unites them.
3:12-15 When I send
Artemas or Tychicus to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, for
I have decided to spend the winter there.
Do your best to help Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way. See to it that nothing is lacking to them.
And let our people too
learn to practise fine deeds, that they may be able to supply all
necessary needs, and that they may not live useless lives.
All who are with me send you their greetings. Greet those who love us in the faith.
Grace be with you all. Amen.
As usual Paul ends his letter with personal messages and
greetings. Of Artemas we know nothing at all. Tychicus was one of Paul's
most trusted messengers. He was the bearer of the letters to the
Colossian and the Ephesian Churches (Colossians 4:7; Ephesians 6:21).
Nicopolis was in Epirus and was the best centre for work in the Roman
province of Dalmatia. It is interesting to remember that it was there
that Epictetus, the great Stoic philosopher, later had his school.
Apollos was the well-known teacher (Acts 18:24). Of Zenas we know nothing at all. He is here called a nomikos (Greek #3544). That could mean one of two things. Nomikos (Greek #3544)
is the regular word for a scribe and Zenas may have been a converted
Jewish Rabbi. It is also the normal Greek for a lawyer; and, if that is
its meaning, Zenas has the distinction of being the only lawyer
mentioned in the New Testament.
Paul's last piece of advice is that the Christian people should
practise good deeds, so that they themselves should be independent and
also able to help others who are in need. The Christian workman works
not only to have enough for himself but also to have something to give
away.
Next come the final greetings; and then, as in every letter, Paul's last word is grace.
-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)
FURTHER READING
Titus
D. Guthrie, The Pastoral Epistles (TC E)
W. Lock, The Pastoral Epistles (ICC G)
E. F. Scott, The Pastoral Epistles (MC E)
E. K. Simpson, The Pastoral Epistles
Abbreviations
CGT: Cambridge Greek Testament
ICC: International Critical Commentary
MC: Moffatt Commentary
TC: Tyndale Commentary
E: English Text
G: Greek Text
-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)