Titus 1

For: this is why the overseer must be able to rebuke. Many are unruly, vain talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision. Wesley: they of the circumcision—the Jewish converts.

Insubordination and empty talk are not small interior faults; they deceive. The circumcision party names a pressure toward myths and commands that turn from the truth. Sound doctrine in v. 9 has a present enemy.

The for ties v. 9’s rebuke to a crowded field of insubordinate talkers, especially of the circumcision.

Empty talk is not harmless. Deceivers, many of them, unsettle the church from a Judaizing angle. God provides elders with two voices because wolves are already in the towns.

They must be silenced: Wesley heard “stopped”—to put a bit into the mouth of an unruly horse. Whole families are being upset by teaching for shameful gain what ought not to be taught.

Silencing is for the sake of households, not a taste for control. Shameful gain names a hireling motive. Grace that saves families also refuses teachers who wreck them for pay.

Calvin: whose mouth must be stopped. When they have been smitten down by the sword of God’s word, by shutting the mouth Paul simply means to refute their vain talking.

The bit is the word, not a fist. Refutation stops the mouth. Shameful gain and upset families show why the second pastoral voice of v. 9 exists: wolves must be driven off so households can stand.

A Cretan prophet of their own: Wesley notes that all poets were anciently called prophets. The line is ugly: always liars, evil beasts, and idle gluttons.

Paul cites a native witness, not a racial curse from outside. The point is pastoral realism about a reputation Crete already knew, so that rebuke in v. 13 is not surprising. Grace still aims at sound faith, not at writing a people off.

One of their own said it. Paul does not flatter Crete; he uses a proverb the island already owned.

The gospel does not deny local vice in order to be polite. Liars, beasts, gluttons name a culture the church must not baptize. The citation serves the sharp rebuke that follows, not a theory of blood.

This testimony is true. For this cause, reprove them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith. The aim of the sharp word is soundness, not humiliation.

Rebuke is a means toward faith made sound. They may be—soundness is the goal held out to those now insubordinate. Sharpness serves restoration; it is not a license to despise Cretans as beyond the gospel.

The testimony is true; therefore rebuke. Soundness in the faith is the end of the sharpness.

God uses a cutting word to make sound what is diseased. The therefore is logical, not cruel. Elders who will not rebuke will not have a sound church; elders who rebuke without aiming at faith have missed Paul’s purpose.

Sound faith does not devote itself to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn away from the truth. The circumcision party’s extra commands are not holiness; they are a turning.

Myths and human commands can capture a church that still talks about God. Turning from the truth is a departure. The gospel that invites all also unmasks commands that replace it.

Jewish myths and human commands: a turning away from the truth, not a stricter version of it.

The truth is given; people who add commands that God has not given are already turning. The elder’s rebuke protects the flock from a second law. Sound faith holds the trustworthy word of v. 9, not the myths of the circumcision party.

To the pure, all things are pure. Wesley: those whose hearts are purified by faith—this we allow. All things are pure: all kinds of meat; the Mosaic distinction between clean and unclean meats being now taken away. But to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure: the apostle joins defiled and unbelieving to intimate that nothing can be clean without a true faith; understanding and conscience, those leading powers of the soul, are polluted.

This is not a license for a careless life. Purity is a heart purified by faith; food laws are gone, but unbelief defiles everything it touches. The verse is about defiled minds versus the gospel, not about calling sin clean.

Calvin: he upholds Christian liberty, asserting that to believers nothing is unclean; at the same time he censures false apostles who set no value on inward purity, which alone God esteems. The subject is not the health of the body but peace of conscience: the distinction of foods in force under the Law has been abolished. Because there is no purity in the sight of God but that of faith, all unbelievers are unclean.

Liberty of food is no illusion, and it is not a license. Inward purity is what God esteems. An unbelieving mind and conscience pollute all; the defiled are not free, they are unclean in what they handle.

They profess that they know God, but by their deeds they deny him by their works. Wesley’s joining of defiled and unbelieving already prepared this: a polluted conscience will not produce a life that matches the profession.

Profession without works is denial. Knowing God is not a slogan; disobedience shows the profession false or abandoned. Good work requires a purified heart; the unfit are not excused by their talk.

Calvin: they profess that they know God; but in works they deny him. Inward impurity of v. 15 now shows in public denial.

Confession without obedience is a lie about God. Detestable, disobedient, unfit: God names the fruit. The circumcision talkers of v. 10 are not merely mistaken about meats; they deny the God they claim, and they are unfit for the good work the steward of v. 7 must do.