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Use Every Opportunity To Teach (Deuteronomy 6:5-7 )

Fulfill Your Parental Role

Children and Parents

Ephesians 6:4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

The instructions to children are now balanced with advice to fathers. They should not provoke their children to anger with unreasonable demands, with undue harshness, with constant nagging.

Rather children should be nurtured in the training and admonition of the Lord. Training means discipline and correction, and may be verbal or corporal.

Admonition means warning, rebuke, reproof.

Child-training should be “in the Lord,” that is, carried out in accordance with His will as revealed in the Bible by one who acts as His representative.

Susannah Wesley, the mother of seventeen children, including John and Charles, once wrote: The parent who studies to subdue self-will in his child, works together with God in the renewing and saving of a soul. The parent who indulges it, does the Devil’s work, makes religion impractical, salvation unattainable, and does all that in him lies to damn his child, soul and body forever.

Qualities of a Sound Church

Titus 2:1 But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine:

The lives of the false teachers were a libel rather than a Bible. By their conduct they denied the great truths of the faith. 

Who can measure the damage to the Christian testimony by those who professed great sanctity but lived a lie? 

The task assigned to Titus (and to all true servants of the Lord) was to teach what is proper for sound doctrine. He was to close the awful chasm between the lips of God’s people and their lives.

Actually this is the keynote of the Epistle—the practical outliving of healthy doctrine in good works. The following verses give practical examples of what these good works should be.

Titus 2:2 that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience; 

First we come to the older men—not elders in the official sense, but men of physical age and maturity. They should be sober. Primarily this means moderate in the use of wine, but extends to mean careful in all areas of conduct.

They should be reverent and dignified, yes, but please—not gloomy! Others have enough troubles of their own. The older men should be temperate, that is, balanced and discreet. They should be sound in faith. 

Age makes some people callous, bitter, and cynical. Those who are healthy in faith are thankful, optimistic, and good company.

They should be sound in love. Love is not self-centered; it thinks of others and manifests itself in giving. 

And they should be vigorous in patience. Age has its infirmities and disabilities, often hard to take. Those who are sound in endurance bear up under their trials graciously and with fortitude.

Titus 2:3 the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things—

Older women should also be reverent in behavior. Deliver us from giddy women whose thoughts are centered on frivolous matters!

They should not be slanderers. The word Paul uses here is the Greek word for devil (diabolos). It is an apt word because malicious gossip is diabolical in its source and character.

They should not be slaves to drink. In fact, they should not become enslaved by any food, beverage, or medicine.

Older women are commissioned to teach in the home. Who can measure the potential of such a ministry! 

Titus 2:4 that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 

Specifically, an older woman should admonish the young women. Years of Bible study and practical experience enable her to pass on valuable counsel to those starting out in life. Otherwise each new generation is doomed to learn the hard way, repeating the mistakes of the past.

While the responsibility for teaching is put on the older women here, any wise young person will cultivate the friendship of godly older Christians and solicit their advice and correction.

A young woman should be taught to love her husband. But this means more than just kissing him when he leaves for work. It includes the myriad ways in which she can show that she really respects him. What are some ways this can be done? 

They should be taught to love their children—by reading and praying with them, by disciplining firmly and fairly, and by molding them for the Lord’s service rather than for the world—and hell. What are your thoughts? 

Titus 2:5 to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. 

Young women should be taught to be discreet. This means having a fine sense of what is appropriate for them as Christians and avoiding extremes. 

They should be chaste, faithful to their husbands and avoiding impurity in thought, word, or action. 

They should be good homemakers. They should realize that this is divine service which can be done for the glory of God. 

Older women should try to inculcate the high honor of serving the Lord in the home as a wife and mother. What are your thoughts?

Young women should be taught how to be good—how to live for others, to be hospitable, to be gracious and generous, and not to be self-centered and possessive.

They should be obedient to their own husbands, acknowledging them as head of the house. If a wife is more gifted and capable than her husband, rather than dominating him, she should encourage and aid him to be more active in home leadership and in serving the local church. What are your thoughts? 

All of this is to keep the word of God from being blasphemed or discredited. Throughout this Letter, Paul is conscious of the reproach brought upon the Lord’s cause by the inconsistent lives of His people.

Titus 2:6 Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded,

Paul did not urge Titus to teach the young women. For discretion’s sake this ministry is left to the older women.

But Titus is told to exhort the young men, and the particular admonition is that they should be sober-minded and control themselves. An appropriate word—since youth is the time of brimming zeal, restless energy, and burning drives. 

In every area of life, they need to learn continence and balance.

Macdonald, Farstad Grady Scott, Hindson, E. MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2006).