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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - Titus 3:4 - 3:4
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Kindness (χρηστότης)
Only here in Pastorals. Elsewhere only in Paul. See on Rom 3:12, and see on easy, Mat 11:30.
Love (φιλανθρωπία)
Love is too vague. It is love toward men; comp. Tit 3:2. Only here and Act 28:2 : φιλανθρώπως kindly, Act 27:3 (note). While it cannot be asserted that the heretical characteristics noted in the Pastoral Epistles point collectively to any specific form of error, it is true, nevertheless, that certain characteristics of the economy of grace are emphasized, which are directly opposed to Gnostic ideas. Thus the exhortation that supplications be made for all men, supported by the statement that God wills that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (1Ti 2:1, 1Ti 2:4), is in the teeth of the Gnostic distinction between men of spirit and men of matter, and of the Gnostic principle that the knowledge (ἐπίγνωσις) of truth was only for a limited, intellectual class. To the same effect is the frequent recurrence of all, for all, in connection with the saving and enlightening gifts of God (1Ti 2:6; 1Ti 4:10; 1Ti 6:13; Tit 2:11). So here: not only has the saving grace of God appeared unto all (Tit 2:11), but it has revealed itself as kindness and love to man as man.