Ezekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - Titus 2:2 - 2:2

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Ezekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - Titus 2:2 - 2:2


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Ver. 2. In accordance with the rule, that after verbs of saying, thinking, and such like, the infinitive sometimes expresses, not what, according to the speaker’s assertion, is, but what ought to be (since those verbs involve the notion of advising, requiring, or commanding, Winer, Gr. § 44, 3, b), we have now in a series of accusations with the infinitive the substance of the general order to speak the things becoming sound doctrine. The more advanced believers are taken first: that the aged men ( ðñåóâýôáò , not ðñåóâõôå ́ ñïò , which might have been understood only of persons in office: the word is found again at Phm_1:9, and Luk_1:18) be sober ( íçöáëßïõò , 1Ti_3:2), grave, discreet (1Ti_3:2; 1Ti_3:8), sound (healthy) in their faith, their love, their patience. It seems quite necessary to take these three latter terms in the subjective sense: love and patience must certainly be so taken, and this seems to fix down the meaning in like manner of the first. The article, therefore, prefixed to each of the terms, points to the individuals supposed to be addressed: the faith, etc.,—namely, of those individuals = their faith, etc. The exhortation is, that they should not only possess those Christian graces, but have them in a healthy condition, so that the exercise of them might be free, natural, regular, and consistent—such every way as might be expected from persons living under a felt apprehension of the great realities of salvation. The various things mentioned in the exhortation are peculiarly appropriate for persons in advanced life; they are the qualities in which it behoves them in an eminent degree to adorn the Christian faith.