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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadEzekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - Titus 2:7 - 2:7
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Ver. 7. Not only teach and exhort so, but—having respect to Titus, as himself comparatively a young man—showing thyself (the óåáõôὸí used with the middle voice, though it might have been dispensed with, for the sake of greater distinctness and emphasis; see Winer, Gr. § 38, 6, who points to a similar instance, with the same verb, in Xen. Cyr. viii. 1, 39, ðáñá ́ äåéãìá ôïéï ́ íäå å ̔ áõôï ̀̀ í ðáñåé ́ ÷åôï ) in all things a pattern of good works—( ôýðïí used here only with the genitive of the thing)—in your teaching [showing] incorruption, gravity? (The correct text here evidently is ἀöèïñßáí , óåìíüôçôá . L and certain cursives insert ἀöèïñßáí after the two; and instead of ἀöèïñßáí , á ̓ äéáöèïñé ́ áí is the reading of L and some others.) The latter of these two expressions must plainly be referred to the manner, not to the matter, of the teaching; and this renders it natural that we should also regard the other in the same light—should understand it subjectively of the teacher, not of what was taught by him. This is confirmed also by the circumstance, that the verse which follows has respect to the substance or matter of the teaching. By requiring Titus to show a spirit of incorruption, as well as gravity, in his teaching, the apostle appears to have meant, that in his very mode of communicating divine truth, he should give unmistakeable evidence of a mind freed from all corrupt tendencies and prurient imaginations—a mind in full accord with the sublime realities and holy aims of the gospel of Christ.