What Does Titus 2:9 Mean?

(9) **Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters.**—The accurate translation here is *bond servants.* The words in this and the following verse, it must be remembered, are addressed to “slaves.” With some special reference to the peculiar circumstances of the Church in Crete, St. Paul had been giving general directions to his representative (Titus 2:1-8) respecting instruction and advice he considered it expedient should be given to the varied orders and ages of professing Christians in the island. These directions were arranged with respect to “age” and “sex.” He now turns to the question of the instruction of another large class, among whom were to be found many Christians—“the slaves.” These he masses together under one head. Not improbably these “words” to be addressed particularly to slaves were called out by some particular instances of insubordination and of impatience under their unhappy condition among the Cretan slaves. Indeed, the repeated warnings to this unfortunate and oppressed class (see Ephesians 6:5; Colossians 3:22; 1Timothy 6:1) tell us that among the difficulties which Christianity had to surmount in its early years was the hard task of persuading “the slave” that the divine Master who promised him a home, if he were faithful and true, among the many mansions of His Father, meant not that the existing relations of society should be then changed, or its complex framework disturbed. St. Paul knew it was a hard matter to persuade the bondman, fellow-heir of heaven with the freeman, to acquiesce patiently in his present condition of misery and servitude. Hence these repeated charges to this class. These poor sufferers were to obey cheerfully, readily, as the next clause told them. **And to please them well in all things; not answering again.**—The last words are better translated *not gainsaying; *the Vulgate has *contradicentes.* It signifies that they should obey cheerfully, willingly, without sullenness; not thwarting or setting themselves against their masters’ plans or desires or orders; and the Apostle, in Titus 2:10, gives them a noble inducement for this brave, sweet patience he would have so earnestly pressed upon them. Such conduct on their part, he tells them, would serve greatly to help the Master’s cause; it would prepossess many hostile minds in favour of a religion which could so powerfully influence even the slave. Chrysostom comments thus: “Greeks form their estimate of doctrines not from the doctrine itself, but from the actions and the life” (of those who profess the doctrine).