3 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; 4 That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed. 6 Young men likewise exhort to be sober minded. (Titus 2:3-6 KJV)
Thomas Scott
Verses 3-6: Aged women also (whether employed as deaconesses by the church or not) should be instructed to act consistently with their sacred character, as professedly a part of the spiritual priesthood, and to that devotedness to God which it implied. They should be warned against speaking slanders or calumnies; a sin to which human nature is peculiarly prone, and to which the natural character of the Cretians must give them an additional propensity. The original word is the same that is in many places rendered “devils;” which shows what a hateful example slanderers and back-biters imitate. They must not be “enslaved to much wine:” some of them might have been accustomed to this when heathens, and it would need great self-denial to acquire victory over the habit and liberty from the thralldom, of this infatuating vice. They were likewise required to be “teachers of good things” in their families and to their juniors, that so they might be employed in exhorting the younger women to be sober and prudent, without levity or vanity; affectionate to their husbands and children, and taking pleasure in the duties of wives and mothers; discreetly avoiding “all appearance of evil,” or ground of suspicion, as well as every actual violation of their conjugal fidelity; to be keepers at home,” and diligent in managing their domestic affairs (for both are implied as not delighting to gad abroad, nor yet loitering away their time at home; to be good or kind to all around them; “and obedient to their own husbands,” even if they were not Christians, and in many things behaved improperly to them; for this would frequently be the case. These things must be attended to, “that the word of God might not be blasphemed,” or evil spoken of, among the Gentiles, through any improper conduct of Christians in relative life. Young men also must “be sober minded,” and act in a prudent and considerate manner; avoiding all youthful lusts and vanities, and attending to their several duties in the fear of God.—Keepers, &c. verse 5. (oikouros; from a house, and a keeper.)