Titus 2:9-10 - Homilies By W.m. Statham

Counsels to slaves.

This Epistle was circulated in Asia Minor, where there were some eighty thousand slaves. "Exhort slaves, or bond-servants," etc. The gospel cured slavery, as it cured polygamy, by a slow and steady development of the doctrine and spirit of the cross—that we are all one in Christ Jesus, that we are not our own, and that we ought to love others even as ourselves. And no man would like to be a slave himself.

I. OBEDIENCE . They were slaves, and they had masters. While that relationship remained, let them show the conquests of the gospel in their endeavors to please, and in their not "gainsaying," or answering again. Masters would see in such conduct the divinity of the gospel; and slaves would not suffer in vain— it would give the dignity of "ministry" even to their lives.

II. BEAUTY . Not "purloining," which slaves are tempted to do. Having been purloined or "stolen" themselves, it would not seem very harmful to them to steal things from their masters. But they were to "adorn the gospel"—to show how "beautiful" it could make their rude life, and the rough, hard lot of a slave.

So we all have here the gospel in its beauty. "Adorn," and in its breadth, "all things."—W.M.S.