ADORNING IN HARD TIMES

ADORN IN HARD TIMES

Titus 2:10 “not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.”

Here are two ideas which flash with a surprising brilliance. The first is that the doctrine of God our Savior can be adorned; and the second is that those who are spoken of as able to do it are slaves. Perhaps we shall understand the first better, if we begin with the second. The word servants here are distinctly the word for slaves, and it may well be conceived that the conditions of slaves in Crete, where Titus was laboring, were of the worst. Paul had already said that the testimony of one of their own prophets was true that the Cretans were liars, evil beasts, and gluttons. Slavery in a society of such must have been a terrible thing. Among these slaves there were some who were saints, and these were declared able in the very life of slavery, to "adorn the doctrine." Moreover, the Apostle had declared how they would do it. It would be done by subjection to their masters; by seeking to be well-pleasing by not opposing; by honesty, by faithfulness; in short, by such action in difficult circumstances as to win from their very masters recognition of their goodness. Thus we see how "the doctrine of God our Savior" may "be adorned." It is adorned when its effects on life and character are expressed in conduct. To be true and gentle and faithful in circumstances that are hard and unfair, and even unjust, is only possible in the power of some great spiritual conviction, and the value of such spiritual conviction is revealed in such conduct.