Charles Ellicott Commentary Titus 3:8

"Faithful is the saying, and concerning these things I desire that thou affirm confidently, to the end that they who have believed God may be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men:" — Titus 3:8 (ASV)

This is a faithful saying.—Then St. Paul, having, in those few but sublime words we have been considering, painted our present happy state—happy even on earth, where the glorious promised inheritance was still only a hope—and having shown how this blessedness was the result of no efforts of our own, but that we owe it solely to the tender love and to the divine pity of God for humankind—cries out, Yes, “faithful is this saying!”

And these things I will that thou affirm constantly.—I desire that again and again, in the congregation, these words of mine, woven into the tapestry of creed, or hymn of thanksgiving or supplication, be repeated by the faithful believers in the Lord. This is to remind them, not only of the glorious hope of eternal life, but also to bring Him to their remembrance to whom they owe this glorious heritage. As they repeat or hear the words telling them of the wondrous mercy shown to them for no merit or desert of their own, they will more willingly think kindly of, and act loyally with, other people still living in that deep and loathsome darkness where they once lived, until God, in His pity, delivered them.

Hearing this “faithful saying,” thought the old man St. Paul, “My children in Christ will surely be disposed to be more loyal subjects, more faithful citizens, more loving neighbors, even though their civil magistrates, their fellow-citizens, and their neighbors are still idolaters, living without God in the world.”

And there was yet another reason for the constant repetition of this “faithful saying”: people would see that they owed all their glorious Christian privileges—their present peace, their future hope—to God’s free grace, and that they had done nothing to deserve all this.

Surely such a thought would spur them on to noble deeds, if only to show they were not wholly ungrateful. So he writes, “Yes, affirm constantly this faithful saying.”

That they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works.—But St. Paul not only wanted them to show their gratitude for the great mercy they had received, but he is specially anxious that those who by God's grace had been led into the Christian community should now not only quietly and unobtrusively take their part in good works, but should always be careful to be prominent in all such things. He wanted Christians to be conspicuous in their generous zeal to promote all good and useful undertakings.

“Good works” here are by no means confined to works of mercy and charity though, of course, they include them; they still possess in this passage a far more comprehensive meaning. All useful and beneficent undertakings, public as well as private, are counted among these “good works.” As was observed before, St. Paul’s ideal Christian must be a generous, public-spirited person. In the eyes of this great teacher, the cloistered ascetic would have found little favour; his hero, while always the devoted, self-sacrificing lover of the Lord, must be known among his fellow-citizens “as careful to maintain good works.”

These things are good and profitable unto men.—The accurate translation of the Greek here would be, These are the things which are good and profitable unto men; but the older authorities omit the article, ta, before kala. The rendering, then (omitting the article), as given in the English version, would be correct. “These things”—that is, this practical everyday teaching, which bids Christians distinguish themselves among their fellow-citizens and countrymen in all generous and useful enterprises, in all good things, whether public or private—these things, says the Apostle, are good and profitable unto men. This is in sharp contrast to the impractical and useless points insisted upon in the false teaching, apparently too common in the Cretan Church, and against which Titus is earnestly warned in the next verse (Titus 3:9).