Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Titus 1:15

"To the pure all things are pure: but to them that are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but both their mind and their conscience are defiled." — Titus 1:15 (ASV)

The test of character condemns these false teachers. This is stated in the form of a double maxim. “To the pure, all things are pure” embodies a principle enunciated by Jesus himself in dealing with Jewish food laws (Matthew 15:10–11; Mark 7:14–19) and forcefully impressed on Peter in his vision at Joppa (Acts 10:9–15, 28). These Cretan teachers apparently were engrossed in perpetuating ceremonial distinctions between the pure and the impure. They tended to lay emphasis on outward appearance and judged others on the basis of their own external criteria. Paul teaches that true purity lies not in adherence to nonmoral external rites and regulations but in the inner purity of the regenerated heart. Material things receive their moral character from the inner attitude of the user. This maxim does not, however, invalidate the revelation that certain things are morally wrong.

The converse of the principle carries the attack into enemy territory. Their attribution of impurity to nonmoral things reveals both their own inner state of corruption or defilement and their unbelief. A moral perversion has taken place in their whole being. Their “minds” have become polluted, and their conscience has lost its ability to make correct moral judgments, leaving them unable to make true distinctions between good and evil.