Titus 1:15

Unto the pure allthings are pure To the same effect as 1 Timothy 4:3-5. Cf. Matthew 15:2; Matthew 15:11 for the -wholesome words of Jesus Christ" on the same point. The trueprinciple of lawful Christian abstinence is given (with the same phrase) Romans 14:20. -The "all things" are those which in themselves have no moral character, food, marriage, business, pleasure, daily life, Sabbatic observance, and social freedom; that vast region of conduct to which Jewish pedantry and oriental asceticism had applied the vexatious rules Touch not, taste not, handle not." Reynolds.

defiled and unbelieving As -the pure" here corresponds to -them that believe and have full knowledge of the truth" in 1 Timothy 4:3, so impurity of life and unsound doctrine, go together.

but even their mind and conscience Rather, nay, there is defilement of both their mind and their conscience. Nothing is pure, and indeed those very organs to which we look for instilling purity are defiled. Cf. Matthew 6:22-23, -The lamp of the body is the eye; if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness." The -mind" in N.T. is more than - reason" and - intellect" including also - the willand - the feelings," 1 Timothy 6:5; Romans 1:28 -God gave them up to a reprobate mind." The -conscience," suneidêsis, is the - moral sense," or -self-consciousness," pronouncing intuitively by a spiritual instinct on our acts, 1 Timothy 3:9; Romans 2:15. -The two united represent the stream of life in its flowing in and flowing out together. Cf. Appendix, A, iii. 1, and D.

is defiled R.V. -are defiled," our modern idiom differing from the Greek, which has the singular verb agreeing with the nearer only of the two nouns. In old English also two substantives when closely allied in meaning not uncommonly are followed by the singular verb, e.g. -Destruction and unhappiness is in their ways."