Titus 3:3

For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish -Sometimes" in the old sense of -sometime," Ephesians 2:13, -ye who sometimes were afar off." Cp. Shaksp. Rich. II. 1. 2. 54 (Bible Word-Book, p. 551):

-Farewell, old Gaunt: thy sometimesbrother's wife

With her companion grief must end her life."

The position and tense of the verb and particle justify our rendering For there was a time when we too were foolish. -Foolish"; -in this word there is always a moral fault lying at the root of the intellectual," N. T. Syn. § 75; as in Luke 24:25, -O foolish men and slow of heart," and Galatians 3:1 -O foolish Galatians, who did bewitchyou?" so -wanting in spiritual sense," -blind"; cf. 1Ti 6:9; 2 Timothy 3:9.

disobedient, deceived disobedient, as Titus 1:16; 2 Timothy 3:2, and all other N.T. passages; -insuadibiles," Theod. Mops. Lat.; -inobedientes," Jerome; not as Vulg." increduli," -distrustful;" going astray, rather than -deceived;" the verb is no doubt used in both passive and neuter sense, but compare the use of the pres. part., Matthew 18:12, -doth he not leave the ninety and nine … and seek that which goeth astray?" and 1 Peter 2:25, -For ye were going astray like sheep;" where the argument for patience from a sense of having erred and strayed is just the same. May not St Peter have taken up this very force of the word, and so been led to the quotation from Isaiah 53? It is a question whether even in 2 Timothy 3:13 -leading astray and going astray" would not express the antithesis better than -deceiving and being deceived." There is no stress on their -being deceived," which might furnish rather an excuse than an aggravation.

serving divers lusts and pleasures The Greek is stronger, being the slaves of, as Luke 16:13 -to be God's slave and Mammon's slave" and elsewhere. -Divers" is only used by St Paul in these -Pastoral" letters; of diseases, Luke 4:40: twice in Heb., twice in St Peter, once in St James. But the compound is used of -wisdom," Ephesians 3:10. -Pleasures" in the N.T. use is stronger than our English word. It only occurs James 4:1; James 4:3 of lusts and adulteries, 2 Peter 2:13 of day-revels and debauchery, and Luke 8:14 of their -choking" effect, along with carking care and riches.

living in malice and envy -Malice" is the -evil habit of mind" which manifests itself in positive evil and harm-doing, see note on Titus 2:9 and Trench, N. T. Syn. § 11. It comes between a state of envy and the actual working of ill to a neighbour.

hateful, and hating one another Vulg. -odibiles odientes invicem"; -hateful" in the particular form of the Greek word here does not occur elsewhere in N.T., but is formed just as -abominable" in Titus 1:16. The full sense is well seen in the compound -hateful to God" (not as A.V. -haters of God") Romans 1:30.

The whole verse seems an echo, in brief, of the fuller description of heathen life written ten years before in Romans 1:18-32. As in Titus 2:12, St Paul identifies himself with the Cretans in self-condemnation, and divine mercy; exemplifying the -meekness" he inculcates.