Titus 3:1

Titus 3:1. Duty to rulers. Crete, formerly self-governed on a popular basis, bad since B.C. 67 been attached to the Roman province of Cyrene, and was restive under the yoke. Similar reminders that Christians should avoid sedition are frequent in the apostolic letters. The hand of Rome was a very heavy one, and the imperial court, at its height of insolence and extravagance, was ever provoking revolt among the conquered nations. The primitive Church, drawn mainly from the discontented classes, the poor and the servile, taught the equality and dignity of all men a doctrine which might readily ferment into a spirit of repugnance to all authority. It included also large numbers of Jews, the most seditious of the subjects of the Empire. It was secretly spread over many provinces, and bound its converts in a society, with pass-words and an organization of its own, which might be easily abused for political ends by agitators, and which could scarcely fail to awaken suspicion in the government. Not strange therefore that the leaders of the new body deemed it prudent frequently to counsel submission.

For principalities and powers, which now carries a vague sense, read ‘to rulers, to authorities.'