Titus 2:2-3
‘The aged men (are to) be sober, grave…, sound in faith…. The aged women likewise…(are to) be in behaviour as behoves holiness…, teachers of good things (so) that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children!’ Titus 2:2-4.
Calvin comments: “He (Paul) mentioned ‘aged men’…. Here is an indirect reference to the various diseases of old age…. It seems to me to be so….
“‘Aged women likewise!’… Old women…are…to make them (younger women) more attentive to their duties….
“They also train ‘the young women; by their instruction’…. Careful attention to the context, shows clearly that Paul is continuing with his list of the duties of women, which apply to the older women as well….
“In reminding older women of their duties, he at the same time offers to the younger an example they should follow…. He wants women…to regulate their households soberly, and with moderation.”
Calvin also says in his Second Sermon upon chapter two (in) the Epistle to Titus: “Faith must carry us up aloft…. Some pine away…. It belongs to God to govern us…. That, (say I), is the true soundness that beseems old folks.
“For according to the length of the time that we have lived in the world, so we have need of patience…. Thus ought an old man to think, when he endures any adversity….
“Paul speaks here…not only to the men. But also the women have by and by their roll and instruction…. Paul commanded the elder women…to edify, and to give good example to all the world….
“They should be schoolmistresses of goodness…. Employ yourselves in showing the way of salvation to such as be not yet so well trained as you be, and let them learn by your example!…
“He says expressly, ‘To the end that they may draw the younger sort to stayedness’…. Paul will have young women to learn modesty….
“Here we see what the wisdom of the faithful wives and their daughters is. It is…to govern their household quietly, to bring up their children (orderly), and to be subject to their husbands obediently…. When they have children, they should have a care to bring them up and to keep them and to teach them the fear of God when they come to age.”
The aged are to be sober and sound in faith — and to teach the younger! Are you doing this?
