After instructing Titus to exhort older men and women, often a delicate task for a younger man, Paul gives Titus instruction about exhorting younger men, men like himself. His own life was to be the practical example to illustrate his teaching. This is an important principle to remember when seeking to teach others. Otherwise, you may hear the old saying thrown at you, “What you are speaks so loudly that I can’t hear what you’re saying.”

Sober-mindedness is the first quality the apostle tells Titus to impress upon younger men. To be level-headed, exercising sound judgment rather than being impulsively swayed by every new fad or fashion that comes along, is vital to becoming a responsible, mature Christian. Titus is himself also to be a pattern of good works, not of good ideas. The Lord Jesus went about doing good. And Ephesians 2:10 reminds us that God has created us to do good works which He has before prepared that we should walk in them.

Titus was not to be wishy-washy about doctrine. Sound doctrine is not to be compromised, but rather to be held in integrity and incorruptibility. The Lord Jesus calls Himself the Truth in John 14:6; calls God’s Word the truth (17:17); and refers to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth (16:13). Titus was to be sound and straightforward in his speech, plain and to the point, his life lived consistently with the solemnity of the truth he taught.

The things of God are not to be taken lightly or joked about; they are serious business, matters of life and death. Opponents should never have anything evil to say of believers, whose lives are to be godly.