In Titus 2 there is a very striking and forcible illustration of the above. May the Spirit of God drive them home to the conscience and heart of every one of us.
In verses 4 and 5 the aged women are exhorted to teach the young women; and I want you to notice what they are to teach them, and why.
What they are to teach them is how to behave in their everyday life—the life in the home and before their neighbors. It is summed up in a very few words. They are to be sober (not light and giddy), to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet or wise, keepers at home, and obedient to their own husbands. "Oh! that is what everybody knows," someone may exclaim. "There is not much in that!" No, these prosy everyday things are apt to be despised an d overlooked simply because they are everyday things. But look at the second point: why these things are to be taught. "That the word of God be not blasphemed."
Did you know that such fearful consequences were wrapped up in these everyday things? Have you remembered that your neighbors and acquaintances know you are a professed follower of Jesus, and that when they see you coming short in these simple, practical, everyday matters, it causes them to reflect upon and speak against that "word" that you profess to obey? And thus through your carelessness in little things, God's doctrine is blasphemed. Oh! what a responsibility is ours! Just as upon the pillars of the court of the tabernacle were hung, in the sight of everybody, those spotless curtains of fine-twined linen, so upon us is hanging, in view of the world, the spotless character of pure and undefiled religion. And if we stain it, what then?
Oh! be faithful, believer, in every little detail of life; for everything counts.
So much for responsibility.
But there is another side in this chapter, and it is enough to make one leap for very joy receiving the gifts of grace, to know our glorious privilege.
In verses 9 and 10 we have again some exhortations concerning everyday life. This time it is to servants (bondmen); and they are urged to be obedient to their own masters, and to please them well in all things, not answering again, not appropriating their masters' goods to their own use, but to be faithful to them in all things. And the reason now given is, "That they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things." Is not this a privilege? Think of being an ornament to the doctrine of our Savior! People often speak of ornaments in the Church, but they generally mean some talented and gifted person whose name is known everywhere. But God takes up the very humblest, even a bond slave, and shows how he, in the very commonest everyday actions, may be an ornament to His doctrine. Now is this not real encouragement? And it is not merely that he may be this or that. No! each one of us is either the first or the second. That is, we are all either causing the Savior's word to be blasphemed, or we are an ornament to it. Which is it?