Titus 2:2 That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience.

Is this behavior only expected of men of a certain age? Aged is vague but that isn’t the only thing that bothers me about lists. The tendency of people who are not included according to their own conscience, hey I’m not old, is to ignore the message as it does not apply to them. Secondly, if a behavior is not listed, then the general assumption is that only those things listed need to be considered.

Read Titus 2 for yourselves and you will find other lists for aged women (not going there), young women and young men. Those lists are not the same, nor are they all inclusive. Are we not all the same to God or are we not? According to Galatians 3:28 we are all one in Christ Jesus.

Titus 2:1 But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine:

Then I remember the becoming. While doctrine is deemed to be a teaching in the strictest terms, if it does not lead the lives of the people hearing it, it is not sound. Paul was writing to Titus of a time and a people who did not have the full advantages of the whole gospels as we do today. Verbal traditions were still very much a part of the early church experience. Teachers were expected to speak to the problems of the day, not as it might apply to us two thousand years later.

We have the advantage of thousands of years of learned men, faithful to study and discuss all that has been laid out for us to build upon. It is not shortsighted of the author to overlook instructions that have not yet been written. Paul and John were still putting words to paper at the instructions of the Holy Spirit. The bible would not be canonized until the fourth century. It is/was a list.

So I withdraw my objection to lists and seek to hear what the spirit has to say about all things.