Titus Chapter 2

vs 9

Slaves are slaves. Not workers, not lower class, not modern at all. The only person any of us are slaves to is God. So treat God like that. Try to please him. Don't talk back to him. For those of you who work for The Man, the basic lesson is that you should do what they expect of you. Slave masters expect their slaves to obey them in everything. Employers expect you to do what they pay you for.

vs 10

Sometimes people think it's ok to steal from their business, or their employer, or their master. Usually because they feel they are being mistreated, or underpaid, or there's something unfair. Sometimes it's just because people aren't honest. A Christian shouldn't do any of these things. We should be fully trustworthy, just like Joseph (the OT Joseph that is).

The purpose of this attitude is so that the teaching about Jesus will be attractive. A by-product that Paul doesn't mention (but we all know happens) is that people walk over you and use you. Slaves didn't really have a choice about their masters. We do have choices about our employers. We can't always leave (if there's a depression or skills surplus or something), but if we do it's perfectly ok. But we have to trust in God that doing what he says will make his promises happen.

vs 11

Do we take this literally, in some theological context, and try and say something about God revealing himself through his creation to all people? No, that would be a lie. Of the qualities of God that are revealed in his creation, his grace that brings salvation is not one of them. Nor did Jesus fly around to America, China, India, Australia, or anywhere else and tell everyone about himself. Paul's making a facetious comment based on the fact that the civilised world has been evangelised, mostly by him. And what it looks pretty clear by the description in the next few verses that it's the Holy Spirit, I am actually wondering whether God's act of grace itself is a teacher to us.

vs 12

The purpose of this grace is to teach us to be godly in this present age. It's interesting that it teaches us to say "No" (the greek is more boring, just saying that it teaches us to deny impiety and worldly lusts). The idea being that without God's grace, we wouldn't know how to say no to these things. We wouldn't know how to live godly lives. Don't get me wrong - we might know what these things look like (we might have even seen Christians doing them!) but we can't get it to work ourselves. That's one of the secrets of Christianity - that people shouldn't be able to emulate our lives without God's grace.

vs 13

As the song doesn't go; Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' return. If he doesn't come back, we really are hopeless. For all the good stuff we get out of being a Christian, nothing compares to the glory of his return - for him and for us.

vs 14

Jesus wants a people that are eager to do good. He doesn't just want people. He's got his purpose for us here on earth.

vs 15

Paul has given Titus authority. People should listen to him. Will they? Who knows. But he has the teaching and he must give it with authority. Notice that it's not just the teaching that has authority - the teacher has it too. I'm not exactly sure how you go about not letting people despise you. But I think Paul is saying that people can't despise you for teaching these teachings, as they are the truth, and if anyone does despise you, make sure it's for their own wrong reasons, not because you did something despicable.