In marked contrast to the seducing teachers who are described in the concluding verses of the first chapter, Titus is charged to teach that which is right. "But speak _thou_ the things which befit the sound doctrine." What _they_ taught was to the last degree unwholesome, full of senseless frivolities and baseless distinctions respecting meats and drinks, times and seasons. Such things were fatal alike to sound and robust faith and to all moral earnestness. Belief was frittered away in a credulous attention to "Jewish fables," and character was depraved by a weak punctiliousness about fanciful details. As in the Pharisees, whom Jesus Christ denounced, scrupulosity about trifles led to neglect of "the weightier matters of the law." But in these "vain talkers and deceivers," whom Titus had to oppose, the trifles by which they distracted their hearers from matters of the highest importance were not even the minor duties enjoined by the Law or the Gospel: they were mere "commandments of men." In opposition to calamitous teaching of this kind, Titus is to insist upon what is healthy and sound. All classes are to be attended to, and the exhortations specially needed are to be given to each: to the older men and older women, the younger women and the younger men, to whom Titus is to show himself an example: and finally to slaves, for salvation is offered to all men, and is for no privileged class. It will be observed that the sound teaching which Titus is charged to give to the different sections of his flock relates almost exclusively to _conduct_. There is scarcely a hint in the whole of this chapter that can be supposed to have reference to errors of _doctrine_. In quite a general way the old men are to be exhorted to be "sound in _faith_" as well as in love and patience: but otherwise all the instruction to be given to old and young, male and female, bond and free, relates to conduct in thought, word, and deed.[76]