“This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;”
King James Version (KJV)
1:11 Stopped - The word properly means, to put a bit into the mouth of an unruly horse.
1:12 A prophet - So all poets were anciently called; but, besides, Diogenes Laertius says that Epimenides, the Cretan poet, foretold many things. Evil wild beasts - Fierce and savage.
1:14 Commandments of men - The Jewish or other teachers, whoever they were that turned from the truth.
1:15 To the pure - Those whose hearts are purified by faith this we allow. All things are pure - All kinds of meat; the Mosaic distinction between clean and unclean meats being now taken away. But to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure - The apostle joins defiled and unbelieving, to intimate that nothing can be clean without a true faith: for both the understanding and conscience, those leading powers of the soul, are polluted; consequently, so is the man and all he does.
Tit 1:13 This witness is true. Paul's observations confirmed it. So do many ancient writers. "Cretize" (Cretanize) became a slang phrase for lying. Wherefore rebuke them sharply. Their bad conduct must be sharply rebuked until the gospel so transforms them that they will become "sound in the faith".