Treating the factious person in this harsh way is justified by that person’s bad qualities, of which Titus is very much aware. Knowing refers to Titus’ knowledge about such a person. An equivalent expression is “I am sure you know” or “You must certainly know.”

Perverted translates the perfect passive form of a verb that occurs only here in the New Testament and is used to describe the act of departing from what is accepted as correct behavior. Some take this perversion to be in the area of thinking rather than of action (for example, Translator’s New Testament “perverted mind,” Revised English Bible “distorted mind,” Contemporary English Version “their minds are twisted”). This means that the focus here is not on doing what is wrong but on not believing what is right. This means that perverted here has the same meaning as “reject the truth” in 1.14. There is, however, no unanimity regarding this, and therefore it may be best to understand the term in a more general way, to include both perversion of mind and the resulting corrupt behavior.

For sinful see “persist in sin” in 1 Tim 5.20. This is actually a third person singular verb, present tense, in the Greek, indicating the habitual and continuous nature of the act of sinning.

The word for self-condemned occurs only here in the whole New Testament and refers to being condemned by, or as a result of, one’s own actions. This means that, in the case of the false teachers, there is no need for a formal trial, since their own actions are more than enough to prove that they are guilty of sinning against God and therefore deserve to be treated as outsiders.

How do these three items relate to each other? The Greek can be rendered literally as “having been perverted, such a one also sins by being self-condemned.” This seems to indicate that the initial act is perversion; this results in habitual sinfulness, and it is these sinful acts that prove that a person is guilty before God and therefore deserves to receive the punishment of being rejected by the church.

An alternative translation model for this verse is:

• I am sure that you know that such a person has a twisted mind. His sins then show how guilty he is before God.

Quoted with permission from Arichea, Daniel C. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to Titus. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1995. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .