Titus 3: While we were hateful

ἦμεν γάρ ποτε καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀνόητοι, ἀπειθεῖς, πλανώμενοι, δουλεύοντες ἐπιθυμίαις καὶ ἡδοναῖς ποικίλαις, ἐν κακίᾳ καὶ φθόνῳ διάγοντες, στυγητοί, μισοῦντες ἀλλήλους. ὅτε δὲ ἡ χρηστότης καὶ ἡ φιλανθρωπία ἐπεφάνη τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν θεοῦ

Geoff Translation: For we ourselves also were, at one time, unthinking, untrustworthy, liars, slaves to passions and various desires, living in malice, even envy. We were hateful, hating one another. But while this was the case the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared...

Notes: This passage struck me like a tortoise between the eyes. How does the church deal with people who do not follow Jesus mandate to love others and love God, people who live in sin? Well, Paul shows us here what God did for us. While we were yet hateful, destructive people, God's kindness appeared and made us into new people. This kindness is three fold, through the advent of Jesus Christ, through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and through the personal experience of Jesus Christ in the lives of the Christians in Crete. While we were hateful, God loved us. Love people who make themselves difficult to love.

Encouragement to love others, while we were destructive idiots, God loved us in a constructive way.

I translated "ὅτε δὲ ἡ χρηστότης" in a strange way, "But while this was the case, the kindness" because many Greek words do not have single word English equivalents. This one seems to imply a concurrent temporal relation with the previous clause. The grammar structure almost points to the meaning, "after that." If one looks back to see the previous adverb, "ποτε," one might expect that the sequence is "we once were...after that," but the flow of the thought says otherwise. Paul argues "we once were , but the kindness of God appeared...not because of works of righteousness we performed." One would not imply with adverbs that after we were bad (when it stopped) that God's grace appeared, when that same author immediately argues that it was grace that stopped us.

I also supplied, "We were" a second time to avoid the list of traits being longer than the force of the verb.