- Alright, Titus for Beginners. This is lesson number two. This is Titus' Mission, Titus
chapter one verses 15 and 16. So, we've said that in
the pastoral epistles, which are first and
second Timothy and Titus, Paul specifically warned and
equipped these two preachers to deal with various forms
of heretical teaching, called gnosticism, which was circulating in many of the early churches, especially those made
up of Gentile converts. Didn't have this problem so much where it was mainly Jewish converts, but where there were Gentile converts. Predominantly Jewish churches
struggled with false teaching from the circumcision
party, or the Judaizers, that was their problem. And the Judaizers, they
insisted that Gentile converts to Christianity had to
first be circumcised and keep certain food
laws and other regulations before they could become Christians. Their thinking was that
Jesus the Jewish Messiah and so those who wanted
to be His disciples must first become Jews
and adhere to Jewish laws before they were Christians. It kind of makes sense,
from their perspective. I could see them thinking that. But that was the problem in churches where you had predominantly
Jewish converts, the problem of the circumcision
party, or Judaizers. The churches where Gentiles
were in the majority also struggled with false
teaching, but the heresy being promoted was rooted
in Greek philosophy, and it was referred to
as dualism, dualism. The teaching was different
than what the Judaizers taught, but the goal was similar. Both groups required a
kind of works type approach to salvation, you had to do something. You had to do something
in order to be saved. The Judaizers, they demanded circumcision and obedience to Jewish law
as a condition to salvation. The gnostic teachers
promoted severe restriction of the flesh, food laws, and celibacy to free the spirit from its evil flesh and thus be with the good God. So both of these groups were in error, and they taught things that contradicted what Jesus and the Apostles taught concerning the gospel of salvation, which is freely offered
by the grace of God and received by man on the
basis of faith in Jesus Christ, and that faith expressed
in repentance and baptism. We read that in Acts chapter
2:38, a familiar passage. In this letter to Titus, Paul
outlines the practical way that this preacher was to guard against both false teaching and the teachers who promoted these heresies. One, preserve and pass
on the sound doctrine that he had been taught. Paul is telling him, you
know what I taught you, you maintain that exactly as I taught you and you pass that on,
that's your responsibility. And two, train and appoint sound leaders who will do the same thing. Because there was only one of Titus, but there were many churches. He was located in Crete
and so apparently there were many churches in Crete,
so he couldn't be everywhere at the same time, so he
was to appoint leaders who would be able to preserve the gospel as it had been taught by
Paul and taught to Titus and then Titus taught to these people. They were to then lead and teach
the church in the same way. Okay, so let's review our outline in order to fix the point that we
are at in our brief study. Pretty simple outline, the salutation, Paul talks about his mission, chapter one verses one to four. And his mission is he wants to preserve and pass on sound doctrine and wants Titus to do the same. The body, Titus' mission,
chapter one verse five to 3:11, he is to appoint sound elders. The word sound, not sound
like I hear a sound, but sound as in solid, dependable. Sound elders, chapter 1:5 to 16. And provide sound doctrine,
that was Titus' mission. Then the conclusion, couple
of verses at the end, personal greetings, and
some final instructions. So last week we covered the salutation, and in our lesson today we're
going to examine a portion of Paul's instructions
concerning Titus' ministry. So Titus' mission, first of all, he needs to appoint sound elders. Verse five he says, "For this
reason I left you in Crete," that's how we know where
he is, because he says it in his letter, "that
you would set in order "what remains and appoint elders "in every city as I directed you." So just this one verse we
find out a lot of information. Paul had used Titus in
various ways in the past. For example, he sent Titus to Corinth to monitor this church's progress in light of Paul's first letter that had specific instructions, and we find out in Second Corinthians about Titus' involvement,
Second Corinthians 7:13 to 16. After Paul's release from
his first Roman imprisonment, we know that he traveled to
various places to preach. For example, he went to
Crete, and he returned to churches that he had
previously established in order to encourage their ongoing
faithfulness and to provide for them further instructions concerning their personal
growth in Christ. So in verse five, Paul
provides the historical context and purpose for this letter. He had preached and had
begun a church in Crete, but he couldn't stay long
enough to mature the groups that were formed there. This task he leaves to Titus,
along with the instructions contained in this letter
written and sent to Titus during his brief time of freedom, somewhere between 62 and 64 A.D. Titus, therefore, is left
to organize the church for worship and for service. One of his tasks will be to
appoint elders in every city. Now, there's a lot of
information contained in just this one phrase, as I mentioned. He says to appoint, appoint, the word here in the Greek does not
mean to pick and choose. Okay, you're going to be an elder, you're not going to be an elder, uh, yeah, you, you can be, it's not like that type of appointment. Appoint in this sense is to set into place those who qualify to lead the church. It's a longer process, is what I'm saying. Paul's written authority gives Titus, who is an evangelist,
the practical authority to officially commend
certain qualified men into positions of leadership. Note also that he is to raise
up elders, plural, plural. He could have said you
need to raise up an elder in every church, in every
city, but he doesn't. He says you need to
raise up elders, plural in every church and every city. Apparently, there were several
cities that had churches, and each church was to
have multiple elders in the local assembly. We're not going to look
at all the examples, but if you look at other
examples where Paul is talking about elders, he always
refers to them in the plural. There is no occasion in the bible where they refer to one
elder over one congregation. It's always a plurality
of two or more, anyways. People say, where do you get that idea? Where do you get that idea where you can't have just one pastor, one guy is the pastor of the church. One pastor over a 5,000 member church or a 50 member church, is that
a "Church of Christ" thing? And I tell them, "No, that's
not a Church of Christ thing. "That's a bible thing, that's
a New Testament thing." Just go into the New
Testament and you'll find out there is no congregation
in the New Testament that has only one pastor,
they all have a multiplicity, a multiple number of leaders or elders. You can call them
different things, pastors, elders, shepherds, it all
refers to the same person. And we've talked about
that in First Corinthians. Another thing that we find out, no one man was made bishop or
elder over several churches. Each congregation had its own leadership, comprised of several elders. Many commentaries describe
Titus as the first bishop of Crete, and they
argue that as a kind of, he was a kind of an archbishop and he was appointing other
men under his authority to leadership positions
in the church hierarchy. That's reverse history. That's not taking what the bible says and making a point out of it. It's taking what has
evolved over the centuries in various denominations
and then taking that idea and stamping it back
onto the New Testament. But that's not what the
New Testament teaches. The New Testament teaches
that there were only, there were elders and deacons
and there were teachers and evangelists in one congregation. But you didn't have a
situation like we see here, like in Roman Catholicism
or in general Protestantism where you have a hierarchy of leaders over all of the congregation. In this thinking, Titus was
the Archbishop of Crete. He would appoint a bishop in one city, and then that bishop would
be over several other pastors in individual congregations. That's the modern denominational model. This is not the bible model. I put Titus' name there
because that's what they do in many commentaries. So this is what you see if
you look at this passage, as I say, from a Catholic or
Protestant denominational view. It neatly fits a preconceived notion concerning church organization. However, from a biblical viewpoint, allowing the New Testament
to speak for itself and to interpret itself,
Titus was an evangelist. He wasn't a bishop, he
didn't have that title. He was not a pastor, he was not an elder. He was an evangelist. And the evangelist's work is to plant and organize churches
by preaching the gospel and teaching God's Word,
how do we know that? Well, have you read Titus? I left you in Crete to do what? To organize what was left
to do, and to do what else? To appoint elders, he's not
an elder, he's an evangelist. Evangelists, especially
in the early church, served many different
congregations who were at different stages of development. Titus, for example, was not
in charge of all the churches in Crete, but he served all
of them as an evangelist. Today, what do we call it? Circuit preaching, our
missionaries in Africa and in Haiti are very
much circuit preachers. There are many congregations there that don't have a full-time evangelist. Many of them are rural, poor, can't afford to support a full-time evangelist. So our missionary preaches at all of them. One week he'll be at
two or three on a Sunday and then the following week he'll go to two or three others, he
circuits, he has a circuit. And he trains men there for leadership. Ultimately, he will
appoint some as elders. That's the model we have
in the New Testament. Once these men were put
into place as elders, they were the ones in charge of their local congregation, not Titus. So once Paul states the overall mission, which is to raise up elders in every city, every church, he provides
Titus with details regarding the type of men
that he needs to look for, and that's what chapter one
verses six to nine is all about. Now, there are similarities with the list of qualifications given for
elders in First Timothy, chapter three verses two to seven, similarities between
that list and the list that Paul gives to Titus,
but Paul adds more detail in his letter to Titus, and
I'll explain why in a moment. So let's read the
qualifications he talks about. In verse six he says, "Namely,
if any man is above reproach, "the husband of one wife,
having children who believe, "not accused of dissipation or rebellion." So a man who cannot be
accused of a wrongdoing or a moral failure in
or out of the church. He's above reproach. Nobody's going to step forward
like a year into his eldership and say, this guy, he robbed
a bank and got away with it and never got caught,
he's not going to be, there are no skeletons out there. There's nothing that someone can come and bring reproach upon him. Also having children who
believe, important element. Not accused of dissipation or rebellion. Dissipation, wasteful living. Rebellion, charging against authority. He says another qualification, he says the husband of one wife. As mentioned in the study in Timothy where this same phrase is used, a one woman man whose
married life has been clear. He mentions also having
children who believe and behave. All this is in verse six. Not only children who have been baptized, but those who conduct
themselves as Christians. As I say, rebellion is disobedience. Dissipation is wasteful living. The idea is if a man has not succeeded in forming a lasting
faith in his own children, why would the church give
him the responsibility for the faith and the
spiritual life of the church? I mean, you'd think you
love your own children more than you love your
brothers and sisters in the church, it's only
natural, it's human nature. Of course, you love your own children. And the point is, if after
loving your own children you haven't succeeded in
forming faith in them, how will you do that for those who are not that close to you? Sometimes that's a cold
idea, because some men have very good qualities about them, but Paul is laying down
very strict conditions for the one who will be
a leader in the church. He then says in verse seven, he says, "For the overseer must be above reproach "as God's steward, not self-willed, "not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, "not pugnacious, not fond of sordid gain." So Paul has mentioned
the need to be unaccused in the family or in society. Here he repeats this qualification
and he provides details on how one acquires this qualification among those in the church. How do you gain that qualification
of being beyond reproach? He begins with negatives. In other words, what
the elder should not be. And he says he should not be self-willed. In other words, he can't take advice, he can't take correction,
he has to win every time on every issue, he can't be that way. Because, again, if elders lead as a group, it's going to be, those meetings
are going to be pretty tough if you've got four,
five, seven, eight men, none of which can take correction, none of which are ready to
take any advice from anybody. We're not going to get very far, right? He says not quick tempered. Of course, just think about it. Think of a meeting, just
think of having a meeting with seven or eight
men who are all elders. Not quick tempered, able
to control his emotions, his tongue, able to see
somebody else's point of view. Not addicted to wine, in other words, he's not a drunkard, he's not addicted. The operative word here is addicted. Not addicted to wine,
to drugs, to alcohol, to ice cream, oh wait,
that's too close to home. Not addicted to shopping, not addicted. Not an addictive, obsessive personality. Not pugnacious, not a bully. Easy to provoke, oversensitive, a brawler. Again think, seven, eight men in one room discussing difficult issues. Not fond of sordid gain. In other words, not a
man who enjoys gambling or other forms of immoral
practice to gain money. Some people will work three times harder to collect money from a scheme or a theft rather than honest work in
their business dealings. I'm always amazed, you know these what they call heist movies? A gang of guys, they're going to go in and they're going to break
into the Central Bank of Norway or something, and most of the movie is all the equipment that
they have and the drills and the special stuff and
the planning for months, meticulous planning, and in my mind, I'm too much of a realist, I'm saying, why don't you just get a job? You'll make good money with
these skills, you know. But no, the idea is to win something over, or get something over
someone in a dishonest way. Paul, he then switches
to positive virtues. So far he starts with negatives. The elder must not be
this or that, whatever. Now he switches over to positive virtues that a church leader has
and continues to cultivate in verses one, eight and nine. He says, "But," so he mustn't be this, but he must be, "hospitable,
loving what is good, "sensible, just, devout, self-controlled, "holding fast the faithful word which is "in accordance with the teaching, "so that he will be able to
both exhort in sound doctrine "and to refute those who contradict." Alright, so let's go
over these one at a time. He says, first of all, a good steward. So, what is a good steward? Well, he's these things. He is hospitable, the lover of, the word in the Greek
means a lover of strangers. Not only offering food
and shelter willingly, but accepts those of different cultures and ideas and background. Hospitality is one of
the most effective means of evangelism. Loving what is good, a
lover of what is beneficial. He loves doing good for others
and seeing good being done. In other words,
enthusiastic for good works. My wife has that quality. She's not a candidate for being an elder, but she has that quality,
she's a lover of good. She's always enthusiastic,
if somebody has an idea, let's do this, let's support that. I'm going, "No, no, we've
already got so much going on." But she's always ready to start
a new thing, a good thing. That quality doesn't reside only in men, it resides in people, but
certainly we want elders to have that quality. Sensible, sober minded,
not ruled by emotion. Does not create drama for its own sake. A person who is prudent,
because after all, he and the group of elders
are responsible for the souls, so you want people that are
prudent, that are careful, that are thinking ahead a little bit. A person who is just, in other words, conduct that meets the
approval of the Lord as our divine judge. A man who is just lives in a way that is pleasing to the Lord. Devout, devoted to the things of the Lord. Devoted to God's Word and His church. Devoted to his ministry
in the name of the Lord. Self-controlled, he says, in verse eight. Literally means in control of strength. In control of strength,
means that the love and devotion to God is not spoiled by too weak a flesh constantly returning to worldliness or too
strong a zeal that leads to self-righteousness and pride. In other words, they're in charge of their emotional energy
and their spiritual energy. Because it can go two ways, right? Either back to the world,
too easily tempted, that's one way, or go the other way and be so religiously
zealous that they kind of leave everybody back in the dust. What is it, too heavenly
bound to be an earthly good, that type of thing? I call it spiritual realism, understanding that human beings are weak. Understanding that we
live in a sinful world. Now, we don't give in to that, we don't use that as an excuse. However, we understand
that we're not living in the perfect world, and that people are not perfect people. As Christians, we're not perfect, we want to be, we're striving to be, we know we can't be,
but it doesn't matter, we still want to be. Well, the leaders understand this idea that people are trying,
they're doing their best. Each family and each person
has their own obstacles and problems and sins. So the leaders understand this idea. Holding fast the Word
of God, in verse nine. The elder, like Timothy
and Titus and Paul, must maintain the gospel and
subsequent teachings received from the apostles and their disciples. They were not permitted to change or add or take away these teachings. In doing so, they would be equipped to teach the church with sound doctrine and also correct and refute false teaching that was contrary to what they taught. So the elders knew and they taught and they defended the faith given to them by Paul and his workers. That would be Timothy and Titus. Again, speaking of lists,
not a duplicate list of what was in First Timothy,
but a complementary list of qualifications that confirmed
some of the requirements. In other words, a mature,
married man with children, believing children. So once Paul has outlined the
qualifications to look for in men to serve as
elders, Paul reminds Titus why the church needs these kind of men. And so we read in verse
10 and 11, he says, "For there are many
rebellious men, empty talkers "and deceivers, especially
those of the circumcision, "who must be silenced
because they are upsetting "whole families, teaching
things they should not teach "for the sake of sordid gain." And so he describes the
character, the motivation and the damage that these are causing at the church where Titus serves. So he talks about their character. They're rebellious, they're
disobedience to God's Word, disobedient, rather, to God's
Word, and those who teach it. Empty talkers, he says, their teaching and their opinions have no spiritual value and they produce no spiritual fruit. They're deceivers, he said. They're not simply mistaken
or uninformed about doctrine, they know that what they promote is false. That's the hardest thing
to swallow for many people. They're "spiritual heroes"
that they happen to see on TV, the faith healers and whatever, and many of them know that
what they're doing is false, is not true, and Paul is saying to Titus, the people in your church
that are doing these things, they know that this is not true. They're doing it for
money, open your eyes. In this case here he's
saying they're Jews, because he says they're
of the circumcision, but they're not part of the Judiazers or the circumcision
party who were in error but believed that they
were doing God's will. The Judiazers, the ones that said you had to be circumcised to become Christians, he said those guys, they're mistaken. They're zealous for Jewry,
for Judaism, rather, they're zealous for Judaism and they want to protect the old ways. They're wrong, but what they're
trying to do is sincere. These guys, where Titus is, the Jews who were teaching things where Titus was, they were not sincere,
they were charlatans. They were doing it for the money, and that's what Paul is
kind of specifying here. Their motivation, unlike the Judaizers who were guarding their Jewish heritage in the midst of a great change, these Jews were motivated by
greed and the love of money. They were religious
hucksters trying to profit from the teachings that
they knew to be false. And they caused damage. Titus is told to silence, to gag them, because theirs was not simply
a difference of opinion on a religious topic, but teaching that compromised the faith and
salvation of entire families. Remember, in those days
it was house churches. Churches that had their own
buildings and properties, they came later, at this
time most churches met either in a public space
or they met in homes. So it was easy for these to
infiltrate home after home to spoil families one at a time. They first overtake families
with their false notions and then they use this as a base to address the entire congregation. So Titus and the elders
he appoints should have the knowledge to be able
to refute false teaching, and they should have the
confidence to block these types from speaking to the
congregation without fear. The elders have the right to
go to a brother who's teaching something clearly not
biblical and sit him down and saying, we love you,
we don't quite understand why you're doing this, but we
forbid you from doing this. You're not allowed to teach,
we will not give you a class to teach and you will not teach
this in this congregation. They have the right to
do that, how do you know? Well, because Paul gave
Titus the right to do this, and he gave the elders
that he appointed the right to do this, so it carries on til today. We keep going, verse 12, he says, "One of themselves, a
prophet of their own, said, "Cretans are always liars,
evil beasts, lazy gluttons. "This testimony is true." So here Paul is quoting the Cretan, it's a poem, the Cretan means from Crete, by the poet Epimenides,
who penned these words in a hymn to the Greek god Zeus, who is the sky god of thunder,
so he's quoting a poem. It was the generally held
stereotype about Cretans which was reinforced in
popular culture with this poem. It's a little bit like
generalizing about California being liberal, being a liberal state, or all Canadian people
know how to play hockey. It's a generalization. Well, this was a kind of a
generalization about Cretans. Even in poetic forms some
made fun of the Cretan. So Paul confirms this popular notion, and he says that the
Cretans, in other words, the Jewish troublemakers from Crete, prove his point and
confirm the stereotype. So he's saying, in the poem where it says that all Cretans are liars
and so on and so forth, well, this stereotype has
been confirmed by the Jews who come from Crete who are
causing trouble in the church. Whew, that's a long-winded
thing to explain this one little verse here. Anyways, in verse 13b and
14, if you were wondering what that meant, if he was
just going out of his way to insult people, no. Alright, verse 13b, 14
says, "For this reason "reprove them severely
so that they may be sound "in the faith, not paying
attention to Jewish myths "and commandments of men who
turn away from the truth." So Titus' task is to
reprove them severely. In other words, Titus is to
silence these false teachers who are spreading their lies for money and ruining the faith in
the families in the process. So don't appeal, don't bargain, just silence them altogether. In addition to this, Titus is to reprove those listening to their false ideas and jeopardizing their faith in doing so. So the reproof or the admonition
will direct the members to stay focused on sound teaching. Sound teaching coming from Paul or Titus or the elders that are appointed. And to avoid the useless
and destructive ideas of the false teachers, their myths and their genealogies and
their manmade religious ideas as opposed to the revelation from God that Paul and Titus are giving them. And then, last verses we'll do today, he says, "To the pure,
all things are pure, "but to those are defiled and unbelieving, "nothing is pure, but both their mind "and their conscience are defiled. "They profess to know God, but
by their deeds they deny Him, "being detestable and disobedient "and worthless for any good deed." So here Paul makes another reference to these greedy charlatans. He says, "To those who are pure," meaning, purified by the blood of Christ. So to those who are pure,
those who are purified by the blood of Christ,
all things are pure, why? Because believers know
how to use all the things that God has created. For example, food is purified, how? Through prayer. Money is a tool to care for our needs and the needs of other people. Sex is honorable and
blessed within marriage. To the pure, to the Christians,
all things are pure. We know, as Christians, how to handle all things in a pure way. Then he says, "To those
who are unbelieving, "nothing is pure," they
eat without giving thanks and dishonor God who feeds them. Money is a goal unto itself,
and without its connection to God, easily becomes an
object of worship, idolatry. Sex is devoid of its spiritual component and reduced to producing
simply physical gratification instead of being a facilitator
for spiritual insight, for which God created it. So Paul says that because
of their disbelief and their misuse of spiritual tools, teaching about God, both their intellect and their consciences are defiled, and thus they are unable,
and thus they are unable to get to the truth themselves,
and certainly unable to lead others in the truth. Remember, he's speaking about
these false teachers here. So, in a final summary
statement about these men, Paul says the following. First, they profess to know God and know Him in a superior way. Theirs is a statement
only backed up with words. It's a self-professed spiritual
maturity and knowledge. It's like when you drive by and it says, "The greatest fried chicken
sandwich in the world." And I ride by, says who? What contest did you win? Greatest hot dog, the
best boots in the world. There's no proof of
that, it's self-declared. Well, he's saying they're self-declaring. There's nothing behind
what they're saying. They're saying they have
superior spiritual knowledge and they know more than Paul and Titus. And he said, but there's
no backing of this. They're just declaring this. Paul echoes James, where James says, "You have faith, and I have works. "Show me your faith without the works, "I will show you my faith
by my works," James 2:18. So Paul directs Titus and the church to judge these men based on their works, their deeds, their
actions, not their words. Their deeds deny God
because they don't produce what God wants, and what does God want? Well, an individual growing in faith, and that faith expressed in loving deeds, that's what God wants,
First Timothy 1:5 to seven, and also Galatians 5:6. These men are producing the
opposite, loss or confusion in faith, as well as no good
deeds motivated by love. So on the contrary,
what's produced is debate, division, loss of faith, and
no good deeds whatsoever. Paul ends the teaching section concerning Titus' responsibility to raise up and appoint qualified men
who will lead the church, who will maintain sound teaching, and who will deal effectively with those sowing division
and discontentment and discouragement in the assembly with their false teaching
and unspiritual lifetime. Alright, so in the next
section, the Apostle is going to provide Titus with both
an example and a pattern of the sound teaching that
he wants this young preacher to maintain and to pass
on to the next generation. Alright, one more lesson to go
and we'll be finished Titus. Thank you very much for your attention.
