Titus 2

We closed with verse 9, which talks about a spiritual leader’s commitment to the Word of God, “...holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict.”

Now notice, one of the reasons a church leader must be a man of the Word is so that “by sound doctrine,” he might “exhort and convict those who contradict.”

So in the second half of chapter one, Paul is going to launch into a description of false teachers who “contradict” sound teaching...

1:10 “For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision,”

Insubordinate means, “uncooperative, with a defiant attitude towards duly-appointed authority.” False teachers are accountable to no one.

They are rebels at heart and refuse to recognize authority. The same Greek word is used to describe disobedient children.

You recall the OT story of when Korah, Dothan, and Abiram rose up against Moses and Aaron, challenging their authority. They rejected the leadership of Moses and the priesthood of Aaron.

These men, who were amongst the top leaders under Moses, gathered a following against Moses and Aaron, and in a very dramatic demonstration of God’s power, the earth opened up and swallowed them alive.

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“Idle talkers” means they talk nonsense. All of the cults talk nonsense.

If you truly investigate Mormon teaching, or Jehovah’s Witnesses, or Buddhists, Hindus, or New Agers, all of their claims are nonsense, and their doctrines are full of holes.

Yet people who embrace the nonsense are often very vocal about it and become disputers. Disputers argue that right is wrong, that truth is error, that light is darkness. Paul says they should be confronted by church leadership armed with sound doctrine.

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He further says that false teachers are “deceivers.”

The Greek word used here is found nowhere else in the NT and it means, “to deceive one’s mind.” In other words, they deceive themselves.

Peter says that these same false teachers “beguile unstable souls” (2 Pet. 2:14).

Paul the Apostle predicted that in the last days “...impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Tim. 3:13). The deceiver is also himself being deceived.

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Next, Paul singles out a particular group of false teachers...

“...especially those of the circumcision.”

These were the Judaizers, who taught that you must mix OT law with NT grace in order to be saved, circumcision being one of those laws.

The Judaizers were the most obstinate, difficult, and persistent of Paul’s enemies. They dogged his every step, subverted his converts, challenged his authority, undermined his teaching, and distorted the gospel.

Notice what he says about them...

1:11 “...whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain.”

Notice how Paul is anything but passive here. He tells Titus to fight the false teachers with truth. They must be silenced by sound doctrine.

If Paul were alive today and taught such things, he would immediately be met by people who would cry, “Don’t judge! Don’t be a hater! Be tolerant! Walk in love!” Which is the nonsense spawned by the hellish philosophy of Political Correctness.

Have you noticed PC is designed to silence ONLY conservative, Biblical speech. It is preached by the ungodly so that the ungodly can avoid being called out for their sin.

Paul contends that when speech is evil, ungodly, and is used to overthrow the true Christian faith, it should be answered and defeated by Biblical truth!

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Paul points out that the false teachers are “subverting whole households.”

Subvert means “to overthrow and destroy.” The favorite method of all cult systems like the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses is to invade the entire home and take it captive to false teaching.

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Now notice what the false teacher’s motive is, “Teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain.”

They were after their victim’s money. He calls it “dishonest gain,” because the way they get it is through falsehood.

Our nation is infested with “preachers” and “teachers” who profess to represent Christ but if you listen to them, all they EVER talk about is money!

And they empty the pocketbooks of their listeners by false promises of extravagant blessing for having “sown your financial seed” into their ministry.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t support some ministries, but what I am saying is, if all you hear them talk about is money, and how giving to them will bring you incredible, outlandish blessings, be careful.

True ministers of the gospel will talk about Jesus Christ and Him crucified, soul-winning, living a crucified life, dying to yourself, serving the Lord mingled with persecutions for doing so, producing the fruit of the Spirit, and growing in Christian character.

How do I know this? Because that’s all Paul, Peter, James, John, and Jude talked about in the NT epistles!

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Next, Paul focuses on some of the worst transgressors of these things—the Cretans...

1:12-13 “One of them, a prophet of their own, said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” 13 This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith,’”

The “Cretans” Paul mentions were Jews from Crete who had been in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost and had heard Peter preach (see Acts 2:11).

But as Jews raised in Judaism, they were particularly vulnerable to the Judaizers who taught that one must mix OT law with NT grace in order to be saved.

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Now, notice that Paul agrees with what others have said about the Cretans, they are “liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” Why would he agree with this harsh assessment?

We know from history that lying was chronic among the Cretans. Their propensity for lying even found its way into the Greek vocabulary where a person was said “to lie like a Cretan.”

And they were also called “evil beasts.” The word “beasts” means “wild beasts.” The word “evil” here means “depraved, bad by nature.” Thus, the Cretans were lawless in their behavior, incorrigible. They behaved like wild animals.

And they were also “lazy,” which means “idle.” They were unfruitful in anything worthwhile due to a life of slothful inactivity. They literally sat around doing nothing but eating (gluttons) and practicing sinful behavior.

—Notice how if something was true, Paul didn’t hesitate to say it. He was anything but muzzled by a Politically Correct belief system!

Yet in spite of this terrible assessment of the character of those occupying the island of Crete, churches had been successfully planted there and God was moving!

Thank God for the verse that says, “But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound“ (Ro. 5:20).

The God who had transformed so many of the Corinthians, and Ephesians, and Colossians, could also transform the Cretans!

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Paul’s solution to the problem was for Titus to,

1:13b “Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith,”

There are times when a soft word of correction won’t do...it takes a “sharp” rebuke to turn someone around who has begun to slide back into lying, lawlessness, laziness, or lust.

The word “sharply” meant “an abrupt, blunt rebuke that would cut and hurt.” In our day of Political Correctness where the tendency to walk on glass lest someone be offended is everywhere, it is found nowhere in the Bible.

Jesus often rebuked people sharply and bluntly. He called the Pharisees whitewashed tombs full of dead men’s bones, hypocrites, murderers, and proselyters who produced sons of hell. Jesus never hesitated to rebuke someone sharply if the situation required it.

We’ve become too soft in the modern church. We’ve equated “love” with being “nice.” A true Christian, some believe, is called to be “nice to everybody.”

Christian men should be “really nice guys.” And Christian women should be “syrupy sweet” and non-confrontational. But love is not always nice, as Jesus so clearly displayed!

I’m not saying we should be mean, but I am saying we should at times be very blunt and not hesitate to rebuke sharply when needed.

But it should also always be done in love with the recipient’s good in mind. In this case Paul reveals the motive behind the sharp rebuke..

“That they may be sound in the faith.”

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The rebuke should also serve to deliver them from made up stories.

1:14 “...not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth.”

The word for fable is “mu-thos” from which we get “myth.” It’s a made up story, like something out of Brother’s Grimm or a fairy tale.

The goal of Godly rebuke is to snap someone out of the trance of a lie, a made up tale not grounded in truth. The Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hinduism, Buddhism...are all built on these kinds of myths.

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Paul also mentions “the commandments of men,” which are rules and regulations laid on someone’s back that did not originate with God’s Word. The Jews were famous for this.

For instance, the Jewish rabbis discussed for endless hours what constituted work on the Sabbath (Ex.20:8-11). They made countless petty regulations that made the Sabbath a nightmare instead of a time of rest, reflection, and relaxation that God intended.

Next, Paul targets their morals...

1:15 “To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled.”

Now the first seven words here contain a great truth—”To the pure, all things are pure.”

The word “pure” refers to a person who is pure as the result of cleansing and personal wholesomeness. To be pure is to be free from impurity, spotless, or without blemish. This person has been freed from corrupt desire and guilt.

As a result of what has happened to them within, they are repelled by impurity from without. Their inner purity repels impurity. So they are not corrupted by the impurity of the world. Hence, to the pure, all things are pure!

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Conversely, “but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled” (1:15b).

Here the opposite holds true. Morally polluted men think everyone is like them. They believe everyone lusts like they do, thinks like they do, lies like they do, and are corrupted like they are.

Their eyes are filled with lust, their tongues are filthy, their ears seek out obscene talk, and their thoughts are depraved. The greatest example of this is found in God’s description of the world’s population before the Great Flood was poured out:

Gen. 6:5 “The Lord saw that the wickedness (depravity) of man was great on the earth, and that every imagination or intent of the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually.”

So the pre-flood generation never had a righteous thought! A wholesome, pure, godly thought never crossed their mind!

These false teachers in Crete were depraved both mentally and morally. “Even their mind and conscience is defiled.”

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Paul closes out chapter 1 with a final denunciation of these false teachers:

1:16 “They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.”

The word “deny” means “to contradict.” What false teachers say and do contradicts their profession of faith. If they really knew God, they would take the Bible seriously and seek to live it out.

This very practice of professing to be a Christian but living otherwise has given rise to a new term called “practical atheists.”

A practical atheist is the person who claims to know Christ, but their lifestyle reflects no real belief in the Bible or any real fear of God....they live as if there is no God to answer to.

The false teachers were abominable (objects of disgust), disobedient (obstinate rejecters of God’s Word), and disqualified (frauds).

Our final take on this second half of chapter 1 is that we can make no compromise with error and falsehood.