Titus

Transcript

We're going to talk about Titus tonight, and I'll admit this is a study that we did in Baltimore recently, so I'm just stealing the study that we did. We do chapter-by-chapter kind of studies as we go through Baltimore, and I was kind of on for Titus III when we did this originally, and so I thought it'd be kind of fun to look at the other two chapters and kind of look at the book as a whole and maybe pull out some lessons from it. And I think one of the things I really walked away from the study, we did it in Baltimore three weeks that we did it. The one thing I really took away from the study is that it feels like Paul is trying to address things that he's most concerned about kind of during the final days of his life. I don't know exactly when the book was written, but it's often believed that Paul wrote this book along with Timothy and Titus after the story of the Book of Acts ends. There's potential that maybe he was released from prison and was writing this while he was on kind of an additional missionary journey after the Book of Acts. But either way, it's pretty much believed that this is right towards the end of his life, maybe 62 to 65, somewhere around there. And so what I think we see in the book of Titus is that, you know, Paul talks about like some of the things that he really wanted to get across as he was kind of facing his own mortality. And so some of the things he talked about is the importance of setting an example for others to follow. Right. He's encouraging Titus and Timothy. We'll see there's a lot of overlap between the letter of Titus and the letters to Timothy. He's encouraging both of these young men or middle-aged men at this point to set an example for others to follow. He's addressing, you know, reproving people who are causing divisions. He'll stress how important or the importance of how our beliefs should influence the way we live our day-to-day lives. These aren't just intellectual things we believe, but he'll talk about the importance of this being shown in action. And ultimately, in Titus specifically, this is if, you know, if he wanted to summarize Titus in one or a couple of words, I really think he's really talking about good deeds. Like his focus in Titus, Paul's focus in Titus, is this idea of good deeds. You know, if you like Bible marking and you want to kind of go along with to go through the book, this is one of the ones that I mean, I think would be really good for the book of Titus. Just look at every time the word deeds or works comes up in the book and then just highlight whether it's a different color or something like that, just highlight whether it's like a worthless deed or a fruitful deed or a good deed. Because he talks a lot about these actions, these deeds that we do, that NASB calls them deeds. So that's what I'm going to be using. But he talks a lot about this, like this good work in

the book. So that's kind of where we're going tonight, is to look at that. I want to start, though, maybe with a question, and this is something I've been thinking about a lot. And, you know, this is kind of cool because I think Titus helped me come to a good conclusion for this question. But have you ever thought about the idea that God designed our faith in a way that he wants, like in a very specific way that it where it matters what we believe, right? So he designed our faith specifically in a way where what we believe matters. I mean, God could have just said, well, as long as you're a good person and you believe in something, you're going to be OK. Right. We have maybe some spiritual people we know who kind of have that concept, right? That, you know, it doesn't matter whether you worship Allah or God or Buddha, as long as you're generally a good person and believe in something, you're going to be OK. But that's not what we get in the Bible. God is very clear in the Bible that it matters to him, A, what we believe, but also B, how that belief influences our life. And it is kind of interesting, like, why did God do that? Like, why why did God want it to matter what we believe? And I think this is an important question because the downstream consequences that this creates, right, if it matters what we believe. Then we're going to care about that. It's going to be something we are passionate about, right, if it's important what we believe, it's something that we're going to want to want to make sure we get right. And that ultimately is going to end up with this idea of conflict, right, because if I believe something and I believe it's important and you believe something and it's different than what I believe, there's going to be some conflict there because because it matters what we believe and we want to we want to find what is true. Now, if you didn't matter what you believed, if you just, you know, could believe whatever you wanted, if you believe something different than I, then there'd be no conflict. There'd be no issue, right? Because who cares? It doesn't matter what you believe. You can believe what you want. I can believe what I want. But that that doesn't isn't really how scripture works. And that conflict, I think when you introduce human nature into it, often leads to division, right? So as a direct consequence and maybe not a direct consequence, but as a consequence of human nature being added to this equation of it mattering what we believe, we result in division. And I think it's interesting. The reason I think this is interesting is because this God's truth, I think, and what God wants from us sits right in between two maybe opposite ends of human nature. You know, on one side, there's a human nature aspect where just it's so appealing to just say nothing matters, to just say, yeah, who cares what you believe? Go do whatever you want. You know, it's a very lazy concept that is very appealing to us, I think, to just say, I can just live the life however I want. It doesn't matter. You know, that's one end of the extreme. But then there's this other end of the extreme that, you know, is self-righteous and proud. And, you know, I want to be right and prove everyone else wrong. And that often leads to division and conflict. And we see that God also hates that kind of spirit as well elsewhere in Scripture. And God's truth sits kind of right in between those two things. You know, both of those are human nature. I think both of those things are, you know, maybe different ends of, you know, who we can be. But they're both in conflict to this truth that God wants us to have. And so it's just kind of interesting to think that God's designed it in a way that we have to kind of swing back and forth. So I think of like a pendulum. And God's truth is right in the middle. And we swing back and forth just trying to course-correct and get back towards that middle point as much as we can. And so sometimes we skew too far one side, and the other time we skew too far the other side. And that's OK. And again, I think God maybe designed it specifically to make it so that we have to work to get back and forth. But, you know, we want to be careful not to just sit in one camp for the other. We want to be careful to try to recourse-correct, get back to that middle spot as much as we can. And so I think Titus helps address this a little bit. I think as we go through the book of Titus, we'll see that Paul talks about both these ideas and how God's truth, you know, sits between them. And I think it's worth just calling out. Like, division is not a new concept, right? This isn't, you know, Christodelfians are far from the first group to split over what we believe. It's happened almost immediately in the book of Acts, and it's been pretty much a constant in every Christian religion ever since, right? Because it matters what we believe. We know that. We understand that. We read the description. It's clear. But we often stray too far, then, in the other direction into letting that cause divisions among us. So Paul touches on this when he opens up Titus. Well, go ahead, if you have your Bible in front of you, if you want to pull it up on the screen, go to Titus 1. We'll be in Titus pretty much the entire class. I'm not really going to go out of Titus that much. So go ahead and listen to Titus, and let's just look at the first three verses here of Titus 1. Titus 1 verses 1 to 3 reads that Paul, a bond servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those who were chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth, which

which God, who cannot lie, promised long ago, but at the proper time manifested even his word in the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior. Paul starts by emphasizing this idea that he is a bond servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, and that he serves in both these roles because of the truth, or the knowledge of the truth that he has, which is in accordance with godliness. The basis for his action as an apostle and as a bond servant is because of this firm faith and this fundamental or foundational truth that he believes. I think Paul clearly believes in what we can call an objective truth, and I think something we'll hear in today's society, and this is not new, this is I think as old as mankind is as well, is the idea of no longer there being an objective truth. But I think if it matters what we believe, and the way God presents it mattering what we believe, God clearly wants us to understand that there's an objective truth, there's God's truth, the things that God understands, the things that God teaches, and if God cannot lie, and he's promised us this hope of eternal life as he talks about here in Titus 1 verse 2, then that's an objective truth, right? God cannot lie, that is something that has to be true, and it doesn't matter whether you perceive it to be true or I don't, that's just truth, and we're trying to come to an understanding of these truths and make sure we understand them. I think this is why the term truth is often used as a synonym for our beliefs in Macedonia is because we recognize that these are things that God's given, and they must be true. If God's given them and he cannot lie, then these are things that we can hold and kind of build our life on, and we can hold fast to these things as truth. And so he's talking about this idea that God cannot lie, and he's emphasizing this whole letter that it's important what we believe, that he's building his life on this, and so we see that this same kind of messaging will get picked up in other letters, and Titus is one of them, but I kind of hinted that first and second Timothy were probably written around the same time. Early tradition has it that Peter was also in Rome around the same time that Paul was in

get together if they were in the same city, and Timothy, or sorry, Peter's letters, first and second Peter, actually have a lot of similar parallels to Titus and Timothy as well, and if you know anything about the letters, you probably know that second Peter and Jude are almost identical, so Jude also picks up on some of these same ideas as well. So a lot of these letters that are written around this time address these same concerns. So the way I think this is important is maybe we'll look at some of these parallels towards the end of the class. I'm not going to highlight them here. We'll see if we have time maybe at the end of the class to pull them up, but the reason I want to call out the fact that there are these parallels between the other letters and the letter of Titus is that this isn't just things that Paul was concerned about at this time. It seems as if every church leader was concerned about this coming into AD 62 to 65 roughly. Peter's writing to the Hebrews, Jude's writing to those scattered abroad, Paul's writing to both Timothy and Ephesus and Titus on Crete. This is a message they want to make sure gets out to the Ecclesiastes around the world, very similar concepts of if it matters what you believe it and that should influence the way that you live your life. Another reason I think this is important is in the context of Titus specifically, Paul is talking about a specific group of people on the island of Crete. I think it can be easy sometimes to maybe look at that and say, well, the Cretians were dealing with those issues in their days. If this is something that Peter and Timothy and Jude were all concerned about as well, then that implies that this is something that's not unique to just that time period in that place, but these are universal lessons. By extension, these are things that I think it's pretty safe to say are principles that we should still look at today in our own lives. Here's Paul saying, I built my life on this foundational truth at

the start of Titus 1, and I think this is in direct contrast to, he's built this on the basis that God cannot lie, and that's in direct contrast, I think, to a lot of the other gods of that day and age back then. The Greek and Roman gods of that time period are known for

their deceptiveness, Zeus especially. It was known for tricking, you know, if you look at Greek mythology, there's full of stories of Zeus tricking humans one way or the other, and God saying like that, that's not who we believe in. We don't believe in a God who we can't trust, who's unreliable, who might try to pull some pranks on us. That's just not God. God is nothing like that. I think he's highlighting that these are very, that idea of a person who cannot lie is very contrary to the way that we are used to interacting with people. I think dishonesty is one of those things that just comes so naturally to us as human beings, whether intentionally or unintentionally. There are times where we can be dishonest with completely innocent intentions, but we just don't fully understand the truth, we don't fully understand the whole story, and so therefore we say something that's not right because we don't get the full picture, and God's not like that. God understands the full picture and can give us his full truth, and so we can rely on the things that he tells us, and it's just so out, you know, contrary to what we're used to dealing with in our day-to-day interactions. I think this is important again for us because there's a lot of parallels to our own world today. Think of the modern gods of today and just how deceptive their promises are, the same way that Zeus and Hades had these deceptive promises in Greek mythology. I mean, if I were to call what I would think of as the gods of today, it's the love of money, it's gambling, it's alcohol or substance abuse, it's lust, gluttony, fame, and pleasure. Those are all things that the world promotes heavily. These are characteristics it wants us to chase after, and those are the same characteristics that the gods way back in the time of the Book of Acts were being promoted as well. And they all make these grand promises of making your life better. Watch any TV, with any commercials, and you'll see how they just say, like, you know, if you just do this thing, if you just gamble, if you just, you know, give into substance abuse, oh man, it's great, your life's going to be amazing. But with only a little reflection and inspection, like this is a common theme in movies or books, we can see just how empty those promises are, right? Fame, there's like this full of stories of people who are famous and still not happy with life, or who, you know, who waste their entire life savings on gambling and chasing after the love of money. It's the same deceptive, empty promises that Zeus and Hades had, and God is just not like that. I mean, I kind of compare this to the idea of like, God's like the morning sun rising. He's consistent, constant, dependable. And in the same way that, we know the sun's going to rise every day, you know, it's going to set at a predictable time every night, we can base our life. I mean, we all base our life on the sun rising and setting. We all have kind of a sleep schedule and a work schedule and all these things that are based on the dependability of the sun coming up. And I think it's an important comparison, because what we'll see in Titus is, one of the main lessons Paul's really getting at is that if we believe these things to be true, they should influence the way you live your life. The same way that we schedule our life around the sun rising and the sun setting every day, if we believe that there's going to be a hope and we can hold that to be a firm, fast truth, like that confidence will influence the way we live our lives today. And if it's not, then we probably need to have a better understanding of what that firm confidence is in that truth. So, you know, we'll talk about this idea a lot. Our belief in these facts will be evidenced by the actions that we take. When we

are in Titus. And I think this is maybe one of the other easy exhortations we can take from the start of this letter to Titus. You know, we are also bondservants and apostles based on the knowledge of the truth that God cannot lie and that he's revealed in his word who he is manifested in Jesus Christ. And so Paul describes God as this being that cannot lie, which means that truth and honesty are like a key part of his character. That's just who he is. And this is why the Bible talks so much about his faithfulness or reliability. And if that's who God is, and it's revealed in Jesus that this truth matters, then truth should matter to us as well. And that's maybe the exhortation is that truth should matter to who we are. You know, what we, you know, well, the things we believe are true. And I think we often call them the truth in our community. When I say that truth should matter to us, I'm not just talking about the things we believe, but I think that all truth should matter to us. Being honest, forthright, clear, simple. Those should be important characteristics of who we are, because that's who our God is. He's honest with us. He's forthright. He's clear. He's simple. He's not overly complex. He gives us the, you know, understanding if we look for it. And so that's kind of the same attitude we should be looking to have in our own life, to take on that same character of just being honest and upfront with people. Now, I mean, this obviously does still include these things that we talk about being the truth, the things that we believe. Paul has a specific phrase that he uses in this letter and in the letters of Timothy. He specifically calls this sound doctrine. Right? So it comes up in Titus 2 verse 1. He says, but as for you, speak to things which are fitting for sound doctrine. Paul tells the Titus he should teach the things that are sound doctrine. And Titus 1 verse 9, he also says that these sound doctrines should be the basis on which we exhort and encourage one another. So when we look at Titus 1 verse 9, he says they need to have a sound doctrine so they can exhort and rebuke those or others. Right? So the elders should have this idea of a sound doctrine. And that sound doctrine is just the Greek word hygeneo. And it's where we get the word hygiene from. Right? So hygiene, healthy, you know, I think washing our hands, this idea of being healthy. And a good example of this is Luke 15, 27, which is a parable of the prodigal son where it says the father received his son back safe and sound. He was healthy. He was complete. He was whole. He wasn't kind of sickly or decrepit. He was safe and sound. But, you know, I think the Greek word has a bit more meaning to it than just this idea of healthy or cleanly. If you look at it, it has this idea of being whole or complete. I mean, I think actually the English word sound is a pretty good translation. Because if we were to talk about something having a sound foundation, it means it has a healthy whole complete foundation. If your house is built on a sound foundation, it means you don't have to worry about it because that's a strong sturdy foundation. And that's what he's getting at here. This is a complete healthy whole doctrine that we believe in. It's not partial. It's not kind of half-baked. It's full. But I think there's another part of this, right? Sound doctrine isn't just merely an academic knowledge. We talked about this idea that what we believe should influence how we live. It's a transformative truth that shapes our character and conduct. So Paul's concern wasn't that they have a theological position for its own sake, but he wants them to understand certain truths so that they produce godly living and can rebuke doctrine that is not sound. So throughout Titus, we'll see that sound doctrine and godly living are inseparable. This isn't legalism, but it's a natural fruit from a genuine faith. Having a belief without the actions or the deeds or the works behind it, that's only a partial understanding. That's not a sound faith. It's only partial. To have a sound faith, we have to have faith in works working together in unison. Our faith in

actions that we then take. We see this in Titus 2 for 7, where Paul encourages Titus to be an example of good deeds with soundness of doctrine. He kind of links those ideas together. You want to have a soundness to your doctrine? Well, that needs to be exemplified in the good deeds that you take or do. And this is something that's repeated in both Paul and Peter's message, in 1 Timothy 4 verse 6, Paul says that the sound doctrine is something that you should be following. In 2 Timothy 1 verse 13, he says retain

the standard of sound words which you have heard. And in 1 Peter 4 verse 7, Peter encourages his readers to be of sound judgment. You know, I think it's interesting looking at how the letters in the New Testament seem to over time when you start to line them up in a chronological order of when they were probably written. Because when we come to the end here, Peter and Paul start to focus a lot less on theological ideas, right? And like Romans and Corinthians, Paul's dealing with some very weighty matters, you know, kind of debating, you know, what is faith? What is redemption? What do these things look like? You know, very kind of theological concepts. And we come to the later letters in the New Testament. Peter, Timothy, Titus, they start to focus less on those things and more on just the sound doctrine and how it should impact the behavior of different types of believers. So they'll talk about, hey, these are the types of leaders that you should have in the Ecclesia. These are the types of people, you know, this group should be. You know, if you're a slave, you should act like this and so on and so forth. And then he really starts to focus on our actions and the response that our life should have to the beliefs that we hold. So what's interesting is that in a lot of these passages, similar to Titus 2 verse 1, Paul is encouraging Timothy and Titus to teach things that are according to sound doctrine, right? These aren't just things that we hold ourselves. These are things that we need to in others. In Titus 1 verse 13, Paul says that Titus should And he'll repeat this message, maybe a similar message over in Titus 2 verse 15, where he says, These things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one disregard you. Like, there's an importance here that Paul's saying. Like, this is stuff that, you know, we shouldn't be treating this lightly. This idea of these certain facts influencing how we live our life, these are crucial to who we are as believers, and we shouldn't let this be dismissed by anyone. And I think the reason for this is these things that we kind of touched on earlier are contrary to our natural human nature, right? In Titus 1 verse 12, Paul will say that, you know, there's this kind of funny thing where he's talking about the Cretians and he quotes one of their own poets. You know, he says one of them, a prophet of their own, said, Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluts. And then he goes on to say, yeah, this statement's true. Like, that's, yes, Paul got to get that stamp of a rule. And it's kind of a funny, funny section. But, you know, I think he's using this quote specifically because he says that they're always liars. That's what he starts with. And this is ingrained in the culture of the Cretians. And I don't think Paul chooses this by accident, right? In a letter where he's focusing so much on truth and sound doctrine, and specifically says that God cannot lie, he then goes and finds a poet who specifically says that, hey, in this culture, you guys always lie. And I think it's highlighting the difference between God's ways and ours ways. And this is something that we need to actively work against. Cretians are like this. They're liars. They're gluttons. But we shouldn't be like that. We should be working against that human nature to kind of come back to that middle of that pendulum that we talked about. Always kind of recourse correcting to come back to the middle. And that's why he's encouraging Titus and Timothy to teach these things, to reprove others, and to kind of not let people disregard them, because there's an importance to making sure we are actively working against our human nature. And, you know, I think while Paul is writing specifically about the Cretians, the reasons I think he chooses this quote specifically, because these are things that are simply just common to man, right? We all face these same challenges, regardless of where and when we live. I mean, if you read this verse, and that quote, as Americans are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons, I doubt many of us would even bat an eye, right? That kind of just describes human nature and who we, who eventually where I think all societies end up. So, because that's our natural tendency, and God's way is just so contrary to that, God cannot lie, and if we are always liars, and we're gluttonous, and things like that, you know, Paul wants Timothy and Titus to remind the believers that we need to work against this spirit. You know, and we're going to constantly swing back and forth, and our goal is to, you know, not skew one direction to the other, but to kick, you know, we'll switch at times in our lives over specific issues, maybe, or when it's convenient to us, but we are constantly working against that. So, we're just trying to come back to that example of truth that we see in Christ. I think Paul's whole purpose in writing this letter was to actively work against this spirit. You know, he'll see that he'll spend two parts of this letter calling out specific groups of people who are contrary to this. So, the first is in Titus 1 verses 10 to 6. You know, he's saying there are these people out there who are teaching that it doesn't matter what you believe. That your beliefs don't need to influence the way you live. And he's saying to Titus that you need to show these people that it doesn't matter. God wants you

to care about what you believe, but also to see those reflected in how you live. So, Paul says that these people in Titus 1 verse 10 are empty talkers. They're rebellious. They're deceivers. You know, while the followers of truth should be honest and clear and simple, these people often get lost in words. They deceive one other. They offer empty promises. I like the way Jude describes it because I think Jude's talking about the same group of people. Remember, there's a lot of parallels between these late letters. And I think Jude's describing the same group of people when he says that they are clouds without rain or like fall trees that look good but bear no fruit, right? These are people who do not produce good works. And they may look good on the outside. They may have all the right appearances. They may follow all the right rituals, the right steps. They may say the right things. But there's no producing of a good fruit in them. So, in Titus 1 verse 16, he's talking about people who have a partial doctrine. These aren't people with a sound doctrine because if they had a sound doctrine, it would be shown in the things that they did. And so, Paul goes as far as to say that these leaders, these people, need to be silenced because their teaching was upsetting whole families in Titus 1. He says that they're causing disruption among whole families. And when we pair that with what Paul says in Titus 2, the next chapter over, where he's kind of providing some encouragement of how different people should live their lives, I think Paul's directly contradicting what maybe these false prophets were teaching. And so, they're teaching that it doesn't matter how you live, right? We'll see that Paul says that you shouldn't be given too much wine, that you should be sensible, that you should be devoted to your husband and to your children. And so, if you contrast that to maybe, if we're saying maybe these people are preaching things that are contrary to that, that would be going out there and saying, even though you're baptized, as long as you kind of follow these basic rituals every week, you can live your life however you want. Just ask for forgiveness. Go, drink, eat, be merry. As long as you kind of follow the right rituals, you'll be just fine. It's like saying to someone, it's okay to go out and get drunk regularly. It's okay to sleep around before marriage or even after marriage. Maybe it's encouraging others to spend time gambling their money away, chasing after either wealth or fame. That's the kind of attitude that these people are promoting. It doesn't matter what you believe. Just go do what you want. God will forgive you. It's almost exactly what Paul talks about in Romans 6, that shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. It should be an obvious answer, but human nature says that we want to justify ourselves and let's just find ways to make it sound like, yeah, no, God's got us. I can do whatever I want right now. They're taking that grace and forgiveness of God and they're using it as a law of liberty to indulge their own desires. Paul's warning against this kind of behavior. When we come to Titus 2, we'll see that Paul instead focuses on the kinds of attitudes and behaviors that a good believer should have in contrast to those ideas. These kinds of people come up again all over Paul's letters to Timothy as well. You see in 1 Timothy 1 verse 10, 1 Timothy 6 verse 3, and 2 Timothy 4 verse 3 specifically. These are people who do not agree with sound words. They do not endure sound doctrine. They have itching ears. They teach things that are contrary to sound teaching. I like what Paul says about them in Titus 1 verse 16. He says that they profess to know God. They have the right beliefs. They say they have the right beliefs, but by their deeds they deny him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed. There's that word deed a bunch again. If you're highlighting, you'll see it a bunch there in verse 16 of chapter 1. He's saying these are people who they say they've got the right things, but their actions just don't show it. There's a couple other things that we'll see come up over and over again. One of them is this idea of being sensible. I talked about the sound truth, God being honest. It's connected to this idea of it being simple, the things that we believe. Maybe another word for that instead of simple is just sensible. These are things that make sense. Paul's going to go on to say the things that he's encouraging people to

do, the good deeds that he's asking them to do, they just make sense. They're sensible things. We don't have to get too complex or caught up in this. I'm going to keep saying first Titus. In Titus 1 verse 5, Paul says that he left Titus and Crete so that he could set things in order and organize the structure of the Ecclesia on the island. He specifically calls out that he left them there to appoint elders and leaders in every city. This is specifically, I think, in contrast to these wicked leaders that we see in Titus 1 verse 10. In Titus 1 verses 6 to 9, he talks about these elders who should be leaders in the Ecclesia. He says that these people should be above reproach and have children who believe they should not be accused of dispensation. They should not be self-willed or quick-tempered or addicted to wine. I hope we can start seeing some contrast here between these leaders and those we talked about in verse 10. The leaders in Titus 1 verse 11 were seeking after sordid gain, but in Titus 1 verse 7, he specifically says that these are people who are not fond of sordid gain. They're not people who are looking to make money in an men. But in Titus 1 verse 7, he says that the leaders should not be, the NASB says pugnacious, which just means they shouldn't be violent or contentious. I think one translation says they shouldn't strike. Another translation I saw talked about, they shouldn't be bullies. These are not people who are out here trying to bully or push around other people. Paul says that the leaders should not be rebellious, but the people from Titus 1 verse 10, he says, are rebellious. So we see this contrast that he's drawing out here, right? There's, again, God's way versus the way man often goes, and we need to be actively working against that spirit. In Titus 1 verse 9, Paul specifically says that these elders must hold 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. That goes back to this idea of teaching based on the sound doctrine again. And one of the things that we see about sound doctrine that we haven't really touched on yet is that the sound doctrine is something that should be founded on the teaching of the apostles and those who went before. The leaders that God wanted his people to be were people who were founded on this sound doctrine. They looked at the example of those who went before them and modeled their own life on that good behavior. But one thing we see that Paul emphasizes in Titus is that these leaders should not be rulers who are there to dictate what's right or wrong. We can kind of maybe think of modern church leaders that they kind of tell you, this is right, do this, this is wrong, don't do this. These elders are less of that kind of authority, and they're more shepherds who are helping to bring the flock back in when they start to stray. When that pendulum starts to swing too far one direction or the other, these leaders were meant to, by their example, bring kind of the fold back together. And they primarily do this by the example that they lay down in the deeds that they perform. So then Paul continues, that's Titus 1, and Paul then continues after kind of laying this contrast between faithful leaders and unfaithful leaders who need to be silenced by going into Titus 2 through a list of people or categories of people and giving some characteristics that he thinks they should have. And it can seem a little random, you know, why does Paul pick this grouping of people or that grouping of people? He does it often, honestly, through these letters, right? Titus, we see this over and over, sorry, Timothy, the letters to Timothy, we see this over and over again where he calls out specific groups of people and says, hey, you should have this kind of characteristic, this is who you should be. And Titus 2, I think, you know, that's where we get our idea of teaching the things that are sound doctrine in Titus 2 verse 1. That's what Titus 2 is all about. When we look at Titus 2, 1 to 10, it's all about calling out specific characteristics that should be produced in us when we have this sound doctrine. And I'm not going to spend too much time looking over what he says specifically there. There are two things I want to highlight in Titus 2 verses 1 to 10. The first is that right after talking about the responsibility of these elders or leaders in Titus 1, he then kind of goes into saying, hey, every single one of you have something that you should be working on. You have a role to play. You know, having a sound faith influences not just the way that our elders in Ecclesia should live, every single type of person in Ecclesia should have this sound faith that transforms their lives. The second thing I want to call out is that Paul isn't just listing qualities that are good for us to have. He's asking us to behave in these ways so that we can be an example to others. He specifically says that he wants older women to teach and encourage younger women, and that the younger men should be an example of good deeds for others. It's not just like, hey, this is good for you to practice. It's also, hey, be an influence on people around you. By doing this, you will make others better as well. You know, responsibility for being founded on the sound doctrine so that we can help encourage and correct others, it's not, again, not unique to just the elders or leaders in Ecclesia. It's something we all have a responsibility for. And while Paul goes through and highlights different qualities for each of these groups of people, he bases those qualities that he's asking to have on the one spirit of Jesus Christ. And I think the NASB does a good job of highlighting this for us. We talk about this idea of the truth being sensible. In Titus 1 verse 8, Paul says that elders should be sensible. In Titus 2 verse 2, he says that the older men should be sensible. In Titus 2 verse 5, he says that older women should teach younger women to be sensible. And in Titus 2 verse 6, he says that young men should be sensible in all things. Now, while the application may look different, I think the whole point is this is the same spirit that all these characteristics, all these people or groups of people were meant to have. And the application might be different based on the circumstances that we find ourselves in. But it's important to remember that when we come to a passage like this that talks about roles or different types of people in scripture in these letters, it's not like it's just about that group of people. These are our spirits or an attitude that we should all have in us. We're all called to live the same spirit of Christ. So when Paul says that young women should love their children, that doesn't mean that the young men are off the hook, right? He doesn't say like, oh, you can just go do whatever you want with your children. No, he's saying like, that's just, you know, the issue that the Christians were dealing with specifically was women not caring about their children and saying, reminding them that this is the spirit of Christ that you should have the same way that an older mother should still have that same spirit or a young father should have that same spirit. Yeah, so it doesn't mean that we can just ignore passages that just don't do or that deal with groups that we don't find ourselves in. These are all the same spirit that we should be working on in our own lives. So we've talked a lot about this idea of our beliefs influencing our deeds, but I want to do now is look at some examples of that. There's two examples of this, I think, in Titus where we can kind of see Paul doing this. The first is in Titus 2 verse 11, and both of these kind of stand out because they're formatted a little differently than the rest of the letter. They kind of, if you're reading through the letter, they kind of stick out a little different. I think Paul is saying, here's a firm foundation, here's a sound doctrine that you can believe, and here's how it should influence your life. So the first is in Titus 2 verse 11. He describes one of those sound truths. He says that the grace of God has appeared and has brought salvation to all men. This is something that was evidenced in the love of Jesus on the cross and that Jesus taught to his disciples. So in Titus 2 verse 13, Paul then says that we are looking for the hope and the appearing of the glory of Jesus Christ, who gave himself to redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify us as a people for his possession. If we believe those truths, those are things that we believe, that the grace of God has appeared to all men in the sacrifice of Jesus and that he has redeemed and purified us, that should produce an action in us. And that action, I think, is what Paul talks about in Titus 2 verse 12. Paul says that the belief in these things instructs us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly. And there's that word again, to live sensibly in the present age. You know, if Jesus has given us grace and already redeemed us and purified us, why would we return to that state of sin again? If we truly believe these things and understand them in our daily life, that should lead us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires that we've already left behind. That should just be a part of who we are. If we really understand what that is talking about, it'll influence the way that we live our life. You know, if we've been purified by the grace that we have received, that grace then should motivate us to be a people who are zealous for good deeds, as he says in Titus 2 verse 14. We are people who are zealous for good deeds, not worthless ones like the people in Titus 1 verse 10 or verse 16 rather. We're not zealous for worthless deeds, we are zealous for good deeds. If we believe and understand God's grace, it should provoke in us a desire to share that same grace with others. And if we don't feel that motivation, we probably have lost an appreciation for God's grace in our life. We probably have lost an understanding of that sound doctrine and should spend a little bit more time reflecting on that grace again until it starts to impact how we live our daily life. It's this idea of not letting our hearts grow hardened or fallow. One of the prophets talks about breaking up with the fallow ground of our hearts and it's this idea of don't become callous to these things. Whenever we start to see that it's no longer bearing fruit in our lives, we should go back to these fundamental truths and just recognize, wow, the amazing grace that God has given me in my life and how that should influence, start to think about how that should change the way that we interact with others. The other example, this is in Titus 3, and I think Paul does a similar thing. He reminds them of a sound truth in Titus 3 verse 3. He says, we've all had the same nature. Before we took on the name of Jesus, we were all foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our lives in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But he goes on to say that God doesn't leave us in that state. He continues in Titus 3 verses 4 to 7, saying that the kindness of our God and Savior and his love for mankind appeared in the work of Jesus Christ. So that God saved us not on the basis of the deeds which we did, but according to his mercy by washing and regeneration and the renewing of the spirit. And because we're justified by grace, we have now been made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. What I want to highlight is that what Paul says in Titus 3 verse 8, though, it says that that statement that he just made in Titus 3, 4 to 7, he says that's a faithful or a trustworthy statement. It's something you can put your trust in. And the Greek word is different there. It's not the same idea of sound doctrine, but the idea, I think, is the same, right? A sound statement is something you can rely on. Having a whole or complete foundation means that you are comfortable building your house on that foundation. And so he says, this is a trustworthy statement. You can put your trust and your faith in this statement. We can build our lives around this idea. And so Paul encourages Titus to preach this continually, or confidently, sorry. He says, you know, these are things that you should be going out and preaching confidently in Titus 3 verse 8. There should be no doubt in our minds that we are saved by grace and not by our own righteous works. We were all unfaithful at one point and in need of redemption. So our works mean nothing at this point because we are all deserving of death. And this is where that pendulum starts to swing the other direction. You know, up until this point, you've been talking a lot about it matters what you believe that should influence where you live. And now he's starting to swing the other direction saying, but don't take that too far. Don't start to think that what you're doing is earning your salvation. Don't start to think that you can get all high and mighty and proud over everyone else. Remember that you were in that same state as well. And now, you know, he's bringing you back the other direction, reminding them the good belief or good deeds and correct them salvation. You know, just because it matters what we believe in how we live doesn't mean that we can rely on those things to look down on others. Paul warns Titus in Titus 3 verse 9 to 11 to avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the law because they're unprofitable and fruitless. He talks about rejecting a fractious man after the first second warning. We have to be careful not to let that swing so far that we start to cause contention and division in the Ecclesia over things that, you know, while they matter what we believe, they shouldn't be a source of division. And that word reject in Titus 3 verse 10, we're not going to look at it now for the sake of time. It's worth looking at though if you have a chance. I'll give you some homework for this week if you want. There's this word reject in Titus 3 verse 10, you know, rejecting your fractious man. And if you look at the concordance, it's kind of unclear what he's saying. I don't think reject honestly is the best English translation. But like I said, I'll leave that for you to go look at if you want. I think maybe he's getting at a different spirit there though. What I want to focus on is what Paul calls out in the second part of Titus 3 verse 8. He says he wants Titus to remind people of this fact so that they will be careful to engage in good deeds. You know, our belief in understanding that good deeds don't earn a salvation should be a motivation to go out and do good deeds. Like when we understand that, hey, we can't earn salvation, it's been a gift given to us, we should want to share that gift with as many people as we can. And that then produces these good deeds for us. You know, Paul says in Titus 3 verse 8 that these good deeds are things that are good and profitable for mankind. Caring for mankind, it's not just like nice sounding altruistic idea, it's actually based on the character of God. In Titus 3 verse 2, Paul encourages his readers to show consideration for all men. And this action is founded on the firm foundation of knowing the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, which Paul says in Titus 2 verse 11. So in Titus 3 verse 8, when Paul tells us to engage, to be careful to engage in good deeds that are good and profitable all mankind, it's because as Titus 3 verse 4 says, jumping around here a little bit, Titus 3 verse 4 says that God loved mankind, God's love for mankind has already appeared. And I think it's really cool to look at that word in Titus 3 verse 4, because when he talks about his love for mankind, the word there, love for mankind, is philanthropy. It's the Greek word where we get the word philanthropy for. We should be careful to engage in good deeds that are profitable for mankind, because our God demonstrates that same character to us. So, and the reason we're looking to take on that same spirit in our daily lives is so that we can be, you know, the good works that we do as a result of sound doctrine will be a testimony to the power of God in our lives to others around us. If we had to summarize maybe the purpose of this book, I think, in one verse, the one I would go to, and I think this is Paul kind of closing off saying, hey, this is why I'm writing to you. This is what I want you to remember. It's Titus 3 verse 14. You know, this is kind of his little epitaph that he kind of, you know, PS that he adds in there. He says, our people must also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs so that they will not be unfruitful.

That this good works that we're trying to do, these good deeds that we're trying to produce are things that meet pressing needs. They're won't leave us unfruitful if we follow after them. They're based on the character of our God who we know has given us, we have kind of firm foundation on this, you know, the sound doctrine that he has grace has already saved us, and there's nothing we can do to earn it. And so, therefore, we shouldn't expect others to earn the good deeds that we do to them. If they were looking at that same character of God, God showed his love to us before we even knew him. That's the same spirit he's calling us to have with the world around us.

There's one other theme throughout this book that I haven't really touched on that I just want to touch on quickly in closing, and that's our relationship with kind of the greater world, specifically with like authorities and governments. And Titus 3 verse 1 is where we really get this highlighted, right? Titus reminds, or Paul, sorry, reminds Titus to encourage the Cretians that they subject to rulers and authorities, that they should be obedient. And he says specifically, so that they can be ready for every good deed. He goes further saying specifically that they were to malign no one in Titus 3 verse 2. And don't talk bad about the rulers. Don't talk bad about your neighbor. Malign no one. Be peaceable. Show consideration, not just for the authorities, but for all mankind. And I think there's, you know, times when we can look at the world around us and see just disgusting wickedness, and it can make us want to disassociate, to pull back, to withdraw, maybe even to push back against it some. And this can manifest in a couple different ways, but, you know, I think maybe one of the easiest to see is when it kind of just encourages us to stop interacting with those around us who think differently than us. You know, we just think, ah, they're so wrong. I don't want to even deal with it. I don't think that's the spirit that Paul's getting at in Titus. His whole goal, I think, in writing this letter, I've said that a couple times, but, you know, this is all part of this big picture. He's encouraging his readers to remember to engage in good work so that they can be profitable and good for all men, to show consideration to all men, because it's meant to remind the believers that they can't just let that pendulum swing too far to one side. And knowing what we believe matters is important, but it can be all too easy to let that stray into this haughtiness of seclusion where we just, you know, we don't want to deal with the world at all, because we're just so much better than they are, and they're just so wrong, and I don't want to become corrupted by the way that they act. You know, maybe that kind of seems even further than that, and those feelings have to become even more extreme, and we start to, you know, associate our beliefs with acting out against other people. We start maybe criticizing other groups of people for how ridiculous and stupid they are, and, you know, ah, man, they're just idiots, and I don't want to even deal with it, and that division becomes even greater, because we're just letting that pendulum swing too far the other direction. Remember in chapter one, the wicked, rebellious rulers were rebellious. They rebelled against government authorities. They wanted to overthrow everyone and do things their own way, but the elders who Paul wanted Titus to set up, these are people who couldn't be accused of rebellion. There was no reproach that could be thrown against them. They were reproached. I think this is connection, and I'm still fleshing this one out a little bit, so I'm just going to leave it here and kind of the end of the class and let you ruminate on it, but I think there's this connection to what Paul's talking about here in Titus with the idea that our good works, the good deeds that we do, should help illustrate the transformative power of the gospel in the public eye. Like, the public around us should see the

God has worked in our lives, and that should be one of the greatest forms of preaching that we can show to them. Christians should be these ideal citizens. We're not meant to be outcasts, we are strangers and pilgrims, but we're not meant to be these people who are off on the fringes that are out of the public eye, but rather we should be examples of the love of Christ to those around us. So in summary, maybe just to kind of wrap this all together, we want to recognize that the truth in what we believe matters. You know, having a firm sound faith influences our actions, but we have to be careful not to let the importance of our beliefs get in the way of that redemptive work that Christ has to do through us to others. And so we should let our good works be seen by others so they can come to an understanding of that grace as well.