Book of Titus - Ch. 1, v. 10

Okay, that's fine, but we can get started then. I'm not super worried about time because I ran out of printer ink this morning, so I wasn't able to print my full lesson. So y 'all can keep talking for a while.

I'm just kidding. No, I have the sneaking suspicion it won't be an issue. If y 'all want to turn to Titus, we will begin our next session, not session, section of our study. And Titus, we're still in chapter one.

Of course, after introducing the book, we started breaking our study into different sections, beginning with section one, which was the first four verses kind of covering Paul's mission, his ministry throughout his life from the time that he was called all the way through the time of writing 2 Timothy, his final epistle.

And then of course, being executed for his faith. So the first section of our study was talking about Paul's ministry, but then of course that moved right into section two, which was the leadership in family qualifications for elders, of course, we spent a good amount of time on that.

The Elders' Battle Over False Teachers in Titus 1:10-11

And so today we are now moving into section three, which I'm gonna call the elders battle, the elders battle. So turn to Titus chapter one, let's start in verse 10, and it'll pick up right where we left off last week, concluding section two, verse nine.

Let's see here, it says in verse 10, for there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, especially they of the circumcision whose mouths must be stopped. They subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre's sake.

One of themselves, even a prophet of their own said the Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true. Wherefore, rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men that turn from the truth.

Under the pure, all things are pure, but under them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure. But even their mind and conscience is defiled. They profess that they know God, but in works they deny him, being abominable and disobedient, and to every good and unto every good work, reprobate.

So there's our next kind of section of verses there, beginning in verse 10. Today we'll hone in mainly on the first couple of verses, 10 and 11, but eventually we'll make our way through the whole thing.

Now, as we have established well up to this point, the immediate context of this final section of Titus chapter one is the character qualifications of elder candidates. Now, let's keep the immediate context in mind for a second.

Obviously, we broadened the scope a little bit. We talked about a number of situations from those preparing to be ordained to those that are already ordained to those that are veteran ministers. But just to bring things back into the immediate context again, we are talking about elder candidates specifically and preparing them, making sure Titus gets the right guys and making sure they're prepared for the job.

And so again, the immediate context is the character qualifications of elder candidates. Now, in this final section of the chapter, we learn why these qualifications are so important. Why was Paul so intentional with the character qualities these guys had to have by mandate, as well as some particular skillsets that they have to have by mandate?

Why was Paul so serious about these things? Well, beginning in verse 10, we start to learn why. Now, one last reminder. If you look up just at verse nine, you'll remember that elders are to be holding fast the faithful word.

That's one of their qualifications. That's something that elders of the church, pastors, have to be constantly thinking about, and of course, doing. They have to be meditating on the word, but they have to be holding fast to it as well.

They are, by doing so, to be able to exhort in sound doctrine. So they're supposed to be able to get up, exhort their people, exhort in sound doctrine, keep them on the straight and narrow. But on the other side of that, they're supposed to also be able to refute those that contradict God's word.

So by holding fast the faithful word, they are able to do both of those things, exhort their people, refute the gainsayers, as the KJV puts it. And then you get to verse 10. And again, we start to find out the reason why all of this is necessary.

It's a necessity.

It's not optional.

None of the qualifications of the pastoral ministry.

Are optional.

They're all necessary, and we find out why. It's because the church is overflowing with people whose mouths must be stopped, as Paul puts it in verse 11. Dad, will you turn the mics down just a hair? I'm hearing a lot of ringing.

Now, interestingly enough, a significant part of spiritual leadership, those that are in a position of spiritual leadership, pastors, elders, bishops, a significant part of that job is the ability to silence people who should not be speaking.

Now, this implies a few things, of course. Number one, it implies that elders should be incredibly careful with who they allow in their church, certainly who they allow to speak in their church. In other words, the people that they bring in to talk to their people, people they bring in to fill their pulpit, people they bring in to teach, to lecture, to maybe conference with, you name it.

So elders have to be particularly careful about that, who they bring in to teach their people. That doesn't necessarily mean that they have to have people that believe 100 like they do on every single secondary doctrine you can come up with.

But certainly, they would need commonality in what you might call the fundamentals of the faith, the first, not secondary doctrines, but primary doctrines and things like that, the most important aspects of the faith.

So number one, they need to be very careful about the types of people they bring in to teach their congregation, their people. But secondly, it implies that elders should know the difference between foolish contentions, foolish debate, quarrelsome debates, which is something that we're gonna talk about when we get to our study in 1 Timothy.

They need to know the difference between foolish contentions and then what Paul is talking about here in this passage in Titus, where he's saying these guys, their mouths need to be stopped. You need to be able to refute what's coming from them.

So what's the difference here? How can Paul, in one case, say we need to avoid these quarrelsome debates, we need to avoid these foolish contentions, and yet we need to be able to debate effectively? Well, obviously, there's a distinction that needs to be made, and Paul assumes the distinction.

I think just given the context, you can figure out the difference. A foolish contention, a foolish debate, may be a pastor using up all of his time during the week when he could be shepherding his people online, debating people over secondary doctrinal issues all week long.

That would be, perhaps, a quarrelsome debate. That would be, perhaps, a foolish contention. Not to say that there isn't a time and a place, but my point being is if he's using up all of his time doing that, it doesn't even have to be online.

It could be going out and talking to people, too. It's not using your time effectively. And yet, on the flip side of that, if you are out there, and perhaps some of your people are around, and you have a false teacher come up and start sharing false doctrines, and you're there and you're aware of it, and your people are hearing it, and maybe they're confused by it, they're absorbing it, but they don't really know what to do about it.

They know it's different. They know it doesn't sound quite right, but they don't know why. In a context like that, the pastor has to be able to, as Paul puts it in verse 10, or excuse me, verse 11, their mouths must be stopped.

You have to be able to refute in a context like that. So Paul isn't contradicting himself. He's giving us two different contexts. One is a waste of time, and one is absolutely necessary. In one case, debate would be not effectively using your time.

In another case, debate would be absolutely necessary. So elders, when they read this passage, they need to understand that. So number one, they need to be careful with who they let speak in their church.

Number two, they need to know the difference between foolish contentions and what Paul has in view here. And thirdly, elders should know the distinction in a couple of exhortations we get from Solomon.

I want you guys to hold your place in Titus because we'll be right back. But flip over to Proverbs 26 for a second because I want you all to see these verses with me. Proverbs chapter 26. And Solomon has some wisdom in this same topic.

At what point do you do this? At what point do you do that? When do you approach debate? When do you leave it alone? If you're approaching the foolishness of men, what approach do you take? If you look at Proverbs chapter 26, let's start in verse four.

We'll just read a couple of verses. Solomon says first, "'Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou be like unto him.'". But then look at verse five. "'Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.'".

Now what Solomon just did there, as is the case with so many of the inspired writers, the Holy Spirit has a very special way of being very succinct in his argumentation. He is very concise with the knowledge he's delivering to us.

What Solomon just said in a couple of brief sentences could take a debate teacher volumes to delineate and pass on to his students and showing them all of the context in which this is appropriate or that's appropriate.

And then Solomon's just like, no, here it is. So number one, when people, just a quick summary of one of the themes of the Proverbs, when people don't fear the Lord, they're fools. So if you were to summarize a big portion of what Solomon is talking about in the wisdom literature, when people don't fear God, when they don't fear the Lord, they are fools.

That's the biblical definition for foolishness is not fearing the Lord. Of course, the opposite, the inverse of that is the beginning of wisdom. The beginning of knowledge is fear of the Lord. So Solomon reminds us of that often, all right?

So that's just a running theme throughout Proverbs. And then you get to this passage and he's talking about addressing the fools. He's first, he says, answer not the fool according to his folly. Then he says, answer the fool according to his folly.

And he gives a couple of things that happen depending on what approach you take. And what he's doing is he's giving us two different approaches, but more importantly than that, they are two different approaches for two different circumstances.

And that's the important thing to remember. In verse four, Solomon is telling us that we don't need to stoop to the level of the fool's argumentation. We don't need to adopt the argumentation that the fool is using.

And essentially, willingly set aside all of our own convictions, leave all that on the table in order to start arguing based on maybe their philosophical framework, their reason, man's reason, in other words, rather than from the word.

When we do that, when we fall into the trap of, look, you need to set the Bible aside so that we can argue from reason. And of course, apologists fall into this all the time, that there's a branch of apologetics known as evidentialism, which is essentially what they do is they take their Bibles, they close them, and they set them aside.

And then they argue apologetically for the existence of God based on the observable universe and things like that. I will say this really quick. It's a quick qualifier. There's a time and a place. I mean, God gave us evidence to be used.

And it's a grace that he did that. One of the things that Luke starts with in the book of Acts as he begins his sweeping apologetic work in that book is by saying that the resurrection happened, and the resurrection was seen by a large number of witnesses and displayed by a number of infallible proofs.

So God gave us evidence. He gave us proofs. And so I'm not saying that that shouldn't be used, but a grave mistake that many Bible believers will do is that they feel the need to set the word of God aside because they'll say, well, the person I'm talking to doesn't believe in the word anyway.

But what they don't think about is that the person they're arguing with has a starting place too. Everybody has their starting, what you might call presuppositions. Dad talks about logic a lot with regard to, you can have a perfect, you can have a perfect logical conclusion based on a fine set of logical arguments.

But if the premise is wrong, then it doesn't matter how good the logic is to get to the conclusion. A logical conclusion is only as good as its starting presuppositions or its starting premise. And so the person you're arguing with are going to have their starting presuppositions too.

It may go all the way back to the Big Bang or something like that. It may go back to the singularity that they can't explain why it exists or how. Our starting presupposition is essentially John 1 .1.

In the beginning was the word. So that is our philosophical framework. That is our starting point. There's maybe something else. But the trap is that because of just the way the world works and the way, the sneaky way that the devil has worked through the skeptics throughout time is that we have come to believe that we need to be on a neutral playing field in order to argue for this, that, or the other.

The problem is there's no such thing as neutrality. Nobody's neutral. The skeptic you're arguing with is not neutral. They believe in what they believe because of their starting presuppositions and they're not neutral about their starting presuppositions but they want you to be.

So one thing to remember, one great thing that I learned from a wonderful theologian apologist that is no longer with us, he was actually one of the heroes of Francis Schaeffer who some of you guys may be more familiar with, another guy that we look up to greatly.

But one of his heroes, his name was Greg Bonson. And one thing that he would often say is that when it comes to talking with skeptics, when it comes to talking against, excuse me, when it comes to talking to enemies of the word, people against the word, is that they are not neutral so you shouldn't be.

And his point is don't be afraid to let the word be your drive train for all of your arguments. So this is what Solomon is saying in Proverbs 26 four. He's saying, answer not the fool according to his folly.

Don't give up your convictions. Don't set aside the word of God. Don't set aside the foundational truths whether or not they, just because they may or may not believe it. Because when you do that, you set all that aside and then you stoop down to their level of man's reasoning or philosophical arguments.

All of a sudden, what happens? Lest they'll also be likened to him. It's an easy way to step into a trap and become a fool yourself. And so don't do that. Answer not a fool according to his folly if the way you're gonna do it is by leaving aside all of the foundational truths that we get from God's word and trying to argue using human reason alone.

So that's one side. That's one side of how to approach skeptics, false teachers, et cetera, et cetera, is to answer them not according to their folly. But then he gives us a totally different set of circumstances in verse five.

He gives us a different set of circumstances and a different approach to handling those circumstances. In verse five, he says, answer a fool according to his folly lest he be wise in his own conceit. Now, this one's interesting because what Solomon is hitting on is essentially the fact that if you don't abandon the foundational truths, God's word, if you don't abandon your convictions that are based upon God's word, you can actually catch them up in their own contradictions.

You can actually point out to them that what they're arguing for actually isn't consistent. In other words, you can have a materialistic atheist start talking about the evils in the world and then blaming God for it.

And yet he's a materialistic atheist that doesn't believe that there's any purpose in the universe and therefore there's no real way to define what evil is. There's no foundation for morality. Often people attack the things in the Old Testament, the odd passages like the attack of the Amorites.

Well, how could a good God command for Joshua to go in and kill the Amorites? Well, what's wrong with that in your worldview? The universe doesn't care about the Amorites, so why should you? And so there's contradictions and you can point these contradictions out.

By what?

Answering the fool according to his folly. Okay, let's take your worldview for a second. Let's take your set of argumentation. Let's see where that gets us.

See the difference?

You're not setting aside God's word and then trying to argue based on man's reason. That's what Solomon says don't do. What you're doing is you're taking the arguments they're giving you, you're holding them up against scripture and you're realizing, whoa, you're contradicting yourself left and right.

So in verse five, we're seeing what Paul is talking about in Titus 1 .11. When he says that their mouths must be stopped and that you must refute what they're saying, this is more in line with what Solomon is talking about in verse five of Proverbs 26.

You have to answer them and answer them according to their folly in some cases, lest they be wise in their own conceit. When false teachers walk into your community, your church, the community that you are ministering within and they begin subverting households in your area, which is what Paul says they do, and those households are, by the way, where many of your people may live, then it's time to answer the fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own ego trip where he thinks that his philosophical arguments are where it's at and that he's going to gain from using them.

There's an interesting, just a quick thought. You don't have to go there, I'll read it really quick. In 2 Timothy 2, verse 23, it says, but foolish and unlearned questions avoid knowing that they do gender strives.

And the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient. And then he starts talking about the context where you are needing to work with people. Maybe they're contradicting themselves.

What would he do about that? He says, in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves, if God by chance will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil who are taken captive by him at his will.

That's the condition of these people that we may have to argue with at some point. But if we're meek about it and we approach it, again, using the wisdom of God's word, rather than what we think is our own inherent wisdom, reason, whatever it may be, then you can approach it meekly, point out where they're contradicting themselves, and there may be a chance.

It's not a guarantee. That's what Paul just said. There may be a chance that God, not you, not your arguments, but God will give them repentance to the acknowledgement of the truth. So isn't that interesting how all that ties together?

All of this, all of the character traits that we just finished talking about from verses six through nine in the study of Titus, all of it is necessary because of the type of people that Titus and these new elders on the island of Crete,.

Would be up against.

So with all that being said, let's go back to Titus, take a look at verse 10. We'll start covering these last verses of this chapter one at a time. It says in verse 10, "'For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, "'especially they of the circumcision.'".

Now, for a moment, I want you guys to, while all of the qualifications we just finished studying are fresh on our minds, I want you guys to consider some contrasts between Christians, that would be all of us, I know the qualifications are in the context of elders, but just think about Christianity in general for a second, believers in the word, believers in the Lord Jesus.

I want you to consider a contrast between them in general and these types of people that we're about to start talking about, starting in verse 10, but really throughout. Think about what's being said here in verse 10.

They're unruly, they're empty talkers, they're deceivers, they're liars. One of the greatest attributes of the Christian faith is self-discipline, self-control. Being able to control your impulses, your desires, even your thoughts, as Paul tells us to do, it's all needed for holy living, becoming more set apart, becoming more sanctified, being closer and closer to the Lord Jesus as we live our lives.

Being able to control ourselves is one of the starting points of that. And all of those things, whether it's controlling your thoughts, your emotions, your impulses, your desires, your thoughts, I think I already said that, all of that flows from self-discipline, self-control.

Let's go ahead and look at one more passage together, just because we're talking about contrast a little bit. Turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter five. And it's one of those things, the self-control of Christians, having the capacity to even control ourselves, because humans are an emotional bunch.

It's a thing that comes with the help of the Holy Spirit, but even better than that, it's a thing that comes from the Holy Spirit in all contexts. And just to illustrate this for you, let me show you a very dramatic context in which the self-control of the Christian is put on full display.

Look at 1 Corinthians chapter five. And we're talking about the day of the Lord, the conclusion of human history, as we know it at least, the cataclysmic event of Jesus coming back and all of the tribulations that preceded.

Look at verse one. "'But of the times and the seasons, brethren, "'ye have no need that I write unto you, "'for yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord "'so cometh is a thief in the night. "'For when they shall say, peace and safety, "'then sudden destruction cometh upon them "'as travail upon a woman with child, "'and they shall not escape.

"'But you, brethren, you are not in darkness "'that that day should overtake you as a thief. "'You are all the children of light "'and the children of the day. "'We are not of the night nor of darkness.

"'Therefore, let us not sleep as do others, "'but let us watch and be sober.'". Keep note of that word. "'Let us watch and be sober. "'For they that sleep, sleep in the night, "'and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.

"'But let us who are of the day be sober, "'putting on the breastplate of faith and love, "'and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.'". So in the context of a future cataclysmic event that Paul is prophesying about here in this passage, he's saying, even in a time like that, be sober.

And the Greek word that we get sober from there is in the context of self-control. It's the connotation of keeping yourself in subjection, keeping yourself under control, keeping your thoughts under control.

And so you have the self-control of Christians in one of the most dramatic contexts you can ever imagine. Here's another example of it. In 2 Timothy 1 .7, Paul says, "'For God has not given us the spirit of fear,'.

And we could all quote this,.

"'but of power and of love and of a sound mind.'". The Greek word that that little phrase comes from, a sound mind, literally means self-control. So you could read it this way. God didn't give us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control.

We have the ability, we have the capacity to control ourselves in all areas of life thanks to the Holy Spirit and his work in our lives that the rest of the world doesn't have. And then, just as one more example, just look up three verses in our study of Titus 1.

Titus 1 .8 says, "'But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, "'sober, just, holy, temperate.'". So there's another example. It's a different English word, but same Greek connotation, self-control.

So the opposite of this character trait, that we see in verse 10, because think about it for a second, they're unruly, they are empty talkers, they're deceivers. That's the opposite of being self-controlled.

It's the opposite of having self-discipline. The opposite of these character traits that we have as believers is what we see in verse 10. They are people that refuse to be disciplined as they are informed by scripture.

And because of that, they're idle talkers, they're liars, they're deceivers. They don't have any self-control. They indulge every impulse they have. They indulge every desire they have. And it leads, as we see in verse 10, to unruliness, to empty talking, to lying.

And in the context that Paul is talking about back in Titus, he has a very specific group of people in mind. He says, "'Especially they of the circumcision.'". Now, who is that? Matt, typically when we hear that phrase, the circumcision, who would that be talking about?

The Jews.

It's a phrase that's essentially synonymous with the Jews. Now, what's interesting about it is, depending on the context, it could be talking about Jews in general. However, I think Paul is talking about a very specific, let's call it a party of the Jews, a sect of the Jews.

Now, these people that he's talking about are Judaizers that were teaching that subscription to the Mosaic law was necessary for salvation. Now, what's interesting about it is that at no point, even in the Old Testament, was the law ever the means of salvation.

Even the prophets, even the givers of the law knew that, and they never explicitly said that the law was a means of salvation. What it was is it was a means of obedience. Well, it didn't accomplish more than that, too.

It was a means in showing the world how sinful they are, and that's why in Galatians, Paul says that the law is still in play. Even in this age today, it acts as a schoolmaster. It acts as a way for the world to have a standard to look at and say, whoa, I am a sinner in need of a savior, because I can't do that.

And in the Old Testament, it was used for that purpose as well. It was to show God's people how sinful they were, and that they needed a savior, but it was also a means of obedience for them as well. And so the law was never for salvation, even in the Old Testament.

But what you had was in the 400 years of darkness between Malachi and Matthew, when the prophets stopped speaking, you had 400 years of silence before John the Baptist comes on the scene, you had the Pharisees born.

You had the Pharisees come on, and they start taking the law, they start adding to it, they start writing their own commentaries and their own literature and their own things on it, and they got to a point where salvation was by the keeping of the law and that only.

And of course, it was very convenient for them to do this, because they were the ones that were living by the law, creating the rules to keep. And so they were holier than thou, literally. They were the ones that were keeping it better than anyone else.

And so all of that was junk. All of that was false. Jesus refuted it soundly. If you ever want an example of that, go read Matthew chapter 23. It is a thorough rebuke of these type of teachings, but it stuck around even after Jesus died, rose again, and ascended back to heaven, and the apostles still had to deal with it.

You had Judaizers. And what's interesting about it is you even had some Judaizers that were saved. You had some of them that actually got saved and would claim the name of the Lord Jesus, say He was their Messiah, but you still got to be circumcised.

But you still got to do this, that, and the other. And so Paul was up against this. They were Judaizers, they were teaching that you had to keep the law in order to be saved. And this was one of two, at least two, major battles of the first century church.

The first was what you might call Gnosticism. And interestingly enough, that is currently going verse by verse through Colossians, which is Paul's apologetic work against Gnosticism. But in many of his other works, the other great battle was this.

It was the merging of Judaism and Christianity. It wasn't, the crucifixion was the death blow to Judaism. The veil tore. But you still had people that wanted to keep the law. You had people that felt that it was, that wanted it to still be necessary.

And we're running a little bit low on time. We may even end here. But if you look at Galatians chapter two, just to give you guys a little taste of what I believe Paul is talking about here in Titus, when he says, especially they of the circumcision.

Who are the they exactly? Is it all Jews? Or is it a particular party, a particular sect of Jews that he is warning Titus about and saying, you need to be able to refute these guys. You need to be able to stop their mouths, to shut their mouths quite literally in the Greek.

If you look at Galatians chapter two and start at verse seven, the first six verses, we actually already covered earlier in this study. He's talking about the great Jerusalem council that he went to in Acts chapter 15.

He actually took Titus with him. Titus, the guy that he's writing this letter to. Why did you take Titus? Because Titus was a Greek.

He wasn't a Jew,.

But he was a brother in the Lord Jesus Christ and he wasn't circumcised and he didn't feel the need to be circumcised. And so Paul took Titus with him to say, are you going to tell me that this guy isn't legit?

Are you going to tell me talking to the Judaizers that were genuine Christians, but saying that you had to be circumcised and you had to do this, you had to do that. He said, are you going to tell me that this guy who is this passionate about the Lord, who has been this involved in my ministry is not a legitimate Christian, is not a legitimate brother.

And of course they couldn't say no to that. And so the first six verses is Paul describing this council he goes to and he mentions Titus. But then you get to verse seven and he says, but contrary wise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed to me as the gospel of the circumcision unto Peter.

Now, what is he talking about there? He's saying that Paul was an apostle called to preach to the Gentiles. Those that were pagans five minutes ago, not circumcised, Paul is going to preach to them, but Peter was going to go preach to the Jews, the ones that needed to realize Jesus was actually their Messiah.

So Paul is saying, I went to the uncircumcised, Peter went to the circumcised. In verse eight, he puts a little parenthetical in there and he says, for he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles.

So he's saying, I am just as called as Peter, just as much as Peter is called to preach to the Jews, I am just that called to the Gentiles. In verse nine, he says, and when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that we should go unto the heathen and they unto the circumcision.

So they branched off. So they laid hands on him. They, James and the other guys who were the pillars, according to Paul, recognized that Paul's ministry was legitimate from the Lord, so they laid hands on him.

Then they parted ways. Paul and Barnabas goes and they start preaching to the Gentiles, the uncircumcised. James and Cephas and Peter, they went and they started preaching to the Jews because remember, the church was born in Jerusalem.

Yes, it would spread out and the great commission would go out to the ends of the earth, but it had to start somewhere. And it started where all the Jews were. And so that's where a lot of the apostles went and their focus was on them.

And he says in verse 10, only they would, that we should remember the poor, the same which I also was forward to. But when Peter was coming to Antioch, I withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed.

For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles, but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing they which were of the circumcision. Okay, so that's the key phrase I wanted you guys to see that I believe is a parallel with Titus.

There was a party of the Jews of the circumcision that were legitimately saved, but were trying to argue that the law was also part of salvation. Now I want you guys to think about something. Paul was a defender of the purity and the perfection and even the necessity in certain contexts of the law.

He wasn't against the law in itself. What he was against was false teachers coming in and saying that the law was how you get saved. That was heretical long before Paul, it is still heretical to this day.

And so this is the party of the Jews that I believe he's addressing when he tells Titus, especially they of the circumcision. It's these guys, they're on the island of Crete, but it's the same mindset, it's the same view.

And so I will go ahead and end it there because we're out of time. That's pretty much finishes up verse 10. We'll take a closer look at verse 11 next week where Paul, after laying out who these guys are, he says, their mouths must be stopped.

And he uses very expressive language, I'll say in the Greek. We'll take a closer look at that next time to make that point. And so we'll end it there. We'll take a look at verse 11 next week. Does anyone have any thoughts or anything before we close it out?

I didn't leave as much time as I'd like to, but if y 'all have anything, you can share it real quick.

Well, that was very interesting because those two verses from Solomon have confused a lot of people for 2 ,000 years, for 3 ,000 years. So that's a great explanation.