Book of Titus - Ch. 1, v. 6a | To Be A One-Woman Man

Review of Titus 1:6 and the Qualifications of Elders

All righty, well, I guess we'll go ahead and get started. We'll do a little bit of review just because we ended at, well, a little bit of review for those who were here last week because we did end at kind of an odd spot.

I must admit, Tom, and honestly, anybody that has been out for a few weeks, pop pop, y 'all are joining in at a somewhat odd time. We're going verse by verse through the book of Titus, and we started verse 6 last week, so we're still very early on in the book.

And this is right where the apostle Paul starts hitting up the qualifications of the elders, of the pastors. And so we've been talking through that. We spent many weeks on just the first four verses and all of the doctrinal truths that we can glean from there.

And then we went right into verse 5, where Paul tells Titus that he is to appoint elders in every city, and that's the reason he was there, to straighten things out and help these young churches start growing.

And then when you get to verse 6, in fact, if you want to go ahead and turn to Titus, chapter 1, verse 6, we begin to see the flow of qualifications for elders in order to serve one of God's churches.

They have to meet these qualifications in order to fill that role, despite what anyone else may say. And so that is where we are. Now we spent, I would say, probably half of our lesson last week, if not a little bit more, on just the first phrase.

Let's go ahead and read the full verse. It says, if any be blameless, the husband of one wife having faithful children, not accused of right and unruly. I don't know if they're playing or going nuts. The door is open, so that's why it sounds louder.

I think they're just playing. I don't hear any actual crying. Yeah, if mom's not in there yet, it's probably chaos. And so now, normally we would read a little bit more of a broad context, where the reason we're honing in on this specific verse, we're gonna be here for many weeks.

Not only is there a lot to unpack here, but we're gonna be unpacking it pretty much phrase for phrase. We began with that phrase, if any be blameless, last week. And that's just the general idea, if you wanna think about it, is just a general qualification, very broad, from which all of the more specific qualifications we're about to get into, they flow from that.

To be blameless means literally to be without fault, to be unchargeable, to be a man that cannot have a successful charge brought against you. That doesn't mean a charge can't be brought against you, but it means it will not be a successful one.

You never know what the devil may try to throw at a guy that has been called to the pastoral ministry, and that is faithfully living up to the standards, but still being accused of various things by people that are trying to thwart his authority or whatever it may be.

And so charges can certainly be brought, but the key word is whether or not is, or the key idea is whether or not it is successful. And if they are truly blameless, it will not be. And so we read a few passages on basically Paul throwing out the idea that in order to be an example, you need to be blameless.

We looked at a passage in Philippians. We looked at 1 Thessalonians. We looked at a number of things. We looked at Psalm 101 with regard to David's, the emphasis that he put on the types of ministers he wanted in his presence, in his court.

He wanted them to be blameless. So this is an idea that goes way back to ancient times, and it carries over into the mandated qualifications of an elder. They must be blameless. They must be unchargeable from any habitual disqualifying sins.

It doesn't mean they're a perfect man, but it means that they are blameless as Paul defines it. We talked about all that last week. But then we briefly got into the next phrase, which is a pretty important one, and it's gonna be the one we will most likely be on for the rest of today, and that is the husband of one wife.

So verse six, one more time, if any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of right and unruly. So this begins the first category. If you want to break down the qualifications of elders into categories and ways to look at it more systematically, this first category here is on the personal and sexual morality of an elder.

How do they conduct themselves in these manners? Husband of one wife. Paul keeps it succinct, but we can still learn a lot from it. This is the very first specific qualification that we are given for elders.

Now, really quick, I'm gonna go kind of quickly through this because we did touch on it last week. But often, because of the way it's translated, which is pretty, it's not just the KJV, most translations make it this way where it says the husband of one wife.

Because of the way that's translated, sometimes it'll give a person the impression that Paul is talking about, well, a number of things. Number one, people assume he's just talking about polygamy. In other words, you cannot be engaging in the act of polygamy if you are to be a faithful elder.

I will say that that is assumed, certainly, but that's not necessarily what Paul is talking about here because that wasn't an issue even at the time he was writing. At the time he's writing, even in the secular cultures, polygamy was round upon.

Not, it was taboo at that point. And so that wasn't a battle that Paul had to fight. So when he says you need to be the husband of one wife, at least the way it reads in English, again, it's assumed that you're not gonna be doing that, but it's also not the primary concern that Paul had.

So that, it goes beyond that. In fact, it's an even higher standard than just condemning polygamy. Now, some people think that it must mean that the guy, a guy is not qualified or is not gonna meet this qualification if he was widowed and then remarried later because then he's no longer the husband of one wife.

He is now married to his second wife. We looked at Romans 7 last week and we were able to refute that pretty easily because the Lord makes it very clear that when your partner dies, that covenant ends at death.

And so you are absolutely free to remarry after you are either widowed or become a widow. And so that's an easy one to refute. However, another popular conclusion drawn here is that because it says you have to be the husband of one wife, you have to be a husband to begin with.

Now this one's interesting because we actually had an elder even in this church for many years. He passed away in June of 2022, but he was a lifelong bachelor. He never married and he became an elder in this church, but it was after some hearty debate between himself and my dad, senior pastor, because he felt he did not meet this qualification because he never married.

Well, that is when you have to take a closer look at the Greek phrase underneath the sentence and why the English translation can be a little bit tricky because the most literal way to translate the underlying Greek here is that he is a one woman man, not necessarily the husband of one wife in the sense that he has to be married, but rather a one woman man in the sense that he is a faithful man.

If he has a woman, he is faithful to her. If he has a wife, he is faithful to her. It does not necessitate that an elder be married in order to be an elder. And one of the things we pointed out last week is if that were true, that would be very confusing that Paul was the one giving this exhortation considering he himself was a bachelor who didn't have any kids.

The key to being an unmarried elder is celibacy, and that is a spiritual gift. We talked about this last week. It's a spiritual gift that's only given to a very small, relatively speaking, group of men throughout all of church history.

Paul was one of them. Brother Bill was one of them. And the reason, one of the amazing things about his testimony is that while he was a lifelong bachelor, he lived with family his whole life. So he had accountability.

He was held accountable. He had the spiritual gift, and he did become an elder because he did meet all of the qualifications that we're going through here. But if you are a man that does not have that spiritual gift, then yes, finding your wife sooner than later, being married is absolutely the best route to go.

And Paul touches that too in other passages. But the point is here, husband of one wife, it does not mean that you can't be a celibate bachelor and meet all the qualifications of an elder. We fleshed that out in far more detail last week.

You can catch the recording for it if you need to fill that in. Now, here's another one, and we just barely touched on this last week. But another objection is that this must mean that an elder has to be married because the next qualification has to do with his children.

Well, how are you going to be an elder that rules the house well, that has children if you weren't first married? Again, though, kind of going back to the previous objection, which is you have to be married in the first place.

If you apply, in my opinion, what would be a somewhat legalistic interpretation there, it would disqualify an otherwise godly man who has been the husband of one wife for 30 years, has been totally faithful to her, meets all of the qualifications, but perhaps due to infertility issues or something like that, the Lord did not grant them children, but he was faithful and he meets all the other qualifications.

Well, based on that interpretation, just because they weren't able to have kids, you would then have to disqualify an otherwise perfectly qualified man because of your legalistic interpretation that says, well, gotta be married and you have to have kids or else, what else is Paul talking about?

What Paul is talking about is faithfulness in the moral character of a man. And considering the fact that celibate bachelor elders are a rare breed, he is speaking in more general terms because the large, large majority of elders throughout church history will be men that are married and they have kids.

So that's why he is approaching it in this manner, but that doesn't mean that it disqualifies, again, an otherwise godly man who's been married for 30 years, totally faithful, apt to teach, rules his house well, but because they weren't able to have kids, sorry, you're not gonna be able to be an elder.

That's not what Paul is talking about here. So the main point as we go through all these is to highlight something very important, and that is that discernment has to be used here. Holy Spirit led discernment through much prayer and through much Bible study as well.

Discernment in conjunction with the texts that we're going through are how local churches can determine what the Lord wants for them. The issue is not primarily a marital status, it's about the moral character of a man.

One more quick note, and we'll press on to some degree. We're still on this topic in general, but this is another great reason why the Lord ordained local churches and why Rome, for example, erred to such a degree when they instituted a global church in the way that they did.

And it's because the Lord wanted it to work this way so that each local church could approach him prayerfully, asking for his guidance of what's best for them. So, all right, let's say there are some local congregations that interpret this so literally that they come to the conclusion that, well, sorry, we know you've been married for 30 years and that you meet all the other qualifications, but you don't have any kids, so how do we know that you could rule your house well, that your kids would be faithful and not unruly et cetera, et cetera?

That local church is held responsible for that interpretation and for that call. We are not here at Park Meadows Church and the next church down the street is not for that. So, this is just a good example of why God ordained it this way so that we are not held subject to someone else's local body or some presbytery or something like that that would say, no, you can't let that man be an elder in your church because he doesn't have any kids.

He's faithful, he's apt to teach, he does rule the house well that he has, but he doesn't have any kids, so you can't, they don't get to make that call, we get to make that call. And we do that through prayer and through letting the Lord and the Holy Spirit guide us and teach us through these passages and things like that.

So, that's just another quick note. There are so many great examples throughout the New Testament of why the Lord ordained local churches because it's a somewhat bizarre idea if you really think about it, but it's made crystal clear as you see that he does so, so that each church can rule itself with him being the primary shepherd, him being the head of that local church.

Just look at the book of Revelation, the first two chapters, you got seven very different churches. Well, it's a good thing that it's that way. And so, I just wanted to throw that out there. One more time.

Now, again, the crux of this whole idea from Paul is that a one woman man simply means a man devoted to the woman who is his wife. That is to say, he is a faithful man. You can be a faithful man, you can have that moral character trait, even if you are a celibate bachelor who serves as an elder, but for the majority of men that serve as elders who are in fact married, they must be faithful.

They must be faithful. He doesn't have eyes for anyone else. In other words, he knows that his marriage is to be exemplary for every other couple in his congregation. He takes his marriage very seriously because he understands everyone else is looking at him and saying, how can we model our marriage based off of our pastors and his wife?

And so, if you don't take it seriously as an elder and you start slipping up and being casual with it and showing that it's not something you revere to the degree with which God wants you to revere it, all of a sudden you are no longer the example that you are meant to be.

He knows that his marriage is meant to signify Christ and his bride. Is the man above reproach? Is he blameless? Like we saw at the beginning of verse six, is he without reproach? Is he blameless in the sense that he has been and now is continually loyal to the woman who is his wife?

If so, then he meets this qualification. So one woman, man, that is what Paul is getting at here. Now, just to clarify another thing that I have alluded to throughout the study, this doesn't mean that necessarily that the man is better than other men in some intrinsic sense.

In other words, the men that serve in these roles, they're still, they still are depraved. They are saved, they are a saved sinner, but they are still living in this earthen vessel. They still have the old man that they're dragging around just like everybody else.

So intrinsically, this doesn't mean that elders are all of a sudden better than everyone else in that particular sense. It doesn't even really mean that they're more spiritual than any other men. What do I mean by that?

King David was better than other men and he was more spiritual, but he could not have been a pastor. You get what I'm saying? King David was a very spiritual man, if not one of the most spiritual men in all of human history, the apple of God's eye, but he could not have been a pastor.

He would not qualify. He was an adulterous man. He was a murderer. He disqualified himself time and time again, in fact. He did not rule his house well. His kids were awful. In fact, several of his kids tried to initiate coups against him and take the throne.

He was a more spiritual man than I would say any pastor that has lived throughout church history the last 2000 years, and yet he himself would not have qualified to be a pastor. So that's what I mean.

Just because pastors meet these qualifications, it doesn't mean that they're better. It just means that they fit the framework that God gave us in order to fit the role to represent Christ as the head shepherd of the church.

Then you have these under-shepherds that are the head of a local congregation. They need to fit the bill in that sense. To be a one-woman man means that they fit that unique role. No less than that particular standard, being a one-woman man, which again, David was not, any less than that should not be tolerable for the role of a pastor.

But now we may ask what happens if the man is faithful upon a call to a pastorate by a congregation, and after so many years, all of the sudden he slips up, maybe in a very, very bad way. He commits adultery and he was not faithful to his wife.

What then? Can that man be restored? Now, this is a little bit tough. Before I read, in fact, go ahead and turn to Proverbs chapter six. We're gonna be there for a little bit. While you're turning there, let me just quickly say, I've already had a few questions.

Brian Christopher was one that asked, and Brian, by the way, if you're out there, I still have your question exactly as you wrote it in my notes. I didn't want to address it at the time you asked because we'll be getting there.

And then, who was it? Larry was here last week, and he asked another question kind of in this area of just, what about this? What about that? What about certain scenarios? And we're gonna be going through certain scenarios as we progress through the study, but here's one of them here.

So, two quick thoughts. Number one, and this will especially come into play when we get to the next phrase of verse six, which is to have faithful children not accused of riot and unruling. This will especially apply when we get to that.

But keep in mind that these particular qualifications are given to us to install an elder. Again, we have to use discernment when it comes to what do we do with an elder that's been an elder for 30 years, and then all of the sudden seems to not be meeting some of these qualifications.

You see how that's a different issue? It is a little bit more clean cut when you consider that the context in which we're getting these qualifications is to install or to appoint new elders. So, you wanna clean slate, you wanna make sure they are ruling their house well, they're faithful to their wife, they're apt to teach all these things before they are appointed to an elder.

But let's say they meet all those qualifications to a great level, and then 20 years down the road they start slipping up because we are humans and we do have our flesh and we do have temptations and all these types of things.

Then what do you do? Well, when it comes to ruling your house with your kids and things like that, we're gonna ask the same question. And there are a number of things we'll need to discuss when we get there.

But for this particular one, being faithful to your wife, this one is pretty clean cut. Let's take a look at a passage and let's see if we can answer the question, can a man who is a pastor and then commits adultery and is no longer faithful to his wife, can he be restored?

Let's just address that for now. And then we're essentially gonna be asking the same question when we get to the part about his kids and whether or not they are faithful and whether or not they are unruly.

Proverbs chapter six, let's take a look at verse 27. And I wanna go through this passage just to give us an idea of the seriousness of lust and sexual sins and how serious God, how serious God takes them and how he deals with them and how he has inspired his men throughout the Bible to write about them.

And by the way, this is Solomon writing this. This is a man that had problems in this area himself. So keep that in mind too. Proverbs chapter six, verse 27. He has a lot of experience with what he's about to talk about here.

So we need to take his word seriously and trust Solomon that he means what he says. Starting in verse 27, he says, can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned? Can one go up upon hot coals and his feet not be burned?

So we have a couple of allegories here, couple of analogies. Solomon is using very striking allegory actually, describing the pain that is brought upon a man when he engages in illicit sexual behavior.

Now, this holds true just to quickly so y 'all understand where I'm coming from. This holds true whether you're talking about a young man engaging in premarital relations or an older man engaged in adultery.

In that regard, the context applies to all men. It's not just elders here, but it also includes elders or men that are in this role. The result is the same regardless of what point in life you're in if you engage in what Solomon is talking about.

What is the result? The result is the scarring of your very soul. He clears up the analogy in the next verse really quickly. So he that goeth into his neighbor's wife, whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent.

So the allegory is quickly confirmed here. He tells how can you hold coal to your chest and not burn yourself? How can you walk on the coal and not burn your feet? What is he talking about? He is talking about illicit sexual behavior.

But more importantly, we learned that not only does a man cause great harm to himself for engaging in such sin, he is also considered guilty in God's eyes and will not go unpunished or the way it's translated in the KJV, shall not be innocent.

If you look at the Hebrew there, it could easily be translated, will not go unpunished. That's what, in other words, your sin will find you out and you're gonna answer for it. You will reap what you sow, especially in this regard.

So whoever toucheth her shall not be innocent. Whoever toucheth her shall not go unpunished. That's what that means. It's a terrific warning from Solomon for all men of all ages as they embark on a life journey that will bring much temptation, depending on how far into the culture you immerse yourself in.

I will readily say it's a lot easier for some than others, depending on what situation you put yourself in. So that's a thought too. Look at verse three. Men do not despise a thief. Yeah, sorry. Men do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his soul when he is hungry.

But if he is found, he will restore sevenfold. He shall give all the substance of this house. Pay really close attention to what Solomon is doing here because it sounds like he just totally changes topics for a second.

But listen, what he's doing is he is intentionally giving us an apples and oranges comparison. He's not trying to make an apples to apples comparison. He's intentionally doing something different. He's saying here are apples, here are oranges.

He's saying even thieves who are otherwise scorned by the public for the most part, even they can at least repay what they stole and much more. Look what he says in verse 32. But who so committed adultery with a woman lacketh understanding.

He that doeth it destroyeth his own soul. A wound in dishonor shall he get and his reproach shall not be wiped away. You can't repay that back. Unlike a thief who could restore what he stole sevenfold, the moment you commit this sin, you don't get to pay it back.

You don't have the opportunity to ever pay that back. You can't undo this sin. You can be forgiven by God. Let me quickly say that. You can be forgiven if you are a repentant person, but you can't compensate for that kind of behavior.

It is a permanent sin committed with another person in this lifetime. It's gonna be on the books. It's gonna be remembered. And in the context of Titus, it is disqualifying and it will change your life forever.

You can be forgiven. You can be restored in the sense that you are welcomed back into a local fellowship for crying out loud, but that is different than being restored to the role of pastor, which is meant to signify and mirror Christ as the shepherd for his church.

You are supposed to be a blameless under-shepherd. You can take fire to your chest. If you take fire to your chest, you are burned. If you walk on the hot coals, you are scorched and you can't fix that.

You can't undo it. You're gonna bear those scars for the rest of your life. That is the seriousness that comes with these particular sins. Let's read a couple more verses here in verse 34. And this is just taking it to the next level.

Can you just do something like this and get away with it? For jealousy is the rage of a man. Therefore, he will not spare in the day of vengeance. Now, Solomon's appealing to something interesting here, because as Christians, we know that the day of vengeance is for the Lord, that vengeance is the Lord's.

But Solomon is saying, look, you know, that's great. But I know Moses said that, but the people you're messing with here may not care about that. The people you're messing with here may not even know who God is.

And vengeance is a very real part of life and culture when you don't understand and have faith in God that he has the vengeance or that he will enact the vengeance. So the person that is a part of the violated party will not spare vengeance when that day comes.

There's a husband somewhere. So let's go back to the context of an elder, of a pastor that 20, 30 years down the road, slips up, commits adultery, perhaps with a married woman. There is a husband somewhere, or maybe she's not a husband, or maybe she's not married.

Regardless of that, there's a father somewhere. Somewhere, there's a man who will bring vengeance on this particular sin, and his vengeance is going to come after the man that committed such a sin. And he may want to cover it up.

The man that committed the sin may want to cover it up, but the husband is not going to let him do that. If you look at verse 35, he will not regard any ransom, neither will he rest content, though thou givest many gifts.

So there's no way to fix this. There's no way to fix this. And from this passage, you can easily infer there is no way that a pastor can be restored after committing such sin. A man that is above reproach, blameless, as it says at the beginning of Titus 1 .6, which we are back at now, a one-woman man is required for a reason.

The reason this is a mandate given by God that cannot be violated is for a very good reason. It's not arbitrary. God will not be pleased if this standard is not met or if it's broken. So if it's not met in the first place, the guy's disqualified.

He doesn't ever get to serve as a pastor, as an elder. If it's broken, he never gets to serve as a pastor again. This is very serious. God takes it very, very seriously. No, a man cannot be restored. The answer is an easy no.

That whether or not a man can be restored as pastor if he commits this sin, if he breaks the marital covenant between him and his wife, and by the way, the marital covenant between his neighbor and his wife.

So like it is just, it's a mess really beyond compare. You don't recover from that and you don't get to recover from that either in this pastoral context with zero exceptions. Again, you can be forgiven.

You can be restored to a fellowship of believers. You can be taken in, loved, after you've confessed and repented and all that kind of stuff. Love covers a multitude of sins. All of these truths are still at play, but we're talking here about the pastor.

You don't have to go here, but in 1 Corinthians 9 .27, Paul tells us something to take it up even a further notch, to turn it up to 11 with regard to how sneaky this can all be and how important it is to the man of God when he's in that position, how carefully he needs to be.

And now, especially Paul in his context, because again, he was a bachelor. Listen to this for a second. Paul says, but I keep under my body. It's kind of an odd translation. If you look at the Greek, he's saying that he buffets his body, that he rules over his body, and he brings it into subjection.

I buffet my body. I bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, and this is the apostle Paul we're talking about, lest by any means when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

So Paul understood that if he committed a sin that involved especially the sexual nature, that he would be a castaway, that he would no longer be qualified, that even though he preached, he himself fell short, and he did not want that.

The idea of buffeting his body is really interesting. It's kind of the connotation of a boxer putting himself under harsh physical subjection to train himself for the task at hand. That's what Paul said he was doing to himself to keep his body under subjection to ensure that he didn't let his flesh lead the way, but rather his spirit, rather his new man.

And again, Romans chapter seven sheds a lot of light on this battle that Paul was engaged in for his entire life. And it's sad to think about the fact that this is the consequence of sin. This is what Adam and Eve brought to their children.

Even the apostle Paul, a man that was sanctified and that was one like no other, perhaps the greatest Christian that ever lived, even he had to keep these things in mind because he knew he would be disqualified if he slipped up.

And he wanted to finish well. We learn in 2 Timothy as we get there that he did. And that's amazing. But by the time he was writing 1 Corinthians, he was still worried about it. He was still thinking about the fact that he still had to finish this race.

He wasn't done yet. And these types of sins can sneak up and they can sneak up fast. This is about as high as the stakes can get. Even the apostle Paul had to constantly battle his flesh and keep his body under subjection lest he fall short as a preacher of the gospel.

And so that's a really sobering thing. But as we learned from Paul, God is faithful to those who are faithful to him. And so to just kind of round out this little study on that phrase of verse six, because next week we will begin the next phrase discussing children.

But we don't need to go through this as serious as it is. We don't need to go through this as if every elder needs to be walking on pins and needles, anxious, worried, scared, only thinking about the areas that they may slip up.

You don't have to immerse yourself in worry and anxiety, even though you do need to think about it. There's a difference between actively thinking about it, being vigilant, being aware, staying in the word, staying in prayer, all these things that will keep you sharp.

There's a difference in that. And then walking around scared, anxious, worried, concerned. There's a big difference between those things. And the reason why we don't have to be worried, concerned, anxious, and all those bad things that are sin in and of themselves, sins in and of themselves, is because God is faithful to those that are faithful to him.

And so if we remember that, we can simplify it, kind of reduce all of this to the thought, as men in general, but also anyone that is serving in the pastoral role out there, that as long as we are faithful to him, he will be faithful to us.

And being faithful to him assumes that you are not thinking about engaging in particular terrible, egregious sins, and that you're not thinking about those things and putting yourself in the situation to fall into them very easily.

If you're being faithful to him, it assumes you're not doing those things. So just to kind of end on a positive note, and one that is edifying and that is encouraging, is that faithfulness to him is the key for any man, but certainly those that are serving in this role.

And so we'll end it there for today. Quite a bit there. Again, I know that's a little bit of an interesting topic. When you're going verse by verse, you gotta take what comes at you. And so we needed to cover that.

And it is important, especially in this day and age, by the way, as we live in a watered down, well, a defiled culture, and that includes the church at large. There are churches all across the country as we speak that have, quote unquote, restored pastors that fell into such sin.

Couldn't be more unbiblical. And because now all of the sudden, what you have is you have a quote unquote shepherd that is not exemplary anymore. How can you follow him as an example? If he violated his own marital vows, his own marital covenant, which by the way, also represents Christ in his church.

So he represents Christ in his church, in his marriage, and as a pastor. A twofold thing. He represents the bridegroom and his bride in his marriage. He represents the shepherd and his sheep as a pastor.

And he just broke both of those types. So how could he be restored? And yet we see it everywhere. And so it's just an exhortation to every local church everywhere, all of the ones that are listening right now, which they're not, of course, but just good for us to remember, especially as we move on, as we all grow together, as we have friends and family that are part of other local congregations, we can remember these things, and they are important for us to remember as we move on.

So does anyone have any thoughts, anything they'd like to share on this otherwise odd topic before, it's not really an odd topic, it's just one that you don't wanna spend a whole lot of time on, I suppose.

But any thoughts anyone may have, feel free to share. Yes, sir. You know, it's especially sobering in the context of young men too, because so many young men still in their teens can get those scars and then they bear those the rest of their life.

And so Solomon, again, he's covering his bases in that analogy because it is applicable to every man throughout all of human history too. Think about the fact that he's writing this, what, 1500 years before Christ.