Book of Titus - Ch. 1, v. 8

All right, y 'all can turn to Titus chapter 1, where we continue to slowly work our way through.

But we are making progress, so there you go. Last week, we covered verse 7, and we spent a good deal of time, in fact, a couple of Sundays, talking about the terms in verse 7 of Bishop and what it means to not be self -willed.

So, we looked at the first word. We spent some time on the word Bishop. It's the

Greek word episkopos. You could also translate it overseer. So we spent a good deal of time talking about how just in this name alone, or this title rather, alone, we get a little bit of the job description of an elder.

Of course, that first term that we looked at, presbyteros, elder, refers to their spiritual maturity, and episkopos, referring to their duty as an overseer, or as a superintendent over their congregation.

So we talked a great deal about the implications of what it is to be a bishop or an overseer. And then we spent a good deal talking about what it meant to not be self -willed.

We spent most of our time last week talking about that term, not self -willed, in our study.

And then after that, we briefly moved into basically covering the negative character traits that you do not want in an elder, namely not being angry, not given to wine, not being a striker, or one looking around for contentious situations, not given to filthy lucre, et cetera, et cetera.

So we covered all of that. And so this week, we move into verse eight, where we now start talking about some of the positive virtues of what it is to be an elder.

So this will be a nice kind of breath of fresh air after spending a number of weeks talking about some of the negatives, the things that you do not want in an elder, we're gonna begin talking today and the things that you do want in an elder.

So just for context sake, let's pick it up at verse five, and because that's really where the qualifications begin.

And let's read through verse nine. And even though we're only honing in on verse eight today,

I still want you guys to get the full thought. I mean, this is, you know, Paul is talking, it's essentially one flowing, just a couple of sentences that flow from one end to the other.

And so I like for the broad context to be in mind at all times. So let's do that. Look at verse five.

For this cause, I left thee, that's Titus, in Crete, that thou should have set in order the things that are wanting, and ordained elders in every city as I had appointed you.

If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly, for a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God, not self -willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre, but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate, holding fast the faithful word as he had been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.

And then of course, from that, Paul goes right into talking about some of the problem people on the island of Crete that Titus has to deal with and what these elders will have to deal with as well.

So there you go, and I hope you guys picked up the number of times Paul brings blamelessness back into picture, being above reproach.

He does it twice in those terms, and in verse eight, we're about to see it a third time, but with a slightly different term being used.

Again, just to kind of finish the thoughts on what it is to be a bishop, what it is to be one that can be above all of the negative traits that we've been talking about.

If you're gonna be a bishop, if you're gonna be a pastor, if you're gonna be an overseer, it's a man that has to continually suppress his own fleshly desires or his own self glory.

That kind of goes back to the idea of not wanting a self -willed man. It has the connotation of arrogance.

It has the connotation of putting your own opinions, being dogmatic about your own opinions over the scripture.

We talked about this at length last week, and so y 'all can check the recording out for those just joining us today.

But seeking his own self glory, his own self -gratification over the proclamation of God's word and the growth of God's people.

The mark of a godly pastor is to be submissive to the Lord's will. How do you overcome all of these things?

How do you not be self -willed? How do you ensure that you can overcome your anger issues? How can you ensure that you're going to be not attracted to the power, to the authority, maybe even to the money, whatever it may be?

You do it by being submissive to the Lord's will, not your own.

That is paramount for the pastor. It's paramount for every Christian, but certainly for the leaders of God's house.

And who better to look to as an example than Jesus himself? When a pastor finds himself struggling to perhaps be submissive, to be obedient in all things, what better example do we have than Jesus himself?

Of course, you consider him in the garden during his agony, submitting to the Father's will even when he was agonizing, even when he asked for the cup to be removed, he was still submissive to the

Father's will. So even when a pastor's going through tough times and obedience is gonna make things seemingly tougher, maybe in the short term, being submissive and obedient to the

Lord is the key to overcoming all of the negatives we've been talking about for a good number of weeks.

So with that being said, let's take a look at verse eight one more time and break it down a little bit more. It says, but a lover of hospitality, the but there of course is in contrast with all of the negatives in verses six and seven.

Instead of all those things, a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate, and so forth.

Now in our first two virtues, so again, we're out of the negative stuff, we're into these virtuous things that an elder is to live out.

In the first two that we have in verse eight, we see that there's something in common in both of them. Namely, you have a person that loves hosting people, a person that loves being hospitable, and that those people that he is hosting, that he is being hospitable toward, are good men that he loves.

Now, if you look at the order of the verse, Paul starts with the lover of hospitality, and then he moves into being a lover of good men.

Now I personally believe, and I'll explain why in just a second. I personally believe that the second phrase there, a lover of good men, could act perhaps as a modifier of that first phrase.

In other words, the good men that pastors are to love are the very ones that pastors should have a desire to host in their home.

Loving goodness, whether that is goodness in and of itself, or as it is manifested by good men, these should be something, this should be something, goodness in general should be something that pastors should love for its own sake and not merely to entertain because of a sense of duty.

So even though Paul here is saying that you should love hospitality, that you should love goodness, that you should love good men, even though he says that, it shouldn't be treated as a thing to be checked off of the holiness box so that you can qualify, but rather something that just you love for its own sake.

As a person, the pastor should love goodness in all of its forms, including the people from which it flows, the good men, he should love them for his own sake.

Now, I wanna point something out for a second. I mentioned a second ago that I believe, and I'll talk about this a little bit more as we go, but I wanna go ahead and cover this now, that I believe when

Paul says a lover of good men can shed a little bit of light on what it means to be hospitable.

In other words, we are being hospitable toward those good men. If you look at most of your

Bible translations, that phrase there will simply say, I think something like a lover of goodness.

The word men isn't there. And technically, the word men isn't in the Greek either.

And so I had to dig into this a little bit to figure out, I wonder why the KJV translators put men in there.

And not only that, but in the KJV, it's not even in italics. So how did this translation come about?

Well, the word, it's a single Greek word. So a lover of good men, that's just one Greek word. See if I can pronounce it.

Philogathos, I think, is how you pronounce it. What's interesting about it is it's a compound word, as is normally the case.

So you have two little Greek words being combined to create this single word from which the translation comes.

I'm gonna do it in reverse order. The second Greek word that creates this simply means goodness.

Goodness, and it's pretty simple. Just the concept of goodness and loving goodness.

But the first little Greek word that makes up this compound word is philos.

Now you guys may recall the word phileo, which is a particular Greek term that would translate into love.

And there's various implications with that particular Greek word. This word is philos, and it's similar, but it means companion.

It means a friend or a deep friendship. The word is referring to a person in which you have a deep friendship with, a associate, a close associate, a friend.

And so when you consider the Greek words that make up this compound word, I think that Paul is talking specifically about, well, or okay, let me rephrase this.

I believe that Paul wants us to understand he's not only talking about goodness in concept, but goodness as it manifests in men, in women.

And so I think the translation in the KJV is fantastic because a lover of good men carries both.

It covers the full picture of the Greek term. Goodness is in there, but specifically goodness as it comes from your brothers and sisters around you in Christ.

Did you have a thought, Dad? Well, you might be about to say this, so I hate to say it, but the thought crossed my mind that we have this huge controversy at the church today about whether women should be preachers.

And this is talking about the qualifications of an elder, which is a preacher. Hidden in this translation is an interesting proof that women should not be preachers because the reason it's translated lovers of good men rather than good people is because it is implied that the elder will be a man.

And so when the word means friend, it would mean a man friend. If it were a woman preacher, it would mean that it would be translated lovers of good women.

So that's an interesting little proof of the many scriptures that teach men should be doing the doctrinal teaching.

Well, that is a super interesting thought. I'm glad you said it, because I had not thought of that, but it's - I would have thought of it if you had brought up what you already said about the meaning.

Sure. Two little words that are put together. Right. Friendship were about just, it doesn't mean, like you said, it doesn't mean just a lover of goodness.

It means that you have a friend. Yeah, and it, but goodness is in there.

So philos is the first Greek word, which means a deep friendship, an associate that you are close to, a friend that you're close to.

And then the second part of that word means goodness. A good man. Well, and it's especially,

I had to dig into it because I'm looking, I like comparing translations because every now and then you, it makes you dig deeper.

And I don't know if I found a single translation outside of the KJV. I'm sure there are some.

I say, there's so many translations, but as far as just the big ones, ESV, NIV, all of those, they all, it's simply translate a lover of goodness.

And so - Interesting though. Right. James got it more nearly correct. Well, I believe so, based on the

Greek, based on the Greek term that's used, I do believe that, make a strong argument that this translation, a lover of good men is the strongest because it covers the full picture there.

Philos specifically means people. It's a specific reference to people because you can't have a friendship with goodness.

It's what the Greek term means. The other is a man. And so I believe that the other translations are lacking there.

And so it was important for me to lay the groundwork there because some of the things I'm about to get into are built upon this idea that the good men, being a lover of good men is involved with the idea of hospitality.

You'll see why in just a second. You'll know why I had to lay that groundwork in just a few moments. So again, loving goodness for his own sake.

Turn with me to 1 Thessalonians chapter two for a second. And I wanted to show you guys what this looks like in action.

And this isn't the first time we've looked at this passage in this study, but it was a different context the last time we looked at it.

We're gonna look at it one more time. 1 Thessalonians chapter two. And you can skim down to verse seven.

We'll look there in just a second. I wanna show you guys when Paul tells Titus here to be a lover of hospitality.

And of course he's telling Titus this in order to tell the elders this as well.

Be a lover of hospitality and a lover of good men. In other words, you can't just go out and do ministry.

You can't go out and go through the motions of ministry without also loving deeply the people to which you are ministering.

And in 2 Thessalonians here, Paul shows us what this looks like. Look at verse seven. But we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her children.

So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls because ye were dear unto us.

Now, notice he says not the gospel of God only as if, you know, if you're just thinking about it, you think, well, someone's spreading the gospel, great.

It's not good enough to be a minister though. It's not good enough to be a pastor. You can go out and proclaim however much of the

Bible you want to. But if you don't have a love for the brethren, it's not gonna carry the power.

It's not gonna carry the blessing. And so Paul here makes the Thessalonians, those in Thessalonica, he makes it very clear.

Look, yes, we imparted the gospel of God to you, but not that only, isn't that interesting?

Because we think of the gospel of God as being the pinnacle, and of course it is. But Paul is making a point that it doesn't end there either.

Not the gospel only, but also our own souls because you were dear unto us.

So there's the love, there's the brotherly love. There's the love for good men that Paul is talking about.

In Titus, look at verse nine. For you remember, brethren, of our labor and travail for laboring night and day because we would not be chargeable unto any of you.

We preached unto you the gospel of God. And you are witnesses, look at verse 10 closely.

You are witnesses, and God also, not just you, but God is also our witness, how wholly and justly and unblameably we behaved ourselves among you that believe.

So you are a witness, God is a witness. You know how we behaved.

You know that the way in which we behaved was godly and that we loved you, there was love in it.

It wasn't just us going through the motions, it wasn't us just delivering words that carried power, but we loved you as well.

Look at verse 11. As ye know how we exhorted and comforted and charged every one of you as a father doth his children, that ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and his glory.

So in other words, if you're looking at verse 10 one more time, Paul is making it clear that he and others in his ministry conducted themselves or behaved themselves in such a way as to show their genuine love for these brothers and sisters.

They acted out their ministry in genuine love for good men. Now, in the context of Paul's words, who do you think good men are?

Because keep in mind for a second, Paul is the one that told us that there is no, well, he quoted the

Old Testament, of course, but he's the one that reminded us that there is none righteous, no, not one. So in Paul's mind, who are these good men?

Who do you think? Themself. Them that believe, right?

Brothers and sisters. Them that believe. Those that bear the righteousness of Christ. They're not righteous in and of themselves.

There's no goodness in and of man's self, but those that bear the righteousness of Christ, those are good men and good women.

Love them and let your ministry be aimed at them at all times. Behave and conduct yourself in such a way that shows that love.

Now, let's swing back into the context of hospitality. Hospitality is a wonderful topic.

You could do a series on the scriptures in the New Testament, and I'm sure there are many in the Old as well. I have those in the

New on top of my head at the moment, but you could do a lengthy study on hospitality.

But I'm just gonna read one particular scripture to you guys and listen to it. You can turn there if you want.

It's Hebrews chapter 13, but it's just a couple of quick verses. And I want you to think about what's going on here.

The context of hospitality. Think about Paul's exhortation in Titus as a qualification of virtue of a godly pastor.

Hebrews chapter 13, verse one says, let brotherly love continue. Verse two says, be not forgetful to entertain strangers.

That word entertain, same Greek word from which we get hospitality. Be not forgetful to be hospitable to strangers or entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

Now, isn't that interesting? There are times throughout church history, and we don't know when it happens.

We don't know to whom it happens to. It could have happened to us. We don't know. We'll know someday.

Where there may have been some people that we could sense had a love for the Lord, but were a troublesome, seemingly a troublesome people.

You know, perhaps a little bit lowly. Perhaps they had some issues that we may not have felt like we had the time to deal with in the moment.

Perhaps it was a vagabond on the side of the road that needed a ride. And for whatever reason, for the first time in your life, you had this inkling from the

Holy Spirit to go ahead and check and just make sure the person's okay. By the way, this has happened with my parents.

I have memories of this happening from time to time. And it happened with my brother Paul too, is another interesting story.

And so you have this strange feeling like you just need to be there for that particular person. And you help them out and you do what you need to.

Maybe you provide them a meal. Maybe, by the way, this doesn't necessarily mean you take them into your house.

Sometimes it might. But it might just mean giving them a lift somewhere or maybe not even giving them a lift. There was a guy once, just to give you one of my personal testimonies.

One time I was in Waco on the way back from Austin. And I think it was before Ashton and I were married.

I can't remember if we were married and I was heading back to our apartment or if I was heading back to mom and dad's house. But it was sometime in that timeframe.

And it was late at night. I just played a concert with my brother Paul and I was starving.

And there's only one thing that I can eat while I drive. And that's the little cheeseburgers from McDonald's.

Because they're the only thing that doesn't just fall apart when you're holding it with one hand. And so I stopped by McDonald's and I always ordered the number nine, which is two of those little cheeseburgers and fries and all that kind of stuff.

And I remember sitting there contemplating, I remember like it so well, such a funny thing to be going through in your mind.

I'm like, you know what? I just don't know if I'm hungry for both cheeseburgers this time. But I went ahead and ordered the number nine anyway.

And I order and as my car is ooching forward around 11 p .m.

at night in Waco, this man appears from behind the menu. So you have the big electric thing with the microphone.

And I place the order having just thought, I'm just not sure if I'm hungry enough for both.

And this guy just appears at a, just peeks his head around. And he starts asking me if I could help him out a little bit.

And I'm sitting there and we all know that there are some people that say they need help.

And you offer them maybe some food or some sort of provision. And they say, well, it has to be cash.

And of course, then you get a little bit skeptical because you're like, well, what are you gonna use the cash for?

And so I always think that a pretty good test is to offer food. And if they take it, they really needed some help.

And they were gonna go buy some cigarettes or maybe something worse or alcohol or something. And so the guy comes around the menu and he says,

I really need some help. And so I was like, well, this is weird. And it's always a little bit startling.

Matt can tell you some funny stories. Matt can tell you some funny stories. I do not respond well to surprise visits from the homeless.

And it's not because, it's not what you think.

It's just, I don't know what to do. It's like a socially awkward situation for me. I'll just put it this way.

There've been times where I've given far too much money just because I didn't really know what to do. So, you know, one -

Empty out your whole wallet. Well, kind of, sort of. And so anyway, so Matt can tell you those stories later.

But this particular time, I'm a little bit startled, but just like, what do I do?

Great, he's gonna be asking for money. Do I just pull off? Do I ignore him? What do I do? And so I said, sir, you know, picture me at like 18 or something, 17 or 18.

Sir, I just, I was, just ordered my food. And as I was ordering,

I was thinking, this is gonna be too much for me anyway. But I ordered it. And so I think that's the Lord, that was the

Lord preparing me to give you some food. And so if you want, you just walk over there,

I'll pick it up and I'll give you some. And he took me up on the offer. And so he took the food. And so I felt good about it because I felt like he genuinely needed some food.

It wasn't, he was just trying to get some money to go buy some something that he shouldn't have been or something like that. So that's just a funny personal story.

But things like this have happened to my brother, Paul. They've happened to my parents before. And it's not, that guy may have been a legit homeless man, but you never know when it might be an angel unaware, when it might be the

Lord seeing what you're gonna do with that inkling he's putting inside of you. If he's pinging your conscience and all of the sudden, you know, nine times out of 10, you know this is probably not a good situation.

I'm gonna avoid it. I'm gonna move on. But that 10th time, what are you gonna do with it? If you're, if you feel something from the

Holy Spirit, which you will, I don't, I believe that will be there along with it.

And so there's, that's just a bit of an aside, but back to this verse in Hebrews, be not forgetful to be hospitable to strangers.

Be not forgetful to entertain these strangers. Let me flesh this out a little bit. What do we mean by strangers?

And we're gonna talk about that too. Does it mean you just have any given person in off the street in your house?

Well, Keith Green would say yes. But again, coming back to the specific role of a pastor in general, it's generalizing quite a bit because some people do have a heart for literally any person they can help and may the

Lord bless them. But going back to Paul's generalized framework for your everyday pastor, every pastor, the pastor is certainly hospitable to more than just those in their congregation.

Especially if you were linking the charge in Titus with the passage we just read in Hebrews. They're hospitable to more than just their congregants, more than just their circle of friends because the word for strangers here in Hebrews does extend beyond, you know, let's just say their congregation.

But here's the thing. I do believe that those strangers will be good people.

The strangers that Paul is talking about in Hebrews are the good people that he's talking about in Titus as well.

In other words, those that share in the common faith. And the reason I think this is because as you look throughout the

New Testament at the examples of being hospitable and the examples of Christians in their extension of love, their extension of hospitality, the things that they're doing for the needy, for the poor, it is in the context of brothers and sisters and it makes total sense.

If you think about it, this New Testament was written in the first century when foot travel was still very much a common thing.

The church was just born. People are still surrounded by pagans and heathens not knowing who their brothers and sisters are.

And so you have this idea of hospitality permeating the New Testament because you never knew when you had a brother and sister in need or when you would meet one, a stranger that you had never met before, but they share in the common faith and you're there for them.

Again, in the early church, you literally had people that were coming to a saving knowledge of the faith.

They were coming to a saving knowledge of the now risen Lord, but who were part of a brand new, still transitioning dispensation and covenant.

All kinds of weird stuff was happening. Who is who? Think about the people on the island of Crete.

This was an ancient island full of pagans, full of heathens, full of idolatry.

And so these New Testament, or excuse me, these first century Christians, they were part of a dispensation that was still in motion.

And they were part of a brand new covenant with a brand new testator, that would be Christ, the one of the

New Testament, and who may not have had any idea, again, who their fellow Christians were immediately, at least.

So the connotation given in the Greek term for hospitable, it does include that of hosting strangers.

But in the first century context, these strangers would have been brothers and sisters in Christ, which is a little bit different than just your everyday, you look down the street and you just, on a whim, take some stranger into your house with your wife and kids.

And there's not a whole lot of wisdom in that, unless, again, it is a very specific situation where the

Holy Spirit is really convicting you, and even in that situation, the dad may go be hospitable somewhere outside of his own house for a little bit, maybe take the gentleman or whomever it is out for a meal and see how they can help them out.

Again, my parents have done these things before, I know what they look like from just a firsthand experience.

But the point is, in these contexts of being hospitable, I believe these are brothers and sisters in Christ, you had way more, again, on -foot travel as well.

So a fellow Christian may have needed a place to stay in a strange town, and because they're traveling through, they themselves would be a stranger.

But if they're a brother and sister needing some help, you would help them out. That's what it meant to be hospitable.

And so hospitality in the Bible, it extends beyond just having your friends over for dinner, which unfortunately,

I believe is the prime 21st century interpretation of what it means to be hospitable, is the people in your inner circle, the people you're closest to, that is a wonderful thing, you should certainly be doing that thing.

But that is not the extent of what Paul had in view here when he's talking about being hospitable, it includes providing a safe haven for your fellow believers, even if you weren't well acquainted with them yet.

Now that second phrase, so let's go back to Titus for a second. We're back in Titus, we're in chapter one, verse eight.

And so you have hospitality, and I believe the hospitality, even though it does include those that you may not know very well yet, it is primarily talking about your brothers and sisters in the

Lord, again, you have wonderful people like Keith and Melody Green, who would bring people in who may not have been believers yet, but they were evangelizing them, they were discipling them and they were bringing them to a saving knowledge.

But in the context of what we're talking about here, I believe it's talking primarily about brothers and sisters.

And so if you're looking at verse eight, taking that phrase into consideration one more time, a lover of good men, it's being a lover of goodness, yes, but a lover of men that manifest that goodness.

That second phrase, to be a lover of a good man, of good men, describes the pastor, describes a man that is a lover of what is true and what is honorable.

You can tell a lot, if you have a pastor in view or in the context of Titus, a person that is considering becoming a pastor, because that's what

Titus's job was, is to take these qualifications, is to take these virtues, and he's to look at the men before him and decide who of these men fit this bill so that I can appoint them.

If you're looking at these men, Titus can tell a lot about those men by what those men loved, by what those men spent their time doing, by who those men spent time with, who their associates were, who those men loved.

And if he could deduce that what those men loved was goodness and good men, then

Titus would know that that man is devoted, totally devoted to what is right, to what is righteous, and that he could ordain him, he could appoint him, is one of the qualifications entails here.

And yet another Pauline epistle in Philippians, a very well -known verse, I'll just read it to you guys, because you could all probably recite it from memory or at least a good portion of it.

Paul talks about this concept of what this man looks like, what the kind of man looks like.

Interestingly, what I'm about to read you guys is in the context of Christians in general. So I would ask if what

Paul is about to say and what I'm about to read applicable to all Christians, how much more so to the man of God, to the pastor, to the elder.

In Philippians 4 .8, he says, finally brethren, brethren, Christians, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report.

If there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things. And so when

Paul in Titus says, be a lover of good men, it's like a little succinct version of what he said in Philippians as well.

A lover of goodness and a lover of those that exhibit that goodness. And so that is what the man of God will look like.

Now we have a couple of other terms in this verse, we could take a look at if we want to. Does anyone have any other thoughts they'd like to share before we move on?

No, yeah, man. It would be fun to do an entire study on, more and more in depth on what one, the trend that goodness looks like, truly.

What portraying that goodness looks like? Or I guess, you said, is a good man, or that last thing you said where it's like, they also act in that way.

They don't just believe it, but they act on that way. Like you said, the example to the ministry, which we saw in Titus eight through 11.

That, I feel like, is such a big key to witnessing, a big key to shepherding, and being the example to your brothers and sisters.

And I feel like Titus is really hitting hard on what a lot of that looks like.

And I don't know, what do you think, what do you think would be a good way to go about exhibiting those characteristics, like you just read it,

Philippians, as a church body? Well, there are a number of places we could look, but I'll quote two that summarizes everything else you could look at in the

New Testament. The first is Paul telling us to imitate him as he imitates Christ. So how can we ensure that we are portraying, to Matt's point, these positive virtues, these positive attributes of just being a believer in general, in the context of everything

Paul just said in Philippians 4a? Well, it starts by imitation. It starts by learning the things that Paul says, the things that Jesus says, what are the imperatives that they give us, and what are the ways in which they live their life, and we just copy that.

And as we copy it, as we imitate it, these positive attributes and virtues are just all baked in there.

One other thing I'll say, and Jesus had a very special way of summarizing to the greatest degree.

He could summarize whole passages of doctrine and things like that with a single phrase.

And one in particular that he said, and he wouldn't have said it this plainly and simply if it weren't true, if he didn't, through his grace, make it somewhat obvious for us to figure this stuff out.

You will know them by their fruit. That implies that you can see the fruit.

That implies that we can use our God -given judgment, we can use the spirit -led judgment to look at people around us, namely our brothers and sisters, and see, let's say it's a stranger.

Okay, let's go back to the context of entertaining a stranger. How can you ascertain that this may be a brother or sister and not just some person that may be dangerous?

Well, talking about the Lord, mentioning the

Lord in conversation, making it casual, not sounding,

I'm not even talking about using churchy terminology and stuff like some people like to do so often, but just talking about the

Lord and in the context of some of the stories that I have in mind of growing up.

You know, mom, of course, is a master at it, but dad is too. Brother Otis was really good at it. But when there are strangers that you feel a calling to help out and you start mentioning the

Lord in your initial conversation with them, how they respond to that can be a form of fruit.

And then the further you go into that, you'll see that fruit will become more and more and more and more obvious. And so there was a young family we picked up once on the way to church when

I was about seven years old, and it was a lady, and I think she had a couple of older kids, and it was one of those times where there's just a broken down car on the side of the road we didn't even see the people.

And for whatever reason, I mean, we know the reason, mom and dad decided to pull over and check it out, even though we're on our way to church.

I mean, a lot of, you gotta get there on time, you gotta get everything unlocked. And so I remember thinking how odd that was.

It turns out it was a lady and a couple of her kids also on the way to church. And so that was an easy one to see the fruit.

There were other times where there were folks that mom and dad would help out where mom and her gracious way of doing things would be able to bring the conversation back to him, and there's the fruit.

And so there's the context of seeing their fruit among strangers that you are trying to see, does the

Lord want me to entertain them or not? Does he want me to be hospitable to them or not? And as far as just the church goes, again, imitating

Paul as he imitates Christ is a very good way to start. And then as you read the

New Testament, of course, all of these character traits just begin to pop. I mean, right there in verse eight, how many things does

Paul cover? And he says, think about these things. So just do it, just think about those, and the virtues will flow.

Because I think a true believer has that desire. That's an effect, right? And then some, they're just like, well, how do

I kind of make that practical in my life and know if I'm thinking about this the right way?

But that was really helpful. A lot of it comes back to prayer and asking the Lord to give you his mind, not your own.

When you have his mind, doing the things that Paul said becomes infinitely easier. In fact, it just happens.

And so I believe that is also very much a big part of it. Any other thoughts on any of that?

We have about 10 minutes left. Yes, ma 'am. I think what I was trying to think of this passage to is how different it is from the way in which a lot of people are just thinking positively.

Sure. And how when you think positively, there's this element of like trying to produce something good in your life.

You made an arrest. Yeah, I made an arrest. You made an arrest. But in here, you're actually talking about something else you can do down to the core of your character and producing virtue, and something that actually is sustainable and can be turned back by a negative thought.

100%. Think about the idea of being carried about by every wind of doctrine.

Well, that implies that you need an anchor, that you need to be grounded so that you don't fly around.

And there are many ways that the New Testament touches on what that grounding looks like. And to your point,

Colleen, I think this is a great example of that. It's not just the power of positive thinking.

It's a supernatural thing. And it has to be a supernatural thing because we can't in and of ourselves dwell on goodness as we live our lives.

There's so much stuff happening around us, so many negative influences, the enemy himself, the world, even our flesh.

You have seemingly an infinite number of barriers and enemies to influence us, sway our minds.

And so one of the things that can anchor us in order to avoid being thrown around in the wind is to, of course, be in communion with God by reading his word and through prayer.

And when we do, I mean, it really is as simple as that. And when we do that, we start, not only do we run into passages like the one in Philippians and even some of the things in our

Titus passage, we run into that. But we have a desire, to Matt's point, to live it out as an effect of our salvation.

And we know who to go to, to impart that supernatural ability, to think on only goodness.

It sounds like an impossibility in the 21st century, does it not? But it is possible. And so communion with God, going to him in prayer and reading his word, all of a sudden we know,

Lord, give us your mind. And then we can start, help us think about all that that is lovely, all that that is good and of good report, et cetera, et cetera.

And it goes so far beyond the quote unquote power of positive thinking, the way the world thinks of it, that it makes any idea of positive thinking, positivity, manifesting positive, whatever it may be, seem like child's play.

And that's putting it nicely. And so, like you said, they are virtues. It's not just a thing we're doing, a thing we're thinking about, but they are virtuous things that come back to our character.

And it's a wonderful thing. That's a great thought, Colleen. Thank you for that. Let's see here, we have about six minutes left.

We may be able to finish this verse today and move on to verse nine next week. So look at verse eight one more time.

A lover of hospitality, a lover of good men. We've covered that, but there's a few other things here. Sober, just, holy, temperate.

These are virtues, positive virtues that the man of God, the pastor, that the elder must have.

Sober, the word sober there is a direct reference to being in control of the mind, if you look at the

Greek term. You know, we've heard the term sober -mindedness, that is another common translation that the

KJV translators would use for the same word. Sober -mindedness, and maybe in more modern language we would refer to it as being sensible.

Having control of your senses, having control over your mind, having self -control in these areas.

It's essentially another form of wisdom. Knowing how important it is to, of course, take every thought captive, and to be thinking about what you're thinking about, as dad and brother

Otis would say often. That is what it means to be sober in this context, to be sober -minded.

Take your thoughts captive, be in control of them. Don't let them just start going crazy all over the place, lest you start thinking about bad things, or things you shouldn't be thinking about, things that aren't even reality, whatever it may be.

And so it's a form of wisdom for the elder to be sober, to have this ability to be sober -minded, being a wise person.

And obviously it's necessary for the pastor. Now look at the term just for a second.

The term just, it's translated just, it's a reference to righteousness. So you could just as easily put the word righteousness there, or righteous.

Living out a lifestyle that is inseparable from a God -pleasing, righteous character.

So again, this comes right back to the character of the man in question, the elder, the potential elder.

A God -pleasing, righteous character. Now how do we define righteous? And we alluded to this earlier, I kind of jumped the gun.

But how do we define righteous? How can Paul say that this man needs to be just, or righteous?

Now as it's defined biblically, it means that one that obeys the Lord. And that is a pretty, that's a pretty good summary of how we could define biblical righteousness as far as the way we live out our lives and things like that.

One that obeys the Lord and all of his commands, all of his imperatives, all of his words.

Obedience in the Lord brings righteousness in the life of the pastor. And then in Paul's somewhat typical form of being redundant, emphasizing something through being redundant, he does this often.

Of course, rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice, it's a great example. But he does it here throughout these verses in Titus.

And he uses a different word to bring our attention right back to the idea of these men, these elders being blameless or above reproach.

Remember in verse six, he says, if any be blameless. And then he goes on to say some stuff. And then at the beginning of verse seven, he says, a bishop must be blameless, must.

And then here in verse eight, so you have three verses in a row where he's hitting on the same idea.

In every area of his life, no matter where you look, his life is exemplary.

And there's not any stain of sin there. That's what he means when he says holy. So he uses the word holy in verse eight, which is a strong word.

He says blameless twice. And then he says holy in verse eight. There's not a stain of sin on the life of these particular men in question.

There's no sign of habitual sin patterns that would hurt the testimony of him or of the church.

Now let's remember one more time. This was probably the fourth time I've mentioned this, but it's worth repeating.

Paul isn't talking about sinless perfection here. He uses these terms holy and blameless above reproach, but we know that he's not talking about sinless perfection because he is the very one that reminds us in very vivid terms in Romans chapter three that none is righteous, no, not one.

So is Paul contradicting himself? Of course he's not. What he's talking about is that obviously number one, no one is free from sin, but sin that is committed and then confessed by the man that committed the sin and then dealt with, that does not turn into a scandal for that man or that church usually.

Now I say usually because a man could technically in a position of being a pastor commit adultery like some examples we know recently, and he could confess that immediately, but that is a pretty bad one.

And so he would then be disqualified. But in the large majority of mess ups that any given person will have, first John 1, nine is the key.

That is what Paul is talking about. A holy set apart, separated man in the office of elder that is blameless and above reproach is one that when he messes up, it hurts him so bad that he goes to the

Lord in confession. He agrees with him that it's wrong. It is then blotted out at least in linear time and space because you know, just happened.

And then he moves on and he's right with the Lord again. But there's no habitual sin patterns.

He's not a gossip. He's not going around causing conflict in town to somehow infuse his own authority into the picture.

He's not self -willed. He's not arrogant about things that aren't even biblical like we talked about last week.

He's not an alcoholic. He's not just constantly angry at everyone all the time. Those would be habitual sin habits that would be a disqualifying factor for a man in this office.

And so Paul is making sure that Titus knows do not let a guy like that become an elder.

Do not appoint a guy like that. And you may even think even by this standard, it still seems like such a high standard.

But as I've said before, it's only by God's grace and mercy and in the power of the spirit as well that called men of God can live in the manner in which

Paul is talking about here. And so a close relationship with the

Lord obviously is the key. And in doing so, they can be above reproach. They can be holy in the sense that they are set apart.

They are just, they are righteous, all of these things. And then of course, the last term is temperate.

The last term right there in verse eight is temperate. And this is basically another, earlier when we looked at sober, it's the idea of having self -control over the mind.

And then temperate is self -control with everything else. It's more broad, more all -encompassing.

Having self -control, being temperate. And of course, if you look at Galatians 5, 23, just it's one of the, you could just jot this down.

It's one of the fruits of the spirit. So to have self -control over the body, over the mind, to be temperate is a gift.

It is a fruit of the spirit. Someone that has control over their life is someone that is temperate, someone that has self -control.

It's a commitment to godliness within themselves, giving him a drive, giving the pastor a drive to control his life and steer toward that holiness that Paul talked about in the previous term.

So that's verse eight. We'll leave it there for today. I think we have about 90 seconds. If anyone has any other thoughts they'd like to share, and then we'll close in prayer.

Any other thoughts? Yes, sir. I liked what you said about the word holy reminds me where you used virtue on a diet.

It reminds me of the Old Testament priests who they were considered holy, but they were sinners, but they offered sacrifices every day for themselves and the congregation, and that was

God's will, and that's how they became qualified to continue. And that is a picture or a type of first John on a diet.

That's for us. We don't have to offer anything, but Jesus died once. As believer priests, what is our incense that we offer up to the

Lord? Yeah, I mean, prayers, yeah. Yes. Even a long period of spiritual sacrifice is good.

Yeah. To Dad's point, the Old Testament priests were a type of the prayers of the saints in the

New Testament age, in the age of grace. When we offer up our prayer, we are believer priests according to Peter.

Every Christian, there's not an office of priests. We're all, there's a priesthood of believers. There's all of us.

And when we pray to the Lord, it is like offering up that sweet savor, that sweet -smelling savor, the incense, if you will, the spiritual sacrifices.

And so that is how we become holy in like manner. They covered their sins and the sacrifices in obedience to God.

We confess our sins in obedience to God, and they are covered. It's beautiful how it all works together.

Yes, sir. Oh. Temperate is two little words. Damage means dead. Kratos, which means vigor.

Vigor. Interesting. A different context, vigor. But it means a man who is vigorously studying the

Word, vigorously preaching the Word, vigorously. That's amazing. Being hostile. It's like he goes at all of it with zeal.

He's not just. In wit, that was the last word? He's not complacent. Temperate? Temperate.

Isn't that funny? Because the one above it means what we think temperate. Right. And then, like, don't be drunk, be sober.

The sober, yeah. Yeah, and be, you know, don't. Sober has a lot of meanings, too, that you covered, but I thought that was interesting, and the root words of that is to be like easy.

If he were an athlete, he'd be, he would start on the team, right? He's not gonna sit on the bench. If he were a musician, he would practice enough to where when he plays, you're going from, you feel like, like our singers here do.

They practice enough where you go, wow, it's not just something done, but it's excellent.

Well, a preacher should be that way. And so many churches are in trouble because the pastor can't preach his way out of a wedding.

He takes that. He just, like, he doesn't have it. For whatever reason, he's, a lot of it,

I think, is laziness. Mm -hmm. You just wanna pull something out of your file cabinet and preach it all.

Sure. I grew up with a preacher like that. It made me not wanna go to church.

Another problem is I wasn't saved yet. Yeah. There's nothing that's my problem.

Yeah. Ash, did you have a thought real quick before I close in prayer? Did you raise your hand a minute ago? Me? Yeah.

Yeah. I don't remember. Oh, okay. Well, you can tell me later if you remember.

Sorry. Let me dismiss really quick. Heavenly Father, thank you for this wonderful day. Thank you for this lesson, allowing us to have this opportunity to come together and study your word.

We are so thankful for it. We ask you to continue to bless the remainder of our services today and just bless our time together in fellowship and in love and communion.