Sunday, March 23, 2025 PM

Sorry to break up the bunch while everyone's so talkative. I hate to do that. But since we're already five minutes past, that gives me just my opportunity, my window for my 20 minutes anyway. So it's going to look like I went over, but I really didn't.

Thank you all. Thank you all.

Very, yeah.

Titus 2:1-10 and the Call to Sound Doctrine

OK, so we are still in Titus 2. As a recap, my block of text said that we decided a lot were verses 1 through 10. So Titus 2, verses 1 through 10, if we'll turn there. I'd like to start by rereading that block of text again tonight to begin with, because I didn't do it last time.

I think I read portions of text here and there and trying to revert back to chapter 1 and some of the things that were being talked about there. So we'll go ahead and read chapter 2, verses 1 through 10 to begin with.

But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine. That the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith and love and patience. The older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given too much wine, teachers of good things.

That they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.

Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober minded in all things, showing yourself to be a pattern of good works and doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility. Sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you.

Exhort bond servants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God, our savior in all things.

So where we left off last time was somewhere in between verses one through five, but we did talk about how the text is, specifically these principles that are given in teaching young men, young women, to the older men and to the older women, that they are protective in various ways.

And that, first of all, it's protective to the word and that the word of God may not be blasphemed. And we know that the word of God is being blasphemed because of what we've seen in chapters. Chapter one, with those whose mouths needs to be stopped.

So, finishing up chapters four and five and short summary being very much akin and like the previous instructions to Titus, that the older men and older women be taught, but this time it's the older men and older women teaching those younger men and younger women, something to be passed down.

Now, we are going with the trend of P's words that start with P being used here to describe this block of text. And I wanna put forward perpetual. When should this cycle of teaching end? Is there an end date that's given in the text?

I haven't found it. And it's supposed to happen over and over and over again, right, because those who are older are gonna be having younger males and females, younger men and women to teach and to eventually to teach their children as well.

So, this is something that's supposed to happen over and over and over again in every city on Crete, in every church, and all the elders are supposed to be over it. They're supposed to have authority to make sure that it's put in order.

It begins with Titus, but once Titus dies, someone else or many others on the Isle of Crete are supposed to be overseeing, right? They're overseers. They're supposed to oversee that this cycle continues, that the younger women are taught by the older women, the younger men are taught by the older men, and that the elders are not only doing their job, but the elders are, they're sought out and they are picked according to qualifications, very, very strict qualifications that are given in the text.

This seems like a strategy, if it's done perpetually, a strategy for conquering. It is a strategy that not just grabs one generation of followers to be overseers or ruling over the Isle of Crete in such a way for one generation, but every generation thereafter.

This is not something that is going to end until we have the return of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to reign as he is meant to reign. And he's reigning now, but in coming back in the flesh and finding all of the new creations on Crete.

And we talked about how successful this has been and how much of a blessing to us to see how successful this has been on the Isle of Crete. And they are statistics that we get that we don't know who is truly saved, who truly loves the Lord on Crete.

But as far as the cultural ramifications over a long and tumultuous history for this very, very small island out in the Mediterranean, who, for all intents and purposes, had a very bad culture to begin with, the cultural ramifications, the blessing that has come to the Isle of Crete has been over 2 ,000 years in the making, and it seems to have done a great bit of good.

We look to verses, let's look at verses four and five specifically, now that we've finished with a short recap there. That they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.

Now, we dealt with the word of God not being blasphemed a little bit last week, last time. I am gonna talk more about that since we are working up on my favorite bit of text, verses six through eight of this portion here.

Maybe, it's not my favorite in the whole book of Titus, but it is my favorite in what we're dealing with here. So, the older women admonishing or exhorting the younger women. We talked about, or I say we, Pastor Michael dealt with the word pericaleo this morning, and this actually shows up multiple times in the text of Titus, exhorting the young men, exhorting the younger women, exhorting slaves, bondservants, same word used over and over, pericaleo, pericaleo, being used as an encouragement towards something.

And we don't use exhort in modern parlance very often,.

Do we?

Exhort him or her to do something. It sounds like we're almost, it sounds a little more forceful to our English ears, right? But encouragement to us sounds far more kind and far more personal and relational, as Michael pointed out this morning, personal and relational dealings with people, which is exactly what you're getting here on Crete.

Elders knowing their congregation, knowing the young men, knowing the young women, knowing what needs to be taught to specific people and what principles and how to apply them and where to apply them, when to apply them, with their congregations, with their very, very young Christians on the Isle of Crete.

So exhorting the younger women, admonishing the younger women, we see this structure of elders teaching older women and the older women are supposed to, for all intents and purposes, seek out the younger women, but also the young women need to be placing themselves under the younger women to learn and have this wisdom passed down to them.

There's a humility on both sides of this, and we're gonna be getting to this when we get to the, especially when we get to the text, verses six through eight, how humility is here throughout, but it really gets injected when we see how Titus has been given loads of responsibility on the Isle of Crete.

We're leaving one man, right? He's leaving one man to put in things in order across an entire Mediterranean island. And yes, it's a small island, but there's a lot of people there. There's still gonna be a lot of people there.

That's a lot of responsibility for one man to take and to put in order. And then he just throws in a massive amount of humility to Titus on how he's supposed to conduct himself as well, being an example for everyone else.

So there's humility on both sides. The older women have to have humility enough to take what they've been given by the elders and pass it down to the younger women. It does take humility to teach. It does take, you must, to put yourself under elders' authority and learn from them and then be kind and gracious and loving enough to say, this person that I see being intemperate, being given to too much wine, they have principles that I've been taught by the elders in church that I can go and discreetly give to them.

I may be able to teach them in ways that other women can't or their peers can't because they're wrapped up in it themselves. And this is the structure which the Lord has set in place here for us to follow.

So humility by putting myself in submission to my elders to go and carry this teaching out by their authority, but also by the word of God, the word of God's authority that says, there are young women here and they are your responsibility to teach.

It's very simple when we're reading the text through, but reminding ourselves of those simple facts, those very true presuppositions that we get as we read through the text are very important to remind ourselves of.

So being humble would cause an older woman to seek out these women, the younger women to be placed underneath their teaching. And this teaching includes principles like discretion, to keep quiet about things that may need to be shuttered in and not exposed to the world, to be chaste in their living.

So we might be dealing with, in one breath we say chaste and then homemakers, right? So chaste may be dealing with single or married women to live a chaste life. And then homemakers, single women can learn under their mothers, their grandmothers' tutelage or other people in the community if they've been orphaned.

That's one of the things that we see throughout church history is that the church adopts many people outside of just strict kin, strict family, strict bloodlines. This is a very good thing. And they may take in even young women who aren't necessarily young orphans, but they are those in need of learning basic homemaking skills, basic principled things.

When we see those women and men as well as not necessarily lone wolves, but out on their own, it's our job as older people in the faith, older men, older women to go seek them out and to bring them under our wing because this here is a part of our responsibility.

And when those homes are broken, especially on places like Crete during this time period, there's probably a lot of broken homes, a lot of brokenness. When you have a whole island filled with lies and enslavement to wine, there's not going to be order.

There's going to be disordered families. And to come and bring these women to teaching about ordering the household in very simple ways, things that we take for granted in our lives because many of us have been born into stable homes with mother and father and have teaching that seems very basic to us.

This is something that they were not given. But now Paul comes in and tells Titus, we're setting this in order as well. We're setting sound doctrine in order. These are the things that are going to be put forward first, but what comes with sound doctrine is the reclamation of sound households as well.

So we do have that as something to look forward to, as something to praise the Lord for in these directive listicle texts that we usually get to elders in places that Paul writes letters to. And sometimes it's, for me, I don't know about you guys, when we get the lists, it's easy to really run over some of these directives that are given, these principles that are given and say, oh, yes, of course, they need to be discrete chase, homemakers, good, obedient, and kind of take them all on a clump.

But when we consider individual situations where they might be most needed, they really can put on a lot of weight and a lot of subject matter that I'm sure better people, there are people who are better with the text than myself could make a whole year's worth of preaching and teaching out of this, right?

Like you can imagine how much application comes from very, very simple day-to-day directives and principles such as this. And we need to be very thankful for it as well. Now, at the bottom of that text four and five, we have an interesting addition, but I think is pretty obvious considering what we read in Titus one.

All these things are being taught that the word of God may not be blasphemed, okay? Now, it's going to bleed into verses six through eight here, which is a directive, which is given directly to Titus himself.

So we switch from a teaching that should be carried out by older women from verses four to five and into verse six. Now, he switches back to his subject being Titus.

So Titus,.

Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober minded in all things, showing yourself to be a pattern of good works and doctrine showing integrity, reverence and corruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you.

So the word of God may not be just blasphemed, your sound speech that cannot be condemned, and an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you. These three right here are very, very, I think they're linked in that his conduct, the conduct of the younger women, the conduct of the entire church on Crete is under a microscope.

There is an enemy that is prowling about on Crete, spreading lies, acting as evil beasts, teaching things which are not proper and their mouths must be shut. Mouths must be shut. I actually think these directives to Titus personally about his conduct, having sound speech, showing himself as a pattern of good works and having such a high standard for Titus is a part of his duty to shut the mouths of those evildoers on Crete.

So Michael, I'm glad he pointed it out that that's part of the elders task. These false teachers, they flab their mouths, but they need to be stopped. One of the ways that they're stopped or one of the ways that they are hemmed in is by Titus in all things showing himself to be a pattern of good works.

If we're doing good works, what can be said against good works? If we are, if we're not, if we are sounding our speech, if we have healthy speech, if we have constructive speech, if we have sound doctrine and we say as much, we speak it thus and we act on it, we cannot be condemned.

They can accuse, right? But they have no legal case against us. They have no righteous case or cause against those on Crete who are carrying out the Lord's work faithfully and in ways that are laid out here in verses one through 10.

And then they might be ashamed because they actually don't have anything to say. No evil things can they say of you if you continue to hold this high standard as Titus as an elder or elders on Crete. You've taken them out of a job, right?

Their whole pitch is that, or they're trying to pitch it as though, here, look at the followers of the way. They do all these other things. They say their Lord is righteous but yet their works are filthy rags.

Now, we know that their works are abominable, disobedient and they're disqualified for every good work. But if we are doing likewise as they are, if those on Crete are doing likewise, they actually have a case even though they're doing the exact same things, they can point out legally, yeah, you fall short as well, continually.

What good is your Lord if he has no earthly effect, no earthly good that he gives to you? But we know Titus and his admonitions and exhortations he's received from Paul, his focus is on sound doctrine.

His focus first, his first loyalty, his first allegiance is on the Lord and the Lord's work. We are not just thrown into this melee to try and produce good works of our own. No, we are to faithfully seek out the Lord in all things.

And as we do go about this teaching, as we see Titus is given to go out in this teaching, in faith and in what? In all things. So he may have, and this is why it's partially my favorite portion of the text is, there's not really an out for Titus or any of the elders.

You know, while you're in church, yeah, okay, you can practice these things. No, he's saying in all things is kind of a, it's a catch all for all of life on Crete. We're not just to be temperate and sober and reverent when we come to worship the Lord.

Because can pagans be hypocrites? I mean, is that a part of the system? They can be hypocrites outside of when that time that they are allowed to worship. When they come to the temple, then they can pay their due and then go off and live hypocritically.

For Christians, we are living stones. We are new creations. We are those who are indwelt by the spirit, which Paul talks about in chapter three, where he says, whom he poured out, okay, sorry, it's a scripture song that we sing at our house.

Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Savior.

We've had the spirit poured out on us. We have good works to look forward to. We have a new desire, a new will toward these things that are good, good teachings, such as we've been given above for older men and older women to follow.

But we talked about humility earlier. The older women, older men, younger men, younger women, there's a certain amount of humility that we have to take upon ourselves in order to carry out what the Lord has, which is very, very good for us here in verses one through 10 but to Titus specifically, his teaching comes out pretty forcefully and to me, the overarching theme is humility because in all things, he is to be the example on the Isle of Crete, be the example to the elders that he has sought out and chosen to put in order all these things in all places across the island.

Let's see.

And it's used, this phrase in all things is used three times in the text. So it kind of jumps out at us, right? We see that in all things or to the pure, all things are pure. We see in all things, showing yourself to be a pattern of good works.

And it's actually four times in the book, exhort bond servants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well-pleasing in all things, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity that they may adorn the doctrine of God, our Savior in all things.

This is a common phrase used in Christian circles these days, all of Christ for all of life. I think this is an example of that sort of teaching or subtly that sort of teaching without saying all of Christ for all of life.

This is though that teaching that being the new creation that you are, you are to conduct yourself as though you have ultimate and full allegiance to your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, whom he poured out the spirit upon you.

Now, let's see where I was at. Sorry, I took notes crazy this afternoon instead of actually getting a new piece of paper and reordering things as one should. I just wrote everything all over the place.

Okay, in verse six. Yes, I'd like to, not verse six, verse seven. In all things, showing yourself to be a pattern of good works and doctrine showing integrity, reverence, and corruptibility. Now, these three words are really, they're really close in meaning.

So it's interesting that we have three words, three separate words that are very close to meaning, but a theme repeated that Titus is supposed to have doctrine and good works, or no, sorry, doctrine that shows his incorruptibility, his integrity, and his reverence.

And a couple of these actually have definitions that work back and forth across with each other, like incorruptibility or integrity, can be used both of adiaphoria and symnotis, and aphylarsia, which is translated here in the New King James Version, I believe it, that's the one is reverence.

That also has some crossover with adiaphoria. Now, I've seen a lot of things repeated thrice in the text. When we see these things repeated two to three times in the text, usually three times because the Lord loves threes, those jump out at us as something being repeated for a very specific purpose that we need to take notice of.

And we have threefold anything, we're having something repeated to us because, not because we don't get it, but we really need to get it. We really need to say, okay, this is not just something that he's said once, but he said three times with three words in a short amount of time.

And we need to really take careful stock of what they mean and how we should apply them when we are either exegeting, teaching, praising, anything that has to deal with life and godliness and reproof.

We need to make sure that we are double-checking ourselves and double-checking our, testing ourselves and what we have gained and learned from the word. Testing ourselves against the word, sorry. We need to be testing ourselves against the word continuously.

And this is something that takes, again, large amounts of humility, large amounts of knowing our own creatureliness, knowing our own baseness as compared to the Lord. We know that he has created us as a special part of his creation, the pinnacle of his creation, but we also know how far separated, as David said, and for those of you who are here for David's study over Ecclesiastes' survey, one thing I got, I don't know what you guys got, but one thing I got was how far separated we are as creatures to the creator himself.

And in all cases throughout Ecclesiastes, because he actually recommended that book that he was kind of working through by Brian Borgman. That's what his survey was based on. And I've gotten it and I'm reading through it.

I'm about halfway through. And what I've noticed more and more and more as I go through the book and as I compare it to the book of Ecclesiastes is how far separated we are from the creator as his creatures.

So that causes us to be humble. That causes us to understand that when we come to the text, our reverence, our humility when we come to the text is very, very important. And not only just for what is proper, right, and good when we come to the text, but we also see that this is something that is, shall we say, used as a weapon against the enemy.

The reasons that Paul gives here to Titus is so that those who hate you and those who hate me can't say bad things about you and can't say bad things about me, right? It's interesting that when I come to the text, I'm thinking about how the Lord sees me handling the text or the Lord sees me handling how his word is applied in my life or how I try to teach others.

About his word.

And in the text here, it's saying one of the reasons also is to put to shame your enemies, put to shame your opponents and the opponents of the Lord. That may not, that's obviously not our first thought when we're coming to the text that we should have.

But it is something that should be actually a motivation for us that those who might have anything or any cause or no cause at all, but some form of animosity towards us, that we can put them to shame because the things that they may accuse us of or lie about just aren't true.

They just aren't factual. They just aren't true of who we are in the Lord. And I find that a very interesting motivation that we should actually use as knowing who our enemies are and conducting ourselves in a way that honors the Lord, but also for a purpose to shut their mouths.

So that is something I've pulled just actually today as I was reading it for how many ever times I've read it. And I just noticed that those three things, and I think Michael's teaching about their mouths must be stopped, being a part of the elder's task is what kind of led me there.

But it does seem to be an operating motivation for anyone who does have enemies, and we know we have enemies, and we are always going to have enemies because the Lord has enemies. But it's an interesting operating motivation for us as Christians to conduct ourselves in such ways, but also to lead in such ways.

I think the amount of shame and dishonor or damage that could be done, say if someone like Titus, the one man on the island who has been tasked with this sort of a job, what kind of damage that does, and how much that might set back such an operation like this to go and take the Isle of Crete for Christ, if the man tasked with overseeing the whole thing falls in one of these ways and allows the Lord's name to be blasphemed or allows himself to be dishonored in such a way that even the Gentiles may speak against him, that level of damage that's done there could be rather devastating, and not just in a strategic sort of way, but in a way that affects real people in a time and place.

And that's the type of damage I'm talking about, not just like the one strategic one across time, because we know the Lord, He will win. He does win. But when someone does fall, real people are affected in that real place.

So again, like I said, you guys put me over by five minutes and we'll stop here for the day. I do greatly appreciate this text, and I greatly appreciate what is said there to Titus specifically, how it's said and the reasons for him to carry himself in such a way so that people don't have anything evil to say about him.

I like to, or I can't really imagine how far and how helpful this was to Titus in such a time as this, dealing with Cretans.

First of all, the Cretans.

And then second of all, there's enemies on the Isle of Crete looking to dismantle everything that's being built up in the Cretans, in those people there. All being done here, how helpful all of this was to Titus in such a short, packed letter.

He had to have gone back to it time and time and time and time again, as it is scripture. But it is quite personal to him and how pastoral it is and how comforting it is to his soul to know that the Lord is going to do this work and he's going to do it for him and with him.

So, why don't we close by...