Good Works Adorn the Doctrine of God

Titus 2 and the Call to Adorn Sound Doctrine

Well, I'd ask you to turn to Titus chapter 2. Titus chapter 2 can be found on page 998 of the Pew Bible in front of you. The sermon today will be particularly on the last phrase of verse 10, but I will go ahead and read the whole chapter in preparation for the preaching.

When you have that, please stand for the reading of God's Word. But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness.

Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in behavior, not slanders or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the Word of God may not be reviled.

Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. So show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.

Bond servants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything. They are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works.

Declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

Amen.

You may be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank You today for Your Word. We thank You for this instruction which Paul gave to Titus, which is instruction for us as well. We ask that we would follow these instructions in order that the Word of God would not be reviled, in order that opponents would have nothing evil to say, in order that Your doctrine would be properly adorned.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

The Gospel of God and the Need for Proper Adornment

Well, we do have a beautiful doctrine here. We have the excellent Word of God, all of it being summarized and found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a wonderful doctrine. It is a wonderful gospel.

But frequently, this gospel is maligned because those who claim that gospel as their own do not properly adorn it with good works, and instead the Word of God is reviled. Perhaps you've heard this, especially of those churches which would have the most excellent doctrine.

Sometimes the churches that may appear to have the most excellent doctrine have some of the least good works. And so frequently, that gospel, that good doctrine will be maligned because of the lack of proper adornment.

We are a church that has excellent doctrine. We are a church that has an excellent gospel. Not only is the gospel itself excellent, but here in this church, we have it in greater detail than most people, even among other churches, typically enjoy.

There is much of the detail of it that is presented to you on a weekly basis. And I say this with no particular pride in myself, but boasting in what God has done in this congregation and giving you such doctrine.

Many churches have a ten-point statement of faith that is the lowest common denominator of beliefs that a Christian must have. Here at this church, we uphold a historic confession which has excellent doctrine that is more full-bodied and complete.

That requires a certain kind of adornment in order that it not be reviled. If the gospel is to be put forward in all its glory and not some minimal portion of it, then it must be adorned properly in completeness in order that it not be reviled.

It is important that you understand this today. Being here in a church that has excellent doctrine, serving a God who has given you excellent doctrine, He has called you to adorn these things with good works.

And so Paul instructs Titus here, Titus being an elder of a church, Paul instructing him in order that he would teach those saints in his church rightly to adorn the doctrine of God properly. Today, we find ourselves in no different situation than Titus and his church found themselves.

In.

We are surrounded by a world that is looking for every opportunity to malign the doctrine of God. And so we must, like this church in the first century, uphold that doctrine by adorning it with good works.

You see in this passage that Paul addresses several kinds of people. He addresses older men. He addresses younger men. He addresses older women. He addresses younger women. He addresses Titus as a teacher.

He addresses servants. And each of them have their particular tasks. Teachers are supposed to be a model of good works. Older women are to teach younger women how to serve their husbands. Young men are supposed to be self-controlled.

Each has their particular tasks that they must do in order to appropriately go about their stage of life, their station in this world. But all of these things can all be summarized under the heading of good works, of sincere obedience to the Lord.

This is not just those great outward things. It is thought, word, and deed properly aligning with the law of the Lord that we sincerely obey Him. You see here in the very first verse, he speaks of teaching what accords with sound doctrine and what is that?

That is what is good. It says that the older women are to teach what is good to the younger women in verse 3. And then it says in verse 7 that Titus is to be a model of good works. Later on in verse 14, Paul pulls all this together and says that Christ has given Himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works.

All of these different things that He offers as instruction to each of these different stations of life are all summarized under the heading of good works. So He calls us to good works. But there are some of these commands which are particular good works for particular stations in life, and there are some that are broad.

Now consider some of these that are particular. Older women are to be training younger women. That is something particular to older women. The younger women are to be working at home. That is something particular to the younger women.

Titus, being one who teaches when he's instructed to teach, this is something that's particular to him as a teacher. When the servants are told to be submissive, this is a particular task to them as servants.

Yet some of the other commands that are given are given to a particular group or particular station in life but apply to all. When it tells one particular group to be self-controlled, that may indicate that there would be a special temptation of that group to not be self-controlled, but that does not mean that it would not be a command that applies to all these groups, to all these stations.

All are to be self-controlled. All are to be sober-minded. All are to be dignified. Likewise, it is the case that it is not just for the servant when it says that he should not be pilfering but show all good faith so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

All of us are called to adorn the doctrine of God our Savior, and we can see that because this has been a command, this has been a motivation that has been repeated throughout this passage. When Titus was commanded to be a model of good works, why is it that he is to be a model of good works?

So that an opponent may be put to shame having nothing evil to say about us, so that there can be nothing that would malign the doctrine of God. Likewise, why is it that older women are to be training younger women?

So that the Word of God may not be reviled. In each of these cases, he is concerned about the Word of God, the doctrine of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ not being reviled. All stations of life are called to good works in order that the doctrine of God may be properly adorned.

So though that phrase is used particularly for servants, particularly for bond servants who would have masters, it applies to all Christians to every stage of life. What is this doctrine of God? Perhaps when you hear that phrase, you think of doctrine that comes from God, in which case it would be all different kinds of theology.

Theology being a special revelation that God has given us, things that we should believe that come from Him, especially in His Word. Maybe you think of doctrine specifically about God. That's known as theology proper because it is words about God, theos, in particular.

So maybe you think the doctrine of God is doctrine about God, that He is one, that He is Trinity. What this primarily has in mind is the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can tell that by what it says. That they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

In mind when He speaks of God, He specifically speaks of God as Savior, as the one who has saved us. What is in mind? The gospel. And as He says in the next verse,. So what has appeared and what transforms us?

It is the grace of God. How has it appeared? It has appeared particularly in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so when He speaks of the doctrine of God, He is in particular mind the gospel of Jesus Christ, that that must be properly adorned.

Now, though He has in mind the gospel of Jesus Christ, that is not to the exclusion of other truths that God gives in His Word. All of our doctrine must be properly adorned because all of it finds its fulfillment in the gospel.

Paul says in Acts, he spoke to the Ephesian elders and he said that blood would not be on his hands because he did not shrink away from teaching the whole counsel of God, that would be all the different doctrines of God.

And what does he say in 1 Corinthians 2? That he knew nothing among them but Christ and Him crucified. In other words, all the doctrines of God can be summarized in Christ and Him crucified. So you ought not think of the gospel as one doctrine that must be upheld among many, but rather something that summarizes and is the fulfillment of all the doctrine that God has given.

So what we need to adorn is in particular the gospel of Jesus Christ and every word that He has given us that reinforces, that finds fulfillment in that gospel. There are several truths that we must fully embrace, that must become intuitive to us as we look at this passage.

Doctrine Evaluated by Its Effects

First is that doctrine will be evaluated by its effects. Doctrine will be evaluated by its effects. This is generally how people work, and you're familiar with this, that people evaluate a religion, people evaluate doctrines, things that you believe, by the effects of those.

Things.

Now, in some ways, this is just because of the carnality of man, that because of his flesh, he operates by his senses, he operates by empiricism where he's gathering data and collecting things and looking at evidences rather than considering the more serious underlying.

Truths.

Now, something is true regardless of what particular utility it has. Truth is true regardless of the effects that it may have, of the utility it may have. Just to give you one example, perhaps if you've ever studied mathematics, you're familiar with what happens when you take the square root of a negative number.

You get what's known as an imaginary number. Now, does anyone know where that word came from? Descartes, the famous mathematician and philosopher, coined the term imaginary number in a derogatory way to say that this notion, taking the square root of a negative number, is just a fictitious idea that is not even true, ought not to be studied.

It doesn't really have any purpose in mathematics. It was not until 200 years after this discovery of imaginary numbers that people began to find more uses for these things and embrace it as real. And today, in things like electrical engineering, it's one of the fundamental concepts, and you wouldn't even have Silicon Valley if you did not have imaginary numbers.

So truth is true regardless of whether or not you can see the effects of that truth, regardless of whether or not you observe that in the rest of reality.

It's just true.

However, so some of this is due to the carnality of man that he would observe things this way. In some senses, this is a very reasonable way about going about evaluating doctrine. Even Jesus Christ himself says that you would know them by their fruits, that fruit is the way that you would evaluate what someone believes.

Now, why is that? The first is that if a belief constitutes an ethical system, a system of morality, that it would necessarily need to have some kind of effect. Okay, if you have certain kinds of beliefs, they won't really change you, but beliefs about what is right or wrong should change the way that you behave because that rightness or wrongness, if you really believe it, you would act according to it.

And so in this sense, it is reasonable to judge doctrine by its effects because in the subjective experience of the one who believes a true doctrine about what is right and wrong, it will change the way that they act.

It will change the things that they do. If they say something is good, they will do that thing. If they think that something, some objective is good, they will pursue that good thing. So think about the gospel.

If you believe in God's grace, if you believe that you have been forgiven of great sins, then naturally you would be forgiving of others. This is what Jesus himself explains in the parable of the unforgiving servant, that it's very unnatural for someone who has been forgiven much to not be willing to forgive small things.

If you believe that you have been forgiven, it will change you to love forgiveness and to want to forgive others. If you believe that you have been set free from the penalty of sin and the fear of death, you no longer need to live life going about with your primary goal being self-preservation.

Instead, you are free to live for the Lord. You are free to live for others and to act in a selfless way. If you really believe that that is true, you would engage in more selflessness rather than selfishness.

If you believe that the Lord has set you free from the penalty of sin, which is death, you would change the way you act to be more selfless. These things are the natural effect of believing the gospel of God.

There's what is known sometimes in argumentation, a virtuous ad hominem. If you're familiar with an ad hominem argument, an ad hominem argument is something where you would attack, rather than a person's position, his character.

So let's say there was a presidential debate about a particular political position. Say it has something to do with health care or it has something to do with the military. And someone said, you know, this person, what the one opponent tells the other, this person grew up in a small town in Nebraska.

What can he possibly know about these matters? And so rather than addressing the actual position and the merits or the fault thereof, it addresses the person who is making the arguments. This is called an ad hominem fallacy because it has nothing to do with whether or not this thing is true.

But there is a virtuous ad hominem, and that is where you would point out the character of the person because it shows that he does not really believe the things that he is saying. For example, atheists will often tell you that there is no right and wrong.

Because they believe in no God, they often believe in no kind of thing that would transcend the natural world. You cannot believe in morality. You cannot believe in right and wrong if all you believe is just, there's just nature.

And they say it's all relative. But they would be very offended if you ever wronged them. And there is a sense within them that says that that is absolutely wrong. It doesn't matter what anyone else says.

If you wronged me, that is just absolutely wrong. And so here the atheist lives inconsistently with his own beliefs, claiming that he doesn't believe there is morality. But then living as though there is.

The same is true of a Christian who claims that God is watching, but then lives as though he is not. That claims that there is an excellent gospel that has freed them from the fear of death, but then living in the fear of death, selfishly for themselves, pulfering as a servant described here, not adorning the gospel with good works.

The second reason is objective rather than subjective, right? If someone believes something about what is good and what is bad, that will change the things that they value. They will act according to that goodness.

They will act against any kind of bad that they believe exists in the world. But objectively, the gospel is a message of transformation. Our claim is not merely that there is a system of ethics that we should follow, where some things are good and some things are bad.

Rather, the claim of the gospel is that Jesus Christ, by His death, burial, and resurrection, has sent His Spirit to transform people into being those who are more conformed to His image, to being selfless people who do not live for themselves, but rather live for the and perform good works because He has redeemed us from all lawlessness to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who are zealous for good works, as it says in verse 14.

So the other reason why this is reasonable is not just because someone who believes things are good or bad will change the way he acts, but because the nature of the message itself is one that is supposed to be transformative.

If you have believed it, you are supposed to have been changed not just because you would change yourself naturally, but because God would change you by His Spirit. If someone claimed that their diet or their exercise plan was just the best exercise plan, but they were obese, 300-pound man, you would not believe a word they are saying.

You would just dismiss it out of hand. Because if they're claiming that my plan for you is transformative, it will transform you, and it hasn't transformed them, why should you believe it? Same is true with the gospel.

We are claiming that God has transformed us by His Spirit. We must be transformed if it is to be taken seriously. It's still true regardless of what anyone claims, but it is properly adorned when we are actually transformed by the message that we claim to be transforming.

Now, it is somewhat surprising that God would choose this to be the case, that His doctrine would be evaluated by its effects in us. But He has not chosen it to be that way because we are reliable. Rather, He has chosen it to be that way because His Spirit is reliable, and His Spirit does work in people so that they will be transformed and will evidence His goodness in them.

Beauty, External Adornment, and the Wrong Kinds of Religion

Next thing you must realize, it embraces intuitive, is that doctrine is made beautiful by good works. Doctrine is made beautiful by good works. Now, there is an inherent beauty that exists in things without adornment.

There's inherent beauty in doctrine without being adorned. But what adornment does is it highlights the inherent beauty of a thing, right? If a woman wears jewelry, the purpose of the jewelry is not primarily to draw attention to itself, but to draw attention to the woman and her own inherent beauty, highlighting it.

Same is true with good works. They're not to draw attention to themselves so much as they are to draw attention to the gospel that we affirm, to the doctrine that we believe, highlighting it as good. Now, as I said, it is beautiful apart from this.

Perhaps you're familiar with the final line of that poem by John Keats, truth is beauty, beauty truth, right? People know this. The truth is beautiful, but if it is not properly adorned, its beauty will not be highlighted the way it ought, and it will be missed.

Its beauty will be missed because it is not highlighted appropriately. Now, if you consider the way this plays out in a lot of different religions, a lot of different religions try, attempt to adorn their doctrine with beauty, but the way they do it is primarily in external, sensual ways.

By sensual, I mean appealing to the senses, right? So if you go into some kind of Eastern temple, there'll be a lot of gold, a lot of bright colors, a lot of smells. If you go into an Eastern Orthodox church or a Roman Catholic church, this is primarily the way they try to highlight the beauty of the doctrine is by those things that are visible, those things that are tangible, things you can smell and touch.

But these are not the way that God has chosen to adorn this doctrine. You see this even in some, quote-unquote, Christian traditions that are far from the truth, like the Amish. You know, I once went to a…I once toured an Amish home with a bunch of other pastors, and one thing that kind of disturbed me was that some of the other pastors and their wives kept commenting on just how beautiful everything was, and how quaint it was, and just how wonderful.

And I'm sitting there thinking, this is deceptive. It is the…yes, there's a sense in which there is an outward aesthetic here, but do you not see the rotten core at the heart of this system? These people do not believe in the gospel.

These people think they're made right with God by their own actions and not by Jesus Christ. They don't believe in the grace of God that has appeared bringing salvation for all people, properly renouncing ungodliness and worldliness, as it describes here in this passage.

And so those outward markings of beauty are not the proper adornment that God has asked us for. Rather, the proper adornment for our doctrine is good works. You look around here, this is not a particularly visual or stupendous place.

It's not…we don't go out of our way to make it ugly, but it is not particularly beautiful. It is not somewhere that is full of all kinds of gold. It's not somewhere that is full of candles or any kind of thing that would that would really light up your senses.

Instead, it is a place where the doctrine ought to be adorned by good works. There are things that are appropriate to adorn something and things that will attempt to draw, to highlight beauty that rather detract and degrade the beauty of something.

Consider how this works. A woman is made more beautiful by a dress, right? That highlights her beauty. It highlights her inherent beauty. A dress would not make a man more beautiful. Now, some people, some men do wear dresses to try to make themselves more beautiful, but it actually degrades and it detracts from any real beauty they do have.

Same is true with something like paint. Paint might highlight the beauty of a house. It would not highlight the beauty of a diamond. Rather, it would detract from the beauty of a diamond. Same is true when you dress up the doctrine of God in sensual things that He has not appointed to adorn His doctrine.

He hasn't appointed the different kinds of outward things that people might be attracted to. Rather, He has appointed good works to be the thing that adorn the doctrine. Now, this does not mean that there won't be some people who are deceived.

Clearly, many people are deceived by Eastern religions, by Roman Catholicism, by something like the Amish, to think that to find those things more beautiful. So, the point here in this passage isn't that we should just be doing what other people find beautiful, it's that God has a sense of beauty that we should be adopting and that we should be highlighting, adorning it properly.

Some say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but there is a beholder that is higher than all the others, okay? God is the ultimate beholder that we must satisfy. It is His way of adornment that we must follow after.

And as you are going about examining religions, people can be deceived by these things. Just like, you know, a woman might try to deceive men by caking on as much makeup as she can to hide her imperfections, right?

But it's very, very foolish to have that, to be deceived by that sort of behavior. The same is true with religion. But ours is one that is to be adorned with the good works. As Paul says to Titus in verse 1,.

But as for you, teach with accords with sound doctrine. What accords with sound doctrine? All the things he's about to explain. It's good works. Good works.

Okay.

Evil Works Make Doctrine Ugly

Next and last, Doctrine is made uglier by evil works or by a lack of good works. Now, when I say made uglier, once again, truth is beautiful. You cannot change the inherent beauty of God's truth. But in as far as that beauty ought to be appropriately highlighted, you can make that beauty uglier by detracting from it with evil works or a lack of good works.

Many people are repulsed by the Christian religion because of people who claim the name of Christ and do evil works. Maybe you know people who will not even tolerate talking about Christianity because of some of the things that they have seen Christians do.

Maybe you even know people within the Christian faith who will not talk about some of the finer points of the Christian faith, especially as they regard salvation, something like election, because of some experience they've had with someone else who believes that doctrine.

I know multiple people like that. You, if you've embraced something like the doctrine of election for some time, probably know some people like that too, where because of a personal experience they had around this, they will not hear it out because it has not been properly adorned for them.

Now, that does not excuse the rejection, but it is simply an observation that this is the way people tend to evaluate truth, is by the effects of it. So we have in verse 5, is important that women be submissive to their own husbands, that the Word of God may not be reviled.

Apart from good works, the Word of God will frequently be reviled. Something that is not adorned properly will not look beautiful, right? If you make your clothes all muddy and dirty, okay, you would not look as good as you look right now on a Sunday morning.

This is simply how God has ordained the perceived beauty of His doctrine to work. Now, think about the different accusations that people would make against the Word of God and revile it, the ways that it has been made ugly.

Some of the frequent accusations that would be made at that time, for example, the accusations made by pagans, is that Christians are irreverent and proud because they do not worship God. They do not worship all the gods.

So that is how they would imagine Christians to be. Now, if they saw a Christian who is proud, they are biased to confirm their own initial hypothesis, their own suppositions. They would have that confirmation bias as they examine that.

And much harder is it to convince them other than their suspicion. They would need to see quite a preponderance of evidence before they begin to see that this doctrine is actually good, is actually true.

They see a lot of Christians who are not proud, who are not irreverent. Similarly, you have the accusations that existed from the Jews at the time. These are people who despise the law of Moses, that are just lawless, who don't care about law.

Now, yeah, if there's no good works, that would very much confirm the suspicions of the Jews, that these are licentious people who are just tossing off the doctrine of God, who are just tossing off all of His law.

But if they see that Christians are obeying the truth, there would be no occasion for slander in this way. It may still slander, but there wouldn't be a proper occasion for it. It would not—there would be no justification.

Now, think about the different kinds of accusations that Christians get in our own era. Well, Christians are self-righteous. They're self-righteous. And all you have to do is meet one or two Christians who are self-righteous, or people who claim the name of Christ and are self-righteous, to feel very confirmed in that.

And that makes the doctrine of God ugly. But they see many Christians who are not self-righteous, but rather who are humble, recognizing that they are wretches apart from Christ. Then that is an excellent—that takes away all occasion for slander.

People say that Christians are judgmental. All they need to do is encounter several Christians who are judgmental, and it seems like the hypothesis is confirmed, that their suspicions are all confirmed.

A lot of people might say that Christians are weak. Christianity is a weak religion. All that selflessness about it just makes someone lack all kinds of courage and bravery. And many who claim the name of Christ do lack courage and bravery.

But those who would uphold it keep the doctrine beautiful, as opposed to distracting from it, making it uglier. And then, as I mentioned before, this is especially the case as you hold to a more full-bodied doctrine of salvation.

This is particularly about the gospel. And you would believe the gospel in all its detail, including the doctrine of election, that it is God who has chosen us and saved us, rather than us being the initial choosers of ourselves.

What are all the accusations that people get? Well, election makes people proud. They're the chosen ones. Well, if you go around proud, that makes the doctrine of election look very ugly. Other people say that those who believe in the doctrine of election don't evangelize, because why bother evangelizing if someone's already chosen?

Your actions aren't going to change anything. Well, if they see Christians who are not evangelizing, who believe in the doctrine of election, this will confirm their suspicions. It makes the doctrine look ugly.

They may say, oh, well, if you believe that you're elect and you cannot lose your salvation, if you have that kind of assurance about salvation, I will lead you to all kinds of looseness and just living however you want.

If they see people without good works, then certainly that makes the doctrine ugly. This is just an ugly doctrine. And some will say that it makes people prayerless. Why bother praying for things if God has already ordained everything that's going to happen?

If they see someone who believes in election who is prayerless, it confirms their suspicion. Now, there's a reason that those who believe in election, as it's called Calvinism, are often called the frozen chosen, right?

It's because people think that if you believe these kinds of doctrines, it does not transform you in a good way to be full of love and good works. Rather, it shuts you down and makes you into a haggard old mean man who's not willing to love others the way he ought.

Whether it be the gospel of God in the broadest sense or even in the narrow specifics that we uphold as true, you must adorn the doctrine of God. It will give the enemy occasion for slander if you do not.

Its true beauty is detracted from, degraded, made to look ugly apart from that. Something also with the notion of adornment and beauty versus ugliness, it has a lot to do with courage that you should understand here.

If you ever had an occasion where you were supposed to show up to, maybe it was some kind of party, maybe it was some kind of formal thing where you had a uniform, but being well-dressed made you confident.

Maybe you had new clothes and that just made you really confident. I look good. I can go into this with a lot of confidence. That is what it is like to adorn the doctrine of God with good works. Now, you should never be ashamed of the doctrine of God, but it is very natural that if you have not properly adorned the doctrine of God, you will not be confident and courageous about it as you go into different situations.

One of the things that keeps people from being bold about the gospel is their own lack of good works. If you're interacting with co-workers and you have a reputation for not being a good co-worker, what kind of testimony is it if you tell them about the gospel?

Oh, this person who's not a good co-worker says he's been transformed by this thing. I don't want anything to do with that. You know, same thing with that diet I just mentioned. That diet did this for you.

That's not what I want. But you will have courage if you have appropriately adorned the doctrine. The Bible speaks of adornment and clothing this way on a number of occasions, but there's one verse in particular that I want to pull out for you.

Listen to what it says about the woman in Proverbs 31. Proverbs 31 25, Strength and dignity are her clothing and she laughs at the time to come. Why is it that she laughs at the time to come? Why is it that she is so confident?

Because strength and dignity are her clothing. She is properly adorned and so she is confident. When the gospel is properly adorned, when your doctrine is properly adorned with good works, you will be confident.

When you have not adorned your doctrine with good works, you will lack confidence. You will lack boldness. Your courage will be eroded until you have none and you are a weak and cowardly. Adorn the doctrine with good works in order that there would be nothing inhibiting your courage.

As I said, there's no excuse for being ashamed of the gospel of God, but it is only natural that if you have not properly adorned it, you will be. You will be ashamed if it is not properly adorned. So considering the ways that you ought to take this truth to heart, that doctrine will be evaluated by its effects, that you can make it more beautiful by good works, that you can detract from its beauty, make it look ugly by your evil works, what should you do?

Practical Exhortations for Believers Under Authority

First, before thinking about how you should actually act, it is important to soberly consider the effects of good doctrine. Do not be the kind of person who is so focused on adornment that you would not consider the inherent beauty of the thing itself.

Maybe you are discussing with another Christian friend truth in the Word. Do stay focused on the truth of the Word. It is only natural that you would be persuaded by this person's life and the effects of that thing.

That is appropriate to some degree, but do not be deceived that this person simply has not adorned his doctrine appropriately. And do not be deceived if he has the good effects that are coming from something else and thinking that that shows that this doctrine is true.

Be sober-minded about the way that you would judge things, not being carnally looking at adornment rather than the truth of the thing itself. That is the first caution. If you, you know, I mentioned a man, you know, considering a woman for marriage who would be deceived by a bunch of makeup and not, and allow that woman to deceive him that way, that would be very foolish.