Book of Titus - Ch. 2, v. 3a

Well, good morning, everybody. We'll go ahead and get started. And it's been a little while, so if you all want to turn to Titus, we will do a quick breeze through some of the material we've already covered and pick up right where we left off last time.

Just take a quick look at Chapter 1 first. We've obviously covered it in pretty good detail, but I would like for you all to remember what is happening in the lead up to what we're about to get into in Chapter 2, because Chapter 2 is incredibly important.

We talked a little bit. Well, I'll say that in just a second, actually, because it'll be in some of our review, I believe. So starting in about verse 6 of Chapter 1,

Paul begins to go through the qualifications of pastors, of elders.

In verse 5, of course, he tells Titus that the purpose of this letter, the purpose of sending Titus here in the first place, was to ordain and appoint elders, just like Titus himself had been appointed.

So then Paul goes into the qualifications, the character traits that Paul already knows to look for in the elders, but wants

Titus to know how to look for as well. And so you start seeing things like blamelessness, being above reproach in verse 6, the husband of one wife, or perhaps even better translated, a one -woman man, a man that is faithful to his wife, having faithful children as well, trustworthy children, children that trust their parents, but that you can trust as well, that aren't accused of riot and unruly, that aren't out around town going absolutely bonkers.

It doesn't mean that the kids can't send from time to time, or that they won't send from time to time.

They certainly will. But that's not exactly what Paul is getting at here. The main thing he's getting at is, in general, you want faithful kids that aren't riot and unruly.

And kind of an implication within this verse, we talked about all this in detail in weeks past, but an implication there is, if the pastor does find one of his kids sinning, then it's not that he's disqualified.

It's, what does the pastor do about it at that particular point? We talked about a lot of hypotheticals a number of weeks ago when we were looking really closely at verses 6 and 7.

And so in verse 7, he continues, and he mentions bishop for the first time. It's a new term that he uses.

A bishop must be blameless. So this is the second time that he mentions the character of a pastor, of a bishop, an overseer, an elder.

They need to be blameless. As the steward of God, God has given them very valuable stewardship over a number of things.

And so they have to take care of it worthily. Not self -willed.

So someone that isn't so strong -willed, so dogmatic about their own opinions, that they actually ignore the text of God itself.

Of course, you can see examples of this all over the place, of pastors that care more about bringing the hammer down and bringing their people into conformity with their beliefs.

But oftentimes, their beliefs will go beyond the bounds of scripture itself, and then they won't actually end up bringing their people back to scripture.

So Paul warns against that. He says they can't be soon angry. So anger issues is not something that you want in a pastor, can have in a pastor.

Not given to wine, so not an alcoholic. Not a striker or a person that is contentious, that walks around looking for pointless debates left and right.

Not given to filthy lucre. So obviously, you don't want your pastor in it for the money, and usually, because of the fact that the margins are pretty low in pastoral ministry, usually you can start to see, you can get an idea of whether they're in it for the money, depending on how they are conducting their ministry.

And so if you have someone, if you have a guy that's in it for the money, then the ministry is gonna be totally out of whack.

Because if you are building a ministry based on the standards, based on the framework that we're given in the

New Testament, it's not going to be this moneymaker. And so, obviously, ignore those guys.

And then he gives us the positives of verse eight, and there's a reason why I'm rehashing all of this as we get into chapter two.

When you get into verse eight, he starts giving the opposite side of these negative character traits.

He starts giving the positive. He says they need to be a lover of hospitality. They need to be willing to host and welcome their people into their home frequently.

They need to be lovers of hospitality, lovers of good men. And if you look at the

Greek there, the main thing that it's honing in on is goodness in general. But obviously, a part of that will be men and women that are conducting themselves in a good fashion as well.

They're going to love that. They're gonna be gravitated toward that. They're going to commend that. They're gonna be sober.

They're gonna be under self -control. They're going to be just. They're gonna be holy. They're gonna be temperate.

And the temperance there has to do with, you know, everything from having self -control over the physical body, which, again, could be an allusion to alcoholism and things like that, as well as food, drink, all those types of things.

But self -control in general is kind of reemphasized there by Paul. And then in verse nine, holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able to, by sound doctrine, well, to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.

And so all of it comes back to holding fast the faithful word, staying within the bounds of scripture, letting that be your final word in everything.

And when you do that, when you hold fast to the faithful word, these pastors will be able to, through sound doctrine, do two things.

Number one, exhort their people. That's kind of the positive aspect of what they can do is they wield the weapon of the word.

They can exhort their people. They can uplift their people. They can teach their people. And in the same manner, they can turn around and, both by sound doctrine says to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.

They can rebuke. They can convict those that are in opposition to God's word all in one fell swoop.

Then he goes into talking, of course, about the people of Crete and the false teachers that these elders are up against and all these types of things.

And so then we get into chapter two. In chapter two, the very beginning of it, right after having given us the breakdown of the false teachers, the types of enemies that Titus will be dealing with is this very young man, this very young pastor, is he's out there looking for worthy guys that meet all of the qualifications we just rehashed a second ago.

As he's looking for them, he's going to, at the same time, have these false teachers that are up against him, up against his authority and, of course, up against the word of God that are looking to subvert whole houses.

That means literally turn houses upside down. They're going house to house trying to sway these new believers that are genuine in their faith but don't have any direction yet.

They're so new. They haven't been under the leadership of a good pastor, of a good

Bible teacher yet. And so they're kind of trying to figure things out. And then lo and behold, you have these Judaizers, as Paul tells us, that go in there and are trying to, again, subvert whole houses.

And so Titus has this massive battle before him that he has to be prepared for.

So right after Paul gives all of the, basically the list of all the terrible things these false teachers are doing, he says in verse one of chapter two, but you speak the things which become sound doctrine.

So in opposition to all of this mess that you're hearing from the enemies of God's word over here, you,

Titus, are going to speak sound doctrine, specifically things that become sound doctrine, things that will be lived out in the

Christian lives of these people that you are going to be shepherding. And so that brings us to chapter two.

And it's going to now show us, it shifts from talking about what the elders of a church should look like, what the pastors of a church should look like, and now discusses what the members of a church should look like.

When we were in chapter one and we were talking about those things in verse six, about the kids of an elder, we talked about it being the neglected qualification.

You know, we have that, you have the proverbial phrase, the preacher's kids, the pastor's kids, you know, everyone knows what that means.

It's the negative connotation. The pastor's kids are the ones out, you know, starting the raves, the parties, and all this kind of stuff.

And that's, you know, it's become like this kind of laughable thing, as if that's just the way it works now.

You know, the preacher's kids are going to be the kind of crazy kids, but you know, kind of ironic, but kind of funny at the same time, that sort of thing.

Well, one of the reasons why that is the case is because in the American church today, in the

West at large, you have all these qualifications. Some of them are heeded and some of them are not.

Sometimes all of them are taken into consideration and perhaps even faithfully employed, except for that one.

It's the neglected qualification. Pastors neglect their kids. They put their ministry above their own family.

They forget about the fact that the most important aspect of their congregation is the congregation at home.

As a pastor that Ashton and I listened to, actually it was his wife, wasn't it? It was Nancy Wilson that said that.

The congregation at home, the kids and his wife, that is the, he's a steward of God, as it tells us in verse nine of chapter one again.

What is it that he stewards? Well, first and foremost, his family at home. Yes, he stewards the rest of the flock, the rest of the congregation, but those that he has at home are the most important part of his life and of his ministry.

And so when the family is neglected, it gets really bad really fast, the neglected qualification.

Now, you look at chapter two and you realize, as we will read through this, that as it turns out, this is one of the top neglected chapters of the

Bible, I would say, in the church today. And what's the basis for such a statement as that?

I think we will see that as we read through it. And so the pastoral epistles, they are so practical.

Titus, first Timothy, second Timothy. And if the church was only left with those three little letters, that's all they had of the

New Testament, it would be enough for the pastor, for the church members, for the flock, for the deacons, for the elders to live in harmony, to live in peace, and to live in a

God -pleasing manner together as they live out their Christian lives a part of the local congregation, if that's all they had.

Now, it's not all we have. We have all 27 books of the New Testament plus the entire Old Testament. We have the whole

Bible. And yet still, you look around and we find that it's pretty ugly in so many parts of the church today because of how much of it is neglected.

And this chapter may very well be near the top of what is neglected. Again, let's take a look and see why.

Just continue in the review for one more second. Verse two says, the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith and charity, in patience.

We talked about this a little bit. Ageism is like one of the last acceptable isms around in our culture. Everything else, of course, is evil and is ostracized and rightfully so, except for ageism, you know, it's perfectly fine to kind of give the quote -unquote old people a hard time.

Maybe it's because they can't keep up with the tech. Maybe it's because they don't, they can't keep up with the new cultural slang and the lingo and all these types of things.

They don't understand the things that are being talked about. And yet, the Bible reveres people that are old.

In fact, old people is actually not a derogatory term in the Bible, as we looked at some examples in the Old Testament a few weeks ago.

In fact, I may still have them here. In Job, it says, with the ancient is wisdom and in length of days, understanding.

And then in Leviticus, it says, thou shalt rise up before the hoary head and honor the face of the old man and fear thy

God, I am the Lord. And what we find, and at some point Exodus, is that when the young people come out and mock the aged, it is actually a penalty unto death because of how highly respected the old people should be, not only in the eyes of the people, but in the eyes of God.

He respects them, so he wants everyone else to respect them. We know the bizarre story with Eli the prophet. When the kids come and mock him for being bald and he curses them and a mother bear comes out of the woods and eats all the kids.

And so this isn't something to take lightly. This is mocking people of any age, but certainly those of older age is something that God takes very, very seriously throughout the word.

And of course, we talked about the fact that when you have a church that is diverse, when you have a church that you have diversity in age from little ones all the way up to the older members of the church, that is a sign of what could be at least a very, very healthy church.

And it's because the experience that has come just through living life for the older congregation, the older aspect of the congregation, that gets passed down to the next generation.

They learn from those lessons and they are able to live their lives from that point forward. And so Paul is saying, keep an eye out,

Timothy, or excuse me, Titus, keep an eye out and make sure that your old men are sober, that they are serious, that they take life seriously.

It doesn't mean they're boring. It doesn't mean they can't have any fun. It doesn't mean that they don't get to have a good time with the younger congregation in fellowship and breaking of bread and being merry and jovial and all these wonderful things.

What it means is that they take life seriously. That's what it means to be grave and to be temperate.

Again, to have self -control, control over their bodies and to be sound, excuse me, to be sound in the faith and in love and in patience.

And that patience is a very important one. That is something that can be very hard for those living in the latter part of their life to have.

It's a virtue that Paul specifically calls out for Timothy to make sure the old men have. So all that's review.

Now let's look at verse three. And Paul shifts from talking about what to look for, the positive aspects of your old men to look for and ensure that they have.

And he starts talking about the older women. And he says in verse three, the aged men, excuse me, the aged women, likewise, and that's an important word we'll look at in a second, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things.

Now, the first thing to take note of, of course, is just this very plain but important word, likewise, at the beginning of verse three.

So what Paul is saying is in the same way that the old men should have, should bear these positive character traits in order to lead the younger men in the congregation in that exact same way, in that same manner, the old women need to be these things.

And then he gives us the list. In the same way that the aged men are to exhibit those attributes in verse two, the aged women are to exhibit these attributes in verse three.

Now, there is something, there's a theme throughout both Testaments that you can't ignore.

As you just read it, whether you're doing it Bible in a year and you're going through somewhat, at a somewhat brisk pace, or whether you are studying verse by verse, you can't not see this particular thing.

And that is that the Bible explicitly, in so many places, exalts older women who are godly women.

In other words, those that are to be models for, again, that younger generation, those that are reverent and that live their lives in a

God -pleasing manner, the Bible exalts them time and time and time again and wants us to know, wants us to see the spotlight that God is putting on them for a very important purpose.

When they are godly women, Paul is telling Titus that they should be brought into the church to be models to the younger women.

And we'll see that as it unfolds in verses four and five a little bit later. But some of the most important sage advice that Paul has ever given

Titus, and then Timothy as well, as we'll see in those epistles when we get to them, but some of the most important advice that Paul ever gave these very young pastors is how to treasure godly old people when they find them so that they can minister in the assembly as well.

Kind of the implication is that these young pastors don't have to be alone. Yes, they're the ones that are called and appointed to the duties in the office of pastor specifically, but we have to remember

Paul's amazing analogy in 1 Corinthians of the local church being like a physical body, having members all the way down from head to foot and each member serving a particular purpose so that the body can thrive.

And of course, he goes on to talk about how maybe an important member of the body like the head can't mock the hand or the leg or whatever because without the legs to move, the head isn't going anywhere.

And so the point is every single member of the body is important. They serve an important purpose and in a way serve an important aspect of the ministry.

And old people are at the top of that because again, they are delivering life's experiences down to that younger generation so that they can thrive and perhaps even avoid some of the tougher lessons of life that they had to learn.

So think about it for a second. If that is neglected and if the older people are ostracized in congregations around the country, around the world, and they are perhaps even mocked in some cases or perhaps the particular congregation really wants to focus on the youth and they want their congregation to just be young and lively, it is to their detriment because they're gonna be missing out on the treasure of life's experience as it was lived out by the previous generation.

And they're gonna have to experience all that themselves. And so Paul is telling Titus and Timothy, these young guys, they may not even realize how important it is.

When we get to Timothy, we actually will learn how important his grandmother was in his life.

We'll get to that someday. But perhaps he wanted to just emphasize this to them in a way they may not have ever thought of before.

When you have these older men, when you have these older women and they are living godly lives, in first and second

Timothy, we learn how the young pastor is to rebuke the older people in cases where they're not living godly.

So there is a time and a place, but when they are living godly, they are being those models of the faith. They will help your ministry.

They are there to help you bring them in. If you find them, treasure them, treasure them so they can minister in the assembly.

But like I said, it's not just a matter of finding some older people and bringing them in. Paul has some pretty specific character traits that mark these women, just like he did for the older men a second ago in verse two, so that these young pastors have the wherewithal to identify who they are and help them thrive in the congregation as ministers, again, of the younger women.

So let's take a look at this for a second. Paul is about to use a very unique Greek term that isn't used anywhere else in the

New Testament. As is often the case, he, what's the term?

Where there's two words combined. He takes two smaller

Greek words and he combines them, a compound word, and he uses it. And this is the only time in the

New Testament it is ever used. He says that they may exhibit what becomes holiness.

And I can't say the Greek word, it's too long, but what it means is to consecrate men, places, actions, or sacred things to God.

So in other words, it is a thing, a person, a place that is consecrated in a very special way in the eyes of God.

Paul is saying that these older women be in behavior that becomes that, that becomes something that is consecrated in the eyes of God.

Now, another way that you could say this particular Greek phrase is to act priest -like.

For these older women to act priest -like. In other words, they're holy.

They're consecrated. They are set apart for a very specific duty. They're the kind of women who have access to God in the manner of a priest, just like all believer priests have.

See, something we have to remember is that when Peter talks about the priesthood of the believers in 1

Peter, he's talking to all Christians there, and of course, it's a reference to our unrestricted access to God, but it's also a reference to our ability to offer up spiritual sacrifices to God as priests do.

This is for men and women alike. And so you have that aspect.

All believer priests, men and women both, have access to God, but they also have the capacity to offer these spiritual sacrifices through prayer and through holy living to God constantly.

But again, Paul uses this very unique Greek term, talking about wanting these older women to be in the behavior that leads to a priest -likeness, or to be a priestess in some way.

And it's for a particular purpose. Again, we'll see this unfold more and more in verses four and five. But these are women that have access to God.

Their life exudes the resultant holiness that having access to God brings. They're living in a way that people look at them and they see something different.

They see a reverence, they see a holiness that they may not see anywhere else. Their relationship with the

Lord is almost palpable for those around them. They can see it, they can feel it. And if you guys wanna look at Luke chapter two,

I'll show you an example of what it can look like. It's by them, it's by these older women that are priest -like in their behavior that are a primary means, and that word is worth emphasizing, they are a primary means of ministering to a new generation of godly wives and mothers.

As we will see, again, the verses, the passage unfold more and more. Let me turn there myself really quick.

Look at Luke chapter two, and this is a very unique story, a very unique narrative, it's very short. It just finished talking about Simeon, the godly man that had the

Holy Spirit upon him that said, you will not die until you see your Savior. And then he held the baby Lord Jesus in his arms and saw the salvation of his people.

And right after that, in verse 36, you have a older woman, priest -like in her behavior, just like Paul was talking about in Titus.

It says, and there was Anna, there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Asher.

She was of great age and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity. So what we're gonna find out is that in Timothy, Paul is talking about widows and how important they are and how much he reveres them.

And beyond the age of 60, they actually fall into a very special category in which they can minister in some unique ways.

We'll get there eventually. But one of the qualifications of bringing these widows in is that they were a one -man woman, just like the elders are to be a one -woman man.

And Anna was a one -man woman, as we find out here. She was a widow, she lived with a husband seven years from her virginity, but she was a widow of about four score and four years.

So at this point, she's 84 years old, 84 years old, and she departed not from the temple, but served

God with fastings and prayers night and day. And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the

Lord and spake of him to all people that looked for redemption in Jerusalem. And of course, this is right after she herself saw the baby

Jesus, her salvation and the salvation of her people, just like Simeon.

And so we have examples, again, of these very reverent women that are exalted throughout scripture because they serve such an important purpose.

Anna is just one example of what this kind of older woman looks and acts like at this stage in her life.

In Spurgeon's commentary on Titus, he says, how beautifully can an aged

Christian woman by her kindly example be a teacher of good things? There is no more charming sight under heaven,

I think, than that of an elderly Christian lady whose words and whose whole life are such as becometh the gospel of Christ.

And so these are a part of the congregation that are, what is the word?

They're invaluable, they're priceless. Older men, older women, they are priceless in the congregation of a church that is set up to thrive as a local body and to be there in every aspect of life for each and every member there.

In this particular case, you think about younger moms that are learning to rear up a family for the first time, and you have the older women in the congregation that have already done that, and that can teach them things that will help save them not only time, but also heartache in many cases.

When you think about the priceless value of the life experience that can be passed down to the next generation, it becomes extremely obvious why

Paul is talking about this in such a serious manner and is wanting Titus and eventually

Timothy to recognize how important it is. It's pretty amazing. Do y 'all have any thoughts or anything so far before we move a little bit further?

Did you have something, dad? I couldn't tell. Yeah, it's pretty amazing.

And you think about the Puritans.

So the Puritans were a terrific example of exalting women in the same way that the

Bible does. Of course, the Puritans have their caricature, and most people, they think about the Puritans through a very skewed lens, because of those caricatures, you think of the

Salem witch trials when you think of the Puritans, which is a sad thing, because the Puritans were some of the most jovial, happy people that enjoyed the pleasures of life just as much as they enjoyed the spiritual aspect of things.

They were far from being Gnostics in the way that we see in the Bible Belt today. You think, what on earth are you talking about,

Ben? Well, if you look around and you see the way that Christians live their lives in our neck of the woods, oftentimes, it's very much this division of spiritual and physical.

You have people waiting for the rapture, and so they're just killing time until their bodies are raptured and they get to live in spiritual bliss, and they aren't thinking about the things of this earth.

They're not thinking about their physical bodies in some cases. There's great irony when you see a pastor that is extremely overweight, because it shows that, number one, he doesn't care about the physical in the way the

Bible cares about the physical. He is making a Gnostic division in his life where he is exalting the spiritual only and saying, well, the physical doesn't matter all that much, because again, it's to be done away with at some point anyway, so he's living in a way that's a bad example to his congregation because they can see that he doesn't have a whole lot of self -control, and the reason he doesn't have the self -control, most likely, is because he doesn't care about the physical.

He doesn't think it's as important, and so you see these types of things of people just kinda killing time down here and they're giving up ground to the secularists, to the humanists, to those that are in direct opposition to God's word.

They're giving up ground and letting them take the culture over, because they're like, who cares about the culture? We're going to heaven. We got our ticket to heaven, right?

And so the Puritans were the exact opposite of this. They understood the importance and the way that the

Bible talked about the spiritual and the physical and their interconnectedness. I mean, you think about it.

These very bodies we're living in now will be resurrected someday. There's a purpose for them well beyond the grave. It's not all about the spiritual, and the

Puritans understood that, so when you get beyond kind of that cliche, that caricature of the being

Puritanical, quote unquote, which they didn't actually live their lives like that, which again is ironic in and of itself.

They enjoyed life. They really enjoyed life, and the reason I bring all that up, the point is that when you look at church life, their church life, they did what

Paul is talking about here, and you can hear it, you can feel it in the Spurgeon quote. He was the last

Puritan, right? You can feel it in his quote, and you read the commentaries of Rutherford, and of course,

Spurgeon, Gill, all of the great Spurgeons, all the great

Spurgeons, all the great Puritans that we like, and they talk about the way that their church functions, the way that Paul wants

Titus' church to function here. They revere these older women. They revere the older men, and they ensure that they have a spot and a voice for the younger generations to learn from, and so it really is neat to take just a glance at some of their commentary on these passages through the lens of people that really took this seriously, and it's a great example of what it looks like and what it should look like even for us in this day and age.

Let's take a look at a couple more things, and then we'll probably just have to stop at verse three for today, but there's some negative things in verse three as well.

Yes, they are to be in behavior that becomes holiness, to become priest -like in their behavior, but Paul flips it and gives us incredibly stark contrast immediately thereafter, and he says, not false accusers, not given to much wine, and then he does get back in the positive, and he says teachers of good things, but those two negatives in particular are emphasized for good reason.

Again, the next thing that Paul mentions here is a negative trait that needs to be avoided by these older women, by all older women, but certainly those that are in the church, in the congregation, that could and should be used for the purpose of the ministry, to expand the very kingdom of God through their lives, and Paul is specifically instructing

Titus to keep watch for this particular sin habit as he is shepherding the flock himself.

Of course, we looked at all of the sin habits that the elders have to avoid in the first chapter, and so now

Paul gives us a particular sin habit that older women need to avoid, and he tells Titus to make sure they're not false accusers.

Now, in our modern language, that would be something that perhaps we refer to as gossips, going around, talking about the news of the day, and the people within their circle, the people within their lives, behind their backs to others, and putting things into the grapevine to be shared.

Now, if I were to take a guess, and Dad, you gotta put up your blue letter Bible, you can't cheat for a second.

Y 'all tell me what you think the Greek word might be underneath this little

English phrase to not be false accusers. If you just take a guess, and obviously, you're working with an entire vocabulary here, so I'm just curious.

If you were to take a guess what the Greek word would be under this English phrase, not false accusers, or what we would refer to as malicious gossips, anyone wanna venture a guess?

So basically, what would equal drama? It's even worse than that, but I mean, that would be tied into it, for sure.

When I saw this, I was just - I wanted to guess the Greek, because it's an English derivative or something.

Like, would we recognize it in Greek? Oh, you would recognize it in Greek, but I'm not saying you have to give the Greek word, but just what the

English equivalent of the Greek word. This is an English equivalent of the Greek word, but it's not the typical one.

It's worse than that. Although, that's certainly tied into it. Lucifer? Well, Dad got it right.

The Greek word underneath this phrase, not false accusers, is diabolos, which is a name given 35 times throughout the

New Testament to Satan. And so, Paul, what he does, is he uses this

Greek term in this context in the most expressive way that he possibly can to tell

Titus, look, this is a sin habit that is - Everything, you have to generalize.

You can't be Paul or Titus or a pastor. You can't teach without generalizing, so there are exceptions to the rule.

Men can be gossips, too, don't get me wrong. But the point of this teaching, just like Paul generalized in the first chapter and gave very specific sin habits that men need to avoid, he is saying, look, this is a problem in the lives of most older women, but they cannot exhibit this particular sin habit and be that which becomes godliness, holiness, to be priest -like.

They can't be priest -like and be hot gossips at the same time, is what Paul is saying. But what is the phrase that he uses to just emphasize this to the nth degree?

He uses the Greek term diabolos. It means, a literal translation of the

Greek term is slanderous, the slanderer. And that's why this word is attributed to Satan as a name 35 times throughout the

New Testament. And it also means metaphorically, to be applied to a man who, by opposing the cause of God, may be said to act the part of the devil or to side with the devil.

So when people gossip, that's what they're doing. They're siding with Satan.

They are creating division. And of course, if it's in the context of the household of God, it is a travesty.

And this is something that every church deals with. We've dealt with it ourselves.

And it can be a really nasty thing. And so it makes sense that Paul would use such an expressive term to get this point in the mind of Titus to watch out for this, in our minds as well in the 21st century, to watch out for this.

What Paul just did is he gave us an antithesis. He compared the priest likeness of a godly woman in the most stark contrast that you can give with the devilish characteristics of a woman that gossips.

They can be one of two things. They can be like a priest or a priestess in the sight of God, or they can be a devil.

And so again, Paul is emphasizing this to the nth degree. And it's very, very important.

Now it's, again, it's a generalized term. Men can certainly be gossips and it's just as gross when they are.

But for whatever reason, Paul understands that this is a common sin habit for women.

Now, here's the thing. You think, well, how do we know that Diabolos, which is translated not false accuser here, how do we know that's the equivalent of gossip for us in the 21st century in the way that we talk about it?

And that this isn't just something that was a big problem on the island of Crete, you know, with these older women.

Well, if you go through the sin habits that the men have in the first chapter, there's not a single one of those that you would say, oh, well, those were unique to Crete.

No, they are absolutely carried over into every generation, into every culture.

Every single man has to be aware of himself and be careful of the sin habits that he talked about in chapter one.

And in like manner, every woman in every culture in every generation from the time Paul wrote this moving forward has to be aware and careful of this particular sin habit.

It's just human nature. It's just Paul is reminding us once more that our nature is strong and that it can easily stumble into a particular habit, gossip being one of them, given to much wine and other ones.

So alcoholism is another particular sin. It was given, it's one that, of course, men need to be aware of too.

They have to be sober, as we learned in chapter one. And Paul uses the, excuse me, the

KJV says the word sober twice. One of the times it's talking about just self -control. The second time it's literally talking about alcoholism.

And so that's a sin that the older men need to be aware of too. Older women need to be aware of it as well.

They don't need to bury the troubles of life in alcohol to the point of becoming drunk because while alcohol isn't a sin in the

Bible, being drunk certainly is. Drunkenness is time and time again listed as something that is a very, very bad thing to partake in.

And so Paul is shedding light on that. And he's saying, look, find the women and incorporate them into your congregation that are priest -like in their behavior, not gossips, not alcoholics.

And if they are, that doesn't mean that they can't repent of those things and be redeemed if they haven't been redeemed already.

That's not really the point. The point is that these are the character traits you want to see in your older women, not these particular things.

And of course, they can be pastored through any sin habits they may have. But the priest -like behavior of godly women is something to be revered as Paul did.

And of course, as God does all the way through the Bible. So we'll end there for today.

And next week, what we're going to do is we're going to look at why these are so important.

Why is Paul pointing out certain sin habits and also pointing out certain positive character traits to shoot for?

What's even the purpose? In what context does this priest -like behavior lived out by these older women matter?

And we know it matters. Paul is talking about it. And in verses four and five, we're going to learn why it is so important and the timeless, the timelessness of the things they bring to the table.

In other words, they have things that they can impart that will not only outlive them, but will live on into generations well beyond perhaps their comprehension in this life.

The things that they bring to the table, they can make an impact. They can make a change on people in their church that will far exceed their lifetime and perhaps even the lifetimes of their great, great grandkids.

And we'll see why that's the case starting next week. So do y 'all have any other thoughts or anything like that before we close it out?

Yes, sir. I know many gospel, all of them forced into life.

Sure. Right. The father of lies.

Well, it's tied in with that. And I had that same thought yesterday, Brother Russell, because the thing about it, and it could be intentional or not intentional.

See, that's why I believe that's why Paul, and we have other passages as well that emphasize the danger of gossip.

And I think one of the reasons why, Brother Russell, is because the lies and changing, alterations of the story and things like that might be the cause of the danger of gossip.

It might be unintentional, but the point is, even if it's unintentional, it could still be a lie that could tear apart the reputation of a person that doesn't even deserve it.

So to your point, there's very good reason why Paul is using this term, what's typically reserved as a title for Satan himself, in application to this sin habit, is because forget about whether or not it turns into a lie intentionally or unintentionally.

Just don't even go there in the first place. Don't begin the gossip of the grapevine. And of course,

Jesus himself, from the words of the creator of the universe in Matthew chapter 18, is where we learn how to handle things we have a problem with.

And here's the thing, gossip is kind of like a drug, and again, men can experience it too.

I mean, it's a little bit of a dopamine hit in a number of ways, because what's happening is you have the stress, let's say you have a problem with a person, or someone's just, you know, you were irked by the actions of a person.

Everyone knows, everyone can empathize with the uncomfortable feeling of confronting that.

By confronting it, I don't necessarily mean in a confrontational way, you know, it doesn't have to be contentious, is what

I mean. But confronting it in the sense that you are bringing it to light, you're saying this is something I recognize, I have a problem with it for all of these reasons.

Some of them may be things I'm making up in my head, but I don't know, and so I am sharing this with you so that you are aware of it, why

I have a problem with it, and let's talk about it. Everyone is scared of that. It doesn't matter who you are, how old you are, what your experience is.

If you aren't scared of basically living out what Jesus tells us to do in Matthew 18, if you're not scared of that a little bit, you are by far the exception to the rule.

We're nervous when it comes to handling things like that, and yet what we find is that when we are obedient to Jesus' words in how to handle those situations and how to go to your brother or your sister, is the restitution is just glorious.

I mean, the weight, the burden off of your back after having done it the biblical way, even though the anxiety and the anticipation in the lead up to it is terrible, it is just a wonderful thing.

And so what do we do instead? Because we're a little bit nervous, we want to talk about it, we want to get it off our chest, we want to, in some cases, we want to be the person that hears other people getting it off their chest.

That's kind of fun, too. And so you're getting these little dopamine hits as you are getting it off your chest or you're hearing new information, and now it's like, ooh, this is kind of exciting.

But what happens is it's kind of like, I mean, it's, let me think, how do

I want to articulate this? It's kind of, I'm going to give you a very explicit comparison.

It's kind of like being addicted to something like pornography. You watch it or you consume it in whatever way, and it feels fulfilling, but it always, it will, studies show this, it corrupts your brain, but it also leaves you wanting to go back for more constantly.

It never actually does what God intended intimate relations to do, to be fulfilling.

In the compounds of the marriage bed, it can't be defiled. So when you have these weird addictions to fill a void in your life, it leaves you wanting to go back for more, and at the same time, it's corrupting your body.

Now, gossip is kind of like that in its own kind of way, because what it does is it gets it off your chest, but then a few hours later, you are then left with the feeling of, you know what, the problem hasn't been solved.

It felt good in that moment. It felt great in that moment. But the problem isn't solved, and now

I need to go tell somebody else. And not only that, but it has been amplified, and you are now more scared, and it emphasizes those feelings within you again, and it's like compounding interest at that point.

And so it gets harder and harder to actually go and be obedient to the Lord in the instructions he gives us in Matthew 18.

Gossip is really dangerous. It's like giving you those little dopamine hits that push the can down the road, but actually doesn't solve anything.

It makes you feel good in a second, but worse later. Whereas if you just go and confront the thing the way

Jesus tells us to in the first place, the anticipation, there's not a person in the world that wouldn't agree it's not fun.

That anticipation is not fun. But obedience always yields joy and good feelings over and over again.

Do you have a thought, Mimi? This is why soap operas are so popular. Yeah. Yeah.

You can sit at home and just get involved. Right. Yeah, you get those dopamine hits in another kind of way.

Yeah, that's a good way to put it. It's like emotional, it's like emotional pornography. It doesn't do what you think it will, and it will always end up hurting you and the people involved much more.

Again, it wasn't all that long ago. We had this, and this happens in the church.

It wasn't that long ago we had it happening in this church, and it's bad. It hurts.

It hurts everybody around it, and so that's why Paul is taking it so seriously and why he uses such an expressive term to call it out.

Oh, yeah, do you have a thought? I was just thinking about the similarities between what

Satan does and what God does, and he tries to accuse us, and there could be things that we, like,

I can actually do something bad, you know? But I had the thought in my head, and now

I lost it. But anyway, someone can actually do something bad, and then I could go and tell that, and it'd be true, and it'd still be gossip.

A lot of times in scripture, what you see is, you know, believers say don't, like, lay this sin not to their charge.

Like, a heart that has received forgiveness that it doesn't deserve isn't a heart that wants to accuse others.

It's someone that wants to see that other person restored, see that other person brought back into fellowship, not to continually accuse and drive the wedge further and further.

So, say someone really did do something horrible to me. The natural tendency, like you described, and it could be justified in my mind, that that, well, that was a horrible sin, and that was really wrong, you know?

And I didn't do anything to deserve it. But ultimately, what

I don't deserve is the grace of God giving me, and that's kind of how the mindset, that, you know,

Satan wants us, he wants to accuse us before the Lord, and he wants us to accuse each other in gossip.

Even if it seems kind of justified, ultimately, we don't deserve the forgiveness that we've been forgiven overall.

And so, I don't know, that's kind of. Well, there's a lot of carryover there. There's a lot of crossover there from our study in Philemon not all that long ago.

And so, a lot of those principles certainly come into play. To Brother Russell's point, just as Satan is the father of lies, he's also the father of slander.

So, that's kind of the idea here. It's just another angle taken there. And yeah, to your point,

Ash, I mean, when you are sinned against, the inclination is to just really let the person have it in the form of going and telling everybody about how wronged you were, and so on and so forth.

Yeah, any sin that anyone commits against you isn't going to be as bad as what you did against God when it required the crucifixion of his own son.

And yet, he forgave us anyway. And so, I think that's kind of what you're hitting there is let's at least first remember in the way that we were forgiven for our egregious sins against the holy

God to the third degree, let's consider our own hearts and see how we can be forgiving in the way the father was forgiven to us.

And I'll say this last thought as well. So, that can be very helpful kind of in the beginning stages of harboring some bitterness, perhaps toward a different person or toward another person before it leads to the slander.

Thinking about what Ash just said can be very helpful. But another thing is there's absolutely, one of the reasons why

Jesus gave us the instruction in Matthew 18, and it's of course referenced in other places later throughout the

New Testament is because there is a time when you do need to go to the person when it does need to be talked out.

And there is a fine line here. And so, you got to be careful because you have kind of the funny cliche version of gossiping like, well,

I got a prayer request. And then you share someone's dirty laundry. You air out someone's dirty laundry for them in the form of a prayer request.

So, it's okay. So, there's stuff like that. That's crossing the line, obviously.

On the other side of that very fine line is of course seeking counsel before perhaps going to the person, which can be fair depending on the context.

And so, that's worth throwing out there too. I mean, you have pastors and you have the older people in your congregation with experience for a reason.

In some cases, it may be worth talking to them to get counsel on how to handle the situation as long as your intention is to handle the situation.

Does that make sense? So, again, there's a fine line there that could turn into gossip.

You tell yourself, I'm gonna go get counsel, but the intention isn't to actually receive counsel and then go handle the situation the way

Jesus would want us to. It's just to have that opportunity to get some stuff off your chest to make you feel better for a little while.

But on the other side of that line, it could be genuine in that you are receiving godly, helpful counsel so that when you go to that person that's in the right frame of mind so that you have thought through things from both sides of the story, perhaps that can be very hard, especially if you're the one that felt wrong.

There's always two sides of the story. And sometimes getting that counsel can shed light on what the other side of the story may have been, why that person may have acted out in a particular kind of way.

And then it'll soften your heart a little bit and then you can take that counsel into the conversation.

Yes, sir. The end game is that it causes, whether it's true or not, it causes division.

Yeah, no, that's absolutely true. That's right. It could be totally true information. And by the way,

Satan uses facts to accuse us. He's talking about our real sins when he goes to Jesus and he accuses the brethren.

He's using truth to accuse us. And so, to Dad's point, it could be built on actual factual information, but if the intention is gossip or slander over restoration, it blows everything out the window.

That's what I was trying to say, and my words were just like, I don't know what happened. They got scrambled. Yeah. Well, this is good stuff.

We'll pick up right on this topic next week. I used up all of our time, so I have to dismiss this. But next week, we will talk a few more implications on what is hashed out in verse three and then go from there.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this wonderful day, for bringing us together, to abide in your word, and to give us this opportunity to fellowship.