Book of Titus - Ch. 1, vv. 13-15

If y 'all want to turn to Titus chapter 1, yes,

John and Brandy, we are still in chapter 1. But there's a slim chance we could finish it today.

No promises. We may not be able to totally finish it, but we are very, very close.

And on that note, why don't we just pick it up. Let's see here. Let me get there myself real quick.

Why don't we just pick it up at verse 1, and we'll do a little bit of review.

Well, there's a lot of ringing, Dad. You might need to turn mic number 4 down just a little bit. Titus chapter 1, it says,

Paul, a servant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledging of the truth, which is after godliness.

In verse 1, we talked quite a bit about the fact that, well, I'll say this, in our

Wednesday night Bible study, we're doing a series called How to Be a Disciple or on How to Be a

Disciple of Jesus Christ. And one of the things we talked about is the fact that a true disciple of the

Lord doesn't have any desire to have some special, exclusive inner circle.

One of the fruits of the spirit of God's disciples is that they want to evangelize.

They want to proclaim the Lord's name and get as many to see the liberty that they can have in him as possible.

So Paul, in verse 1, kind of, in the first four verses really, he's summarizing his mission. And one of the aspects of that is that he wants to bring as many of God's people to the acknowledging of the truth as possible.

He says in verse 2, in hope of eternal life, which God cannot lie, promised before the world began.

But half in due times manifested his word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God, our

Savior. So that kind of plays in to that idea as well. And then in verse 4, we learn who he is writing to.

He says to Titus, my own son, after the common faith, grace, mercy and peace from God, the

Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. Now, we're going to, in just a second, when we catch up with where we left off last week, we're going to be rounding out this look at the types of people

Titus had to deal with. One of the things we talked about pretty early in the study is the fact that Titus was a very zealous guy.

In the second letter to the Corinthians, Paul mentions Titus nine different times.

And the context of mentioning him a couple of those times is the fact that Titus had a desire, a longing desire to go to his brothers and sisters, to minister to them and to help them out.

And so in a minute, when we catch up and we start talking about the false teachers that Titus is currently dealing with, we'll need to remember that because it took a guy like this to accomplish the job at hand.

In verse five, we start learning about the qualifications of elders because, well, let's read verse five, four.

For this cause, I left you, that being Titus, in Crete that thou should have set in order or straighten out the things that are wanting and ordain or appoint elders in every city as I had appointed thee.

And so Titus is now left with this task to straighten out this ancient pagan island of Crete that is just overrun with, well, again, paganism and a number of very bad things, as we'll see in just a second as we move forward.

And so Titus is to fix all this. He's to straighten it out, but not alone. He's going to appoint elders like himself, like Paul appointed him to help him straighten all this out.

And starting in verse six through nine, we learn about the character traits, the mandatory character traits of these men.

In verse six, it says, If any be blameless, the husband of one wife or a one woman man faithful to his wife, having faithful children, not accused of right or unruly.

We spent a number of weeks on that one verse, because as we talked about at that time, this idea of having faithful children not accused of right or unruly is one way to put it, the neglected qualification.

We know this little cute proverbial saying of the preacher's kids with that bad stereotypical connotation is if that's just OK.

And so we spent a number of weeks in verse six talking about the importance and, of course, the parallel passage in first Timothy three, where Paul is talking about the elder needing to have his household in order.

And so we talked about the importance of that and how important it is not only for the man, but for the ministry in the church at large.

Verse seven says for a bishop, which, by the way, few different terms

Paul uses, elder, bishop, overseer, things like that. They're all synonymous. They have different meanings.

If you look at the word itself, but he uses them interchangeably for a bishop must be blameless, must be blameless.

He emphasizes it here. He said it in verse six. He says it again in verse seven as the steward of God, not self -willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker or contentious is another way you could say that not given to filthy lucre, but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate, holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught that they may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.

Now, the qualifications in there, and of course, we spent a number of weeks on all of those, but notice the shift in verse 10.

And again, this is just review, but there's a shift in verse 10 here where all of the positive character traits that we just learned about that are necessary for a man to fulfill

God's calling in his life to ministry and to not mar the testimony of himself or the church in any way.

You have all of these things. And then in verse 10, you essentially have the exact opposite of these character traits.

It's summarized, but it's there because Paul says, for there are many unruly and vain talkers, they're empty talkers and deceivers.

So you have liars, you have empty talkers, they're unruly, there's no self -control, there's no self -discipline. This is the exact opposite of all of the character traits of the elder, the needed character traits of an elder, all of which, by the way, do flow from self -discipline.

It's one of the greatest, it's one of the greatest attributes of the Christian is the ability through the assistance of the

Holy Spirit to have self -control over our bodies, over our thoughts, and so on and so forth.

And so that's one of the reasons why you have all of these specific qualifications that flow from that. And then when you don't have it, what do you get?

You get these false teachers that are liars, empty talkers. And Paul specifies a little bit and says they are especially they of the circumcision.

So he's talking about a sect of the Jews, which we will be talking about more in just a moment, that are just out there spewing essentially heresy to all of these young churches that are just all over Crete and one of the reasons why

Titus is there in the first place. Now, what is Titus to do about these guys? Look at verse 11. He says, whose mouths must be stopped.

It's a very expressive Greek term there. Paul is not afraid to be somewhat harsh in talking about these kinds of guys because they are quite literally a menace to the society they live in.

That phrase whose mouths must be stopped. It's the same Greek construction that is referencing needing to muzzle an ox, needing to close the mouth of these people.

And what do they do? Why do they need why do their mouths need to be stopped? Paul says in verse 11, still they subvert whole houses.

They turn whole houses upside down. They go in. They're going from house to house. It's not that they're just in the public square proclaiming false teachings.

They're being as sneaky about it as they can. They're going from house to house, spreading lies, spreading heresy, turning houses upside down, confusing these young believers.

And Titus needs to stop it, not just Titus, but also these newly appointed elders that he will be working with.

They subvert whole houses. They teach things that they ought not for filthy lucre's sake.

It's interesting because if you go back to verse seven again, one of the qualifications of an elder is to not be given to filthy lucre.

And yet here you see that these false teachers are given to filthy lucre. It's the exact opposite. Everything that the elders are, the false teachers aren't or vice versa.

They're they're polar opposites. And and so they're doing this. They don't even have they don't even have good motives behind their false teaching.

We've touched on this a couple of times every now and then, you know, you can have a guy that is zealous, loves the

Lord and is zealous and wants to go out and teach the word. But he's zealous without knowledge. And so he may teach some incorrect things, but it's not because of his motives aren't good.

It's just because he's not prepared yet. These guys, on the other hand, are teaching heresy and false teachings in direct and intentional contrast with God's word on purpose.

They know what they're doing and why it's for filthy lucre's sake. They love money. It's for the sake of their own bellies.

You look at verse 12 and we have a very interesting affirmation of all of what

Paul is talking about. He calls back some 600 year old ancient poet who was a native of the island of Crete.

He says in verse 12, one of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said the

Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. We talked about this, I guess it was last week.

This is the ancient writer Epimenides that he's referencing, who has he was an ancient poet.

Again, the Greeks considered their poets to be, quote unquote, prophets. It wasn't quite the way we think about prophets like the

Old Testament prophets, but they revered them. They elevated them to a high level. And this very man that the

Cretans revered so much pointed out, he made this general statement that they are liars, they're evil beasts, they are slow bellies.

And so Paul, he quotes this ancient writing, again, some five, six hundred years older than the time

Titus, the letter to Titus is being written. He quotes it because he knows that while the

Cretans may or may not accept Paul's authority, he knows the Christians will. But the heathens may or may not to some degree.

So what does he do? He quotes their own, their own prophet, because he knows they do consider him authoritative.

And look what he says about you. And then at the beginning of verse 13, and this is where we left off last week, he says this witness is true or this testimony is true in the

Greek term there, he's saying that this prophetic utterance that Epimenides made was fulfilled.

That's what the Greek term means. This witness is true. And so Paul is applying this ancient writing, they're always liars, evil, be slow bellies, he's applying them specifically to these false teachers of the circumcision because of the havoc they are wreaking upon the island and upon these young churches.

So what is Titus supposed to do about that? This witness is true. Wherefore, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith.

And that's where we left off last week. So let's pick it up there. And there's just a couple of thoughts. We talked a lot about verse 13 last week, but there were a couple of thoughts that I wanted to pick up on.

Let's just start with the fact that Paul affirms this writing, this witness in verse 12.

I said this last week, but I believe that Paul, again, is affirming this generalization and applying it specifically to the false teachers.

So when Epimenides penned this, he was making very broad general statement. In general, the

Cretans are bad people. They're always liars. There's a there's a Greek verb, kretizo, that was coined in the old

Greek vernacular because the Cretans were such liars.

So to kretize was to lie or to cheat. That is how the Greeks viewed the people from this island.

They were chronic liars. And so they literally coined a verb derived from their name to describe liars and cheaters.

And so this was a pervasive problem on the island. It's not that every individual was.

If that were true, we wouldn't even be able to believe what Epimenides said about him. But it's certainly not true because we know there are young Christians on the island.

There are churches that have been planted. The gospel had been being spread, but there was still a lot of work to be done.

And so it was a generalized statement. And Paul takes it, he borrows it, and he applies it to these false teachers of the day who were the worst of all the

Cretans. And it's because these things are true that Titus, again, is supposed to rebuke them sharply.

Their mouths must be stopped, as he said in verse 11. All of that kind of plays in together.

Now, let's consider the phrase in verse 13 for a second, that they may be sound in the faith.

This is somewhat bizarre because Paul just spent a number of verses talking about how bad they are, talking about the fact that they're heretics, talking about the heresy that they have been propagating among all these people.

He tells Titus to rebuke them. He tells Titus to tell the elders to hold sound that faithful word so that they can exhort, so that they can rebuke.

And yet in verse 13, he comes back and he says, do all these things. And he ends it by saying that they may be sound in the faith.

The description of these guys up to this point sounds like they're a lost cause. And yet Paul says, do these things that they may be sound in the faith.

Interestingly, despite the fact that they are heretics, by definition, it's not necessarily a dramatic projection on them.

As Paul spells these things out, they were legitimately, by definition, heretics. They knew that they were because they were doing it for the filthy lucre.

It wasn't that their motives were good and they were just making mistakes. They were intentionally going about it this way.

Despite the fact that they were heretics, in this moment, what Titus is to do is he is to rebuke them in such a way, not to just crush them, but to possibly remediate their error, to give them an antidote to their error, to give them a way out from the human viewpoint, to present them with truth so that it may do what it does best.

And what does that do? It either saves or condemns because it is either going to be received or rejected.

It's the same truth. It's the two -edged sword. So Titus is to take that to them and it will accomplish what it's supposed to accomplish.

It will either save them or condemn them. They will either receive it or they will reject it. But based on Paul's, the way that Paul is describing this is there's a chance that they may be sound in the faith.

So do all of this in such a way that they may be sound in the faith. Now, it's really important to remember as Titus takes this to the false teachers, as these elders take this to the false teachers, if they were to become sound in the faith, if they are to be sound in the faith, it's the word that does it, not the men themselves.

It's not the men in and of themselves that do. It's not Titus. It's not even Paul. It's the word that can do this, that has the power to do this, that by chance, even these heretics might be saved.

If there's a chance that they might be sound in the faith, that they may be sound in the faith, it means that the

Cretans aren't necessarily a lost cause, even though it sounds like they certainly are up to this point.

Titus's church planting, his mission work, the elders training, all of the work he's doing, it's not for nothing.

They're not a lost cause. And we know, of course, that there are already believers on the island. And so it's not even just for them.

It is to spread the gospel even further, that they may be sound in the faith.

Now, you guys may wonder, again, just because it is somewhat odd in this context for Paul to just casually throw that out there.

We might wonder, why should Titus take this approach if they really are heretics?

Why, why not, you know, write them off, perhaps even anathematize them?

John, you're eager to to get it in there. So that's not the one.

Well, that's a good point. To be a heretic doesn't mean that you have committed the unpardonable sin necessarily blaspheming the blaspheming the

Holy Spirit, et cetera. It could, but it doesn't mean that it's an absolute necessity.

And of course, we have many testimonies throughout church history, even contemporary church history of legitimate heretics, by definition, enemies against the word, enemies against the church.

Paul himself was one. And yet salvation can still come. And so, yes, that's obviously a good starting point there,

John. A second one is to remember the fact that we are not Paul. Titus is not Paul.

We're not apostles like Paul was. And the reason why this is worth noting is because Paul did anathematize people.

Turn to Galatians chapter one for a second. When Paul was under this apostolic authority and inspiration, he was being carried along by the

Holy Spirit as he wrote and as he discussed these issues and as he talked about these people, there were times when he cursed men to hell under the inspiration of the

Spirit. Look at Galatians chapter one, verse, look at verse eight.

He says, but though we or an angel from heaven, listen to, listen to how all encompassing this is just in that phrase there, though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you that that which we have preached unto you or then that which has been preached unto you, let him be accursed.

That's the Greek word anathema. It means to be doomed or to be damned. And then in verse nine, he repeats himself.

He says, as we have said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you, then that ye have received, let him be anathema, accursed, doomed, damned.

Now we are dealing with these kinds of people right here in Crete, but Paul doesn't anathematize them or let me be more specific.

He doesn't tell Titus to anathematize them. Rather, he says, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith.

And so I believe this is a testament to Paul's apostolic authority under inspiration.

This is something that he had the apostles prerogative to do when he was led by the spirit to do it because he knew when it was appropriate to anathematize someone and when not to, even though there is no shortage of heretics running around.

And so Titus here is not in the place to do that. Rather, what he's to do is to take the truth, he's to preach it, that they may be sound in the faith.

It's pretty interesting. It's pretty interesting. Look at verse 14. Let's keep fleshing out exactly who these guys are.

Paul says, well, okay, so verse 13, this witness is true.

Wherefore, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men that turn from the truth.

So he's giving Titus a little warning here. He wants him to be aggressive. He wants

Titus to be ready to give a defense, but also in order to protect his people, to be on the offensive a little bit as well.

He wants him to rebuke. He wants him to exhort to refute all of these false teachers.

But he gives him a qualifier here in verse 14. He wants to make sure that Titus is safe, that he's protecting his time, his ministry, and that it is being adequately given, his attention is being adequately given to his people, to God's people.

So he says, don't give heed, don't pay attention to Jewish fables, commandments of men that turn from the truth.

The key phrase in verse 14 here is simply not giving heed, not giving attention to it.

Titus was just told to rebuke their error sharply. But now Paul is telling him, look, there will be a time after you do that to turn away from the error in the sense that you're not going to be giving it the attention that the enemy wants you to be giving it.

So one easy trap for the pastor, for the elder, for any minister of the gospel is to go out there heresy seeking, heresy hunting.

And with the zeal that we talked about earlier, wanting to be an affront to that heresy all the time.

The problem is there's a time and a place. And Paul later tells us in these pastoral epistles to avoid quarrelsome debates and things of that sort.

And so there is a line that doesn't need to be crossed. And the reason it doesn't need to be crossed is because when you do, it then takes you away from your job to shepherd the flock.

How are you going to be shepherding the flock if you're running out into the forest looking for wolves that aren't even really at your doorstep?

You're doing extra work that's not being called for. If the wolves are on the doorstep, perhaps even stepping into your pasture, then you're on the offensive, then you're rebuking, you're exhorting, you're refuting, and they go away and then you go back to shepherding the flock.

And so Paul wants Titus to make sure he's not going to be wasting his time on the heretics.

He's not going to be wasting his time on the error. He does the amount that he needs to do, and then he gets back to it.

Now, he mentions a couple of things here. The Jewish fables, the commandments of men.

Look at 1 Timothy with me. Just turn back a couple of pages and we'll look at a couple of parallel passages.

Obviously, we'll be getting to this when we move on to 1 Timothy eventually. But this phrase in verse 14 is very reminiscent.

If you have already read 1 Timothy, it'll be the other way around.

When we get to 1 Timothy, it'll be reminiscent of what we're reading in Titus here. And in chapter 1 verses 3 and 4, what does

Paul say to Timothy? Different guy, similar struggles. As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus when

I went to Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine.

So there's a key phrase there, that they teach no other doctrine. Neither give heed to fables.

There's a familiar term. And endless genealogies that's new, but still within the realm of what we're talking about in Titus, which minister questions rather than godly edification, which is in faith, so do.

And so, again, one of the things that Paul is emphasizing here, one of the things that he's emphasizing, is that if you spend too much time on all of these areas of error and heresy and things of that sort, it's not edifying.

And so it's going to ultimately be a waste of your time and a waste of your people's time as well.

There is one other, if you look at just chapter 4 of 1 Timothy, verse 7, he says it again, but refuse profane and old wives' fables and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.

So there's just this constant warning in the pastoral epistles to avoid these types of things and from going down the rabbit holes more than you need to.

And by that, I simply mean, again, if the enemy is right there trying to confuse your people, deal with it.

But once he's gone, leave it there and then put your focus back on the people. And so keep in mind,

Paul is addressing some, you know, some kind of specific heresy of the day having to do with the

Jews, because in verse 10, he mentioned they of the circumcision. So we know he's talking about Jewish heresy of some kind.

Obviously, it wasn't, the heretics weren't always Jewish. You know, not all of the Gnostics that he had to deal with were

Jewish. But here in verse 10, he clarifies he is talking about a sect of the

Jews. And so he fleshes it out a little bit more here in verse 14, because we get a little bit more light on it.

It's not necessarily a full orbed breakdown of what all of the heresies are, or even of these particular false teachers.

In other words, he doesn't just go all out on giving us a breakdown of exactly what they're teaching down to the details.

We don't need all that. They could have been attacking any number of Christian doctrines that Paul didn't want to include here.

They could have been attacking the deity of Christ. They could have been attacking the Trinity. They could have been attacking the efficacy of Christ's atoning work, his finished work on the cross.

There's a number of things they could have been doing as they go house to house. We don't have all the info.

We have just enough, though, to know that they were, indeed, heretical. None of it really, the details, in other words, don't necessarily matter, because the important thing to remember is that they have turned away from God's truth, and through their fables and through their commandments, their commandments, not

God's, but theirs, they are turning others from the truth, or at least trying to do that.

They're propagating something else, something other than God's word, and these things that they're propagating are related to fables and false commandments.

Now, in these two categories, fables, in verse 14, Jewish fables, commandments of men, you have two pretty broad categories there, but they are very common among the

Judaizers of this time, and I guess they still are even to present day. But at the time of Paul, it certainly was the case.

You have these two common deviations from God's word. One is to go into the fables, the myths, the mysticism of their beliefs, and the other is to go into legalism.

Now, Paul mentions the myths, and it was very common for those at the time that were observing

Judaism to come up with some really wild interpretations of the

Old Testament that were very allegorical, very mystical.

They would come up with stuff that simply wasn't there. In fact, they would use a lot of numerology, and they would use, you know, the

Hebrew language can be abused greatly. It's a beautiful thing. There's so much harmony in it. We know, you know,

Dave talks about it. Brother Myron talks about it a lot. There are numerical values to each letter. Each letter means something.

It's a beautiful, harmonious language, but it can be abused like nothing else, and that makes sense.

The enemy wants to abuse it. And so the Judaizers would take all of this beauty and harmony and consistency and come up with stuff that wasn't there, but because they were appealing to the numerology and the numeric values and the meanings behind the individual letters and intentionally trying to abuse it, they were able to come up with stuff and convince people that it was true that simply wasn't there.

And so that is one of the things that Paul may be referencing when he talks about the Jewish fables or the Jewish myths is these allegorical interpretations totally off the wall, totally wild that these false teachers were coming up with.

So he mentions those, some of the craziest things you'd ever heard, some of the craziest interpretations of the

Old Testament. Those are the kinds of myths that he could have been talking about. But even more notable than that is that they fell for hardcore legalism because he mentions here in verse 14, the commandments of men.

So it's legalism by definition. They believed that what ultimately pleased

God was a sacrifice here, a ritual here, maybe some new ceremonies over here.

This is what they thought ultimately pleased God. And since they thought that that's what pleased

God over above any kind of personal relationship with him, remember that any legalists, that's ultimately what they're wanting to avoid is the need to have a very close interlocked relationship with the

Lord and to rely on him in their lives. So what do they do? They come up with the rulebook so that they can still feel holy without actually partaking in pure things and a pure relationship.

So they just kept creating stuff. They just kept creating more and more rules to follow.

And it's really important here when we read this phrase to note Paul's emphasis.

I believe he's emphasizing it when he says the commandments of men. He puts that in there.

He doesn't just say commandments. He says the commandments of men specifically because Paul knew that the

Mosaic law came directly from God. That wasn't anything any man came up with.

It was delivered by Moses, but it came directly from God. It was perfect. God's law was and still is perfect.

And so Paul knew that and he taught that. So what he does here is he emphasizes that these commandments were of mere mannish concoctions.

These are things that the guys just came up with out of the human mind to make certain false teachers feel holy when they weren't actually being holy.

And what's interesting about it, we'll look at verse 15 in just a moment. They were accomplishing the exact opposite of that feeling that they wanted so badly, the feeling of holiness.

So what Paul has to say about all this, though he was being somewhat vague, he didn't spell out all of the

A, B's and C's of these heresies he's referencing. Of course, Titus probably knew all of it, but he didn't need to spell it out for us.

Even though he's being a little bit vague, what Paul is wanting to get across is that these things turn from the truth and we have to be careful of that.

We have to avoid it. And Titus and these elders, these young elders certainly have to be aware of it.

When the elder sees someone teaching whose goal is to turn his people, that being the elder's people, from the truth, he has to rebuke that sharply, verse 13, and then reject it and be done with it without wasting any more time.

That is, I believe, the thrust of verse 14 there. Paul does not want

Titus wasting any more time than he needs to in order to just refute, rebuke, get them out of here.

Y 'all have any thoughts or anything? So far, we have about 10 minutes left. Pretty much, it was, there has to be a lot of, you know, there has to be a lot of courage and bravery, no doubt.

It starts with being prepared. When Paul tells Titus and these elders to hold fast the faithful word in verse 9, it starts there.

So it starts with being prepared. You're holding fast the word, you're reading the word, you're immersing yourself in it so that when you hear heresy, you actually know that it's heresy and not just some cool idea, which happens all too often, all throughout history, but certainly today.

And so the first step is being prepared. The second step is being ready to do the refuting and being on the offensive that we talked

And to Benjamin's point, that's kind of the ripping the band -aid off effect. It's uncomfortable. It's not fun, but it's part of the job description.

And so it's necessary sometime. Any other thoughts? Yeah, go ahead. They're to refute and then rebuke sharply.

One other part of holding fast is to exhort, but that is more so for God's people. You're exhorting

God's people to go out and live according to his commandments and his imperatives and just holy living, the sanctification.

So when the pastor holds fast the faithful word, he can exhort God's people. He can rebuke the enemy or excuse me, refute the enemy and then rebuke, which is what he mentioned later.

So all of that kind of falls under the same umbrella. It's interesting because this is kind of like pastoral instruction, but obviously applies to each and every

Christian, partly because we might catch wind of something heretical before the pastor does.

If someone comes in and starts trying to sow discord among the brethren, which is why it's so important for us to understand what the word says.

Counterfeiters that try to create lies of money in our society, they're usually caught by people who don't study counterfeit money.

They study real money and they know it so well that they may not know what's wrong with it, but they know there's something wrong with the counterfeit because they know the truth so well.

And so if we'll do that with God's word, we might not understand why it's heretical, but we can go, hey, pastor, like there's something wrong with this.

We think, can you look at it? And the pastor may be able to say, here's what's wrong with this. Well, and this is one of the biggest benefits of having a pastor that teaches doctrinally and takes his people step by step, verse by verse through the word is that it's equipping them to have their radar on and sensing when something is off.

And at the very beginning of Titus, when he says in due times, manifests his word through preaching. So one of his jobs, one of his duties is to preach the word so that even the sheep can sense when an enemy is near.

Now, what's interesting is that the sheep is not held responsible for fighting the enemy.

The sheep isn't the one that is supposed to go out and fight the wolf, but that doesn't mean he can't make some noises.

He can't bring things to the attention of the shepherd if he's distracted doing something over here so that he can go over with the stick and start beating the wolf if he has to.

And so there, yes, I like that a lot, Dave, because when you're in a church or under the watch care of a pastor that Paul is talking about here, the type of pastor that Paul is talking about, you can be equipped to catch a lot of that and bring it to his attention to your point.

I think that is a wonderful thought and can be very, very important. Let's look at verse 15.

We have just a little bit of time. Not looking like we'll be able to totally finish the chapter, but we'll get close.

And I want to go ahead and cover this verse because it just flows right from the verse we just read, obviously, and to the pure in verse 15.

Under the pure, all things are pure, but under them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled.

Now, remember what I said just a second ago. The goal of the legalist is to create the perfect rule book that he can keep, and hopefully not a lot of other people can because then he gets to be holier than now.

But in doing so, he gets to feel holy, but the exact opposite ends up happening.

And this is what Paul is talking about in verse 15. Under the pure, all things are pure, but under them that are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure.

It doesn't matter how airtight, quote unquote, from the human viewpoint, the rule book is.

It's undefiled. Excuse me, it is defiled. It is messed up. It's grotesque in God's eyes.

And so it doesn't matter how, you know, to the T, the legalist, the Pharisee follows the rule book that they came up with because remember what

Paul said, it's the commandments of men, not of God. It doesn't matter how perfectly they keep it.

It's defiled. The Jews that Paul is talking about here in the context of chapter one, and really it's true for any legalist throughout all of time that's ever lived, is that they had a strange tendency to believe that what they did with their bodies on the outside in worship, in sacrificing, in doing their rituals and keeping the commandments that they came up with, that somehow doing all that on the outside would purify their insides.

This is a problem. It was spelled out all throughout the New Testament when Jesus came at them saying that they are like a whitewashed tomb.

You know, we hear that. We think, well, that, you know, that sounds pretty rough, but we don't even realize how rough that was because those that heard what he just said knew exactly what he was saying.

You can look as good and as white and as clean as you want on the outside, but you're dead on the inside.

And so everything you touch is defiled. It doesn't matter how good you look on the outside. Everything you touch is defiled.

That's what Paul is saying now. So they had this odd belief that what they would do on the outside, the way they looked, what they would do with their bodies, would cleanse their insides when the exact opposite is true.

As if any kind of sacramental religion plays any part in purifying a person, they attempted to rigidly follow these rule books that they would come up with to such a degree that they effectively, in their eyes, earned

God's favor. They earned the right to God's favor is what they would believe.

And they earned their right to heaven by keeping their own rules.

So what Paul does here is he takes this idea head on, doesn't beat around the bush at all.

He's very concise, very succinct in this single verse. He takes the idea head on and he points the obvious out to all of these people, to Titus, but of course

Titus would take this forth. And that is to echo the very words of Jesus during his ministry.

He's saying that if you are pure on the inside, because he starts by saying under the pure, all things are pure.

If you are pure on the inside, what is that? That is an act of God.

That is the washing of the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, which we will see later in Titus. When you are pure on the inside, then everything that comes out will be pure.

So it's not that you purify yourself on the outside and then you go inward from there.

It's the opposite of that. You are purified on the inside through regeneration of the Holy Spirit and through the

Spirit living in your body, his temple, and imitating Christ. And then everything that flows out from that is then pure.

So if you're pure on the inside and you're right with God, everything that you do is pure.

Everything that you touch is purified. When we're called saints throughout the New Testament, we're referred to as saints.

When we're referred to as saints throughout the Bible, that Greek word literally means holy ones. So we are a people, believers are a people, that are being sanctified in real time or consecrated, just like the

Old Testament priests had to be. We are believer priests in this age. We are constantly being sanctified or consecrated, same

Greek term. And as that happens, it shows. You can't hide it.

When you're being sanctified by the Spirit, there's no avoiding it. It can't be hid. When you start becoming more like God, people see that.

They see that you're different. When Paul says, unto the pure, all things are pure, when you go out in the world and you start doing things, you start saying things, touching things, creating institutions, planting churches maybe, creating institutions, raising a family, discipling people, people see the pureness that is coming from your new man that lives within you.

And so when you are being sanctified, when any of us are being sanctified, it's not something that is hid.

It shows people see it. And it's really important to point out here that when

Paul says, all things are pure, what's the context of this phrase? I'll have to end here, unfortunately.

We've used up our time. But what is the context of this phrase, all things are pure? He's talking about, it's in the context of the false teachers, the legalizers that come up with their own rules.

And the legalizers, in having their own rules, obviously forbid things that aren't a part of their rules.

And so the context is Paul talking about all that. He's talking about these false teachers. He's talking about the types of things.

When he says all things are pure, he's talking about the things that these false teachers would want to forbid.

In other words, certain foods and stuff like that. You know, they would come up with foods you can't eat, things you can't drink, certain days you can't observe, certain days you have to observe.

They would come up with all this stuff. And Paul is saying, no, all of that is pure to those that are pure on the inside, to those that are being sanctified by God and who have the

Holy Spirit living within them. Don't worry about what they say. Don't worry about the foods that they say are unclean.

Everything that comes from God, when he says it's clean, it's clean. And of course, there was an interesting episode with Peter in Acts where God had to literally tell

Peter straight on, look, I'm saying it's clean now, don't worry about it anymore. And so that's what

Paul is talking about here. Under the pure, all things are pure. So it's the context of legalists wanting to come in and tell you what is and isn't pure.

What Paul isn't saying here, Paul is not saying that since they are pure on the inside, they can do whatever it is they want, and therefore that thing will be pure because they are.

Lord forbid that's what Paul is talking about. If you're a pure person with the Holy Spirit living within you and you go commit adultery, that doesn't mean all things you do is pure.

That's not what Paul's talking about. In context, he's talking about the things that the legalists would forbid.

If God says it's clean, who cares what they forbid? And to the pure, all things are pure.

So there's a little bit more to talk about on that verse as we move into chapter two next week.

I'll leave it there for now, though, because we are out of time. Y 'all have any other thoughts or anything before we close in prayer?

Certainly lots covered and a good bit to cover. And it really, the verses 13 through 16, the way the whole chapter closes out, it's really all one idea, one thought that Paul is addressing.

Yes, sir? Yeah, this is a great example of why we have to not only take things in context, but take things in context with the whole body of it.

Sure. If you try to make that mean that you're pure and you can do anything you want to, you took it out of context with what this kind of language talks about all through the

New Testament, like Paul. And it's usually things like eat not, taste not.

It's in your Colossians chapter right now. Absolutely. You know, things that the Judaizers were forbidding that God never forbade.

So that passage you mentioned of Acts, where the sheep comes down for what?

Peter thought was unclean. Clean and God said, eat it. Because if I said it's clean, it's clean, you know.

So specifically those kind of things, it's not like you can go do anything that God didn't want since you're pure.

But if you don't know the proper rules about interpretation, you can make anything mean anything you want to do.

And that's what people do, of course. Yes, Ash? First Timothy 4 talks also about rules and how they sear the conscience, like with a hot iron.

And specifically there, they're forbidding the marriage and commanding to abstain from meats, which

God has created to be received with thanksgiving. So it's good things that they're being told to abstain from.

Not, you know, things that the word also proclaims are dangerous or bad or, you know, a gray area where, you know.

The abstaining from marriage is a particularly pernicious one, which still to this day is being used in a number of denominations and in cults even.

The, you know, the abstinence of the priests, monks, things like that. Because Paul specifically tells us that, look, celibacy, it's a great thing when it's a spiritual gift.

And very few people have that spiritual gift. Paul was an anomaly. He was not the norm. He said, if you have what

I have, it's great because there's less distractions. You can focus on God's word. You focus on God's mission.

And that's a good thing, but that's the exception, not the rule. And so when the devil comes in, he starts working through these people and starting to convince others that you need to abstain from marriage because it's more holy.

What happens? Sexual immorality, which is exactly what the devil wants to happen.

And so, yes, later in Timothy, when he starts talking about those things, Ash, it's a great point.

It's not only that they're forbidding things. They are specifically forbidding things that are good in God's eyes, that being marriage and then meats that God claims are good.

So you can see how that sears the conscience. You're not, you're not, you're distracted from other things that God really does.

You know, other imperatives, focusing on the fruits of the spirit, recognizing, you know, a heart that's impatient or unkind or unloving because you're so fixated on, you know, the rules.

Your conscience is seared. It's not working properly now. For sure. And it means that unto the pure are all things appeared.

The reason I say it like that is because the Holy Spirit moved in and then he loves you.

You have a sanctification process, right? But you could say it this way.

Another way you could say it is everything, all things that the new man does is pure.

There, and that is, that is an absolute statement. There is nothing the new man can do that isn't pure, but we still have the old man.

And so that's why it's important why I made the qualifier that I did that, you know, here's what Paul is talking about.

What he's not saying is because sometimes our old man trips us up and we don't want to excuse the trip up and cover it in this.

Well, I'm saved by grace type idea. You know, we want to do what's pleasing to God, not act in direct opposition to what he wants or doesn't want.

Going right along with what John said in this first Timothy 4 passage, he's talking about people that are giving heed to seducing spirits.

So the Holy Spirit, you will recognize him because he will be in line with who he is here in his work.

He is who he says he is and not anyone else. And it comes back to discernment, being in the word, letting that inform your conscience.

So you will recognize something heretical. So you will recognize legalism and not allow that to sear your conscience, which, you know, people think of their conscience almost like infallible sometimes.

Well, I just have a feeling, but it really does have to be informed and corrected. Well, sure, every human being has a conscience, but the minority of human beings are saved.

And so what about the rest of the people? What is their conscience telling them to do or letting them do? Well, it's things oftentimes in opposition to God's word.

And so to Ashen's point, how do you fix that? How do you ensure that your conscience is useful and not trying to kill you?

You inform it with scripture so that it's the right things are pinging your conscience.

When you're in a situation that maybe you're unsure about, your conscience can lead you Godward rather than maybe make you feel good about moving forward.

But when I say the whole root system, root system thing, right back to the priest example, who won't be married because he thinks that somehow going to eliminate the distractions, right?

Or to make him more holy. Make him more holy. And the idea is now you won't be as distracted because you're not married.

He's focused on the fruit, but he's not focused on what's causing the fruit. And so what happens is it becomes the distraction.

It does the exact opposite because he doesn't have the gift that Paul talks about. So he doesn't have that root there.

And so then he starts burying all the wrong fruit thinking it's going to give him the right fruit.

And so really it comes down to back to the word, right? And if you know the word and you know the truth, then

Satan can't come in and say, well, don't get married because you'll be distracted. It'll really actually distract you to not get married if you don't have that gift.

Yeah. The starting point for knowing if you have that gift or not is you read all the scripture surrounding it.

And if you still aren't feeling it, then that is a sign you don't have that spiritual gift. It's an ironic way of thinking.

Yeah, it really is. It is ironic.

There is a lot of irony there. Brother John, would you mind dismissing us in prayer this morning? Sure, brother. Thank you for this place together and reason together and hear people discussing new words that we want to have our mind renewed so that we can function in full upright under your guidance.

And we can have that function when something is wrong, that you're out of sync with the word or causes us to talk too much.

We can profess in prayer sometimes. And we thank you for this opportunity to get together and do that.

I ask that you bless the preaching of Dr. Benjamin when he comes up in the next hour and watch over everybody.

Amen. Hey, brother