Titus Finish Lesson 4 Star Lesson 5

OK, we are in Titus Lesson 5. And it had to do with verses 13 through 16. And we had gotten down. Wait a minute. I'm sorry. Take that back. We're Lesson 4. I'm making notes on all my notes. Lesson 4 has to do with verses 10-12 regarding rebellious men and empty talkers and deceivers within the body. and that they must be silenced, and they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain. And then he, verse 12, he says, one of them, a prophet of their own, said, the cretins are always liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons. So we had gotten down to almost finished with Question five, but we had started into five.

We're talking about the term must be silenced. What does that mean? We duct tape all their mouths so they can't talk. We shut them down. We tell them they have to be quiet. How do you do that? It means, I put some notes in that must be, the word must here is exactly the same word that the Lord Jesus used when he was talking to Nicodemus and he said to him, you must be born again. It's essential. It's got to happen. Okay. This is the same word. They must be silenced. So it means a pawn, something on the mouth, like a bridle or a bit with something over the mouth, a gag. I can't envision a bunch of Christians going after somebody who's a false teacher and gagging him. Watch out, Mike.

You might want him. So how does it work? How do you do that? You know, that's my question. I mean, it's very Stop the mouth. Put something into the mouth. It's like putting a bunch of stuff up in a water pipe to get it to stop flowing. That's the metaphor. So it means to reduce to silence. How do you do that?

I think you just don't give them the opportunity to speak to, you know, we've, we've had people who have been off track and you know, you take them aside, you tell them, you know, that's not what we teach. You don't give them a forum for that, that speaking if they, you know, are addressing people, you know, outside and doing this, you address that problem, you can't be doing So, you know, and remember this. And unfortunately, it's amazing. Mainly it's incumbent upon the elders to do this. Talking about elders and what they do, but it's also for us too, that if somebody is speaking, you don't give them an audience, you don't give them a forum, you don't do that. You address it, you silence them by saying, you can't speak, you can't say that. It goes through the whole thing of discipline and whether you don't allow them the fellowship with you. I mean, that's the drastic end.

Well, it's interesting because when we see a phrase like they're, as he put it, they are upsetting whole families. In this context, it's not only family, it's a church family, because the churches were all in people's homes. So they were upsetting not only individuals in the home, but everybody who met there. I've been teaching a long time, and there's always somebody coming down the road that shows up in your class that wants to be heard and wants to have an opinion. And sometimes it's not too difficult to deal with that circumstance. Other times, it's really hard. It's really, really hard. I'll give you one example.

Years ago, We had a guy show up in the Men's Tuesday Bible study, and we were still out of bed each place. And he was a One Nature guy. So everything I said, he was challenging me and challenging me and challenging me. And so I said to him, I said, so you believe that when you were crucified with Christ, the sin nature died, right? He said, absolutely. I said, OK, here's what we're going to do, if you're willing. I said, next week. You get the floor. You come in here prepared with your A game and lay it out to us. And then the next week, I get the floor. He said, OK. And it worked because he laid it out.

Most of the guys there had been taught pretty well. They didn't buy into the one nature position because it doesn't make sense when you start getting into it. And the next week, and then so at the end of that, I said, you're sure welcome to come back, but you have to know what kind of audience you've got. And I know that you've been taught by Charles Solomon to take over and persuade everybody that you're right.

I think we've proven that you're not. And so he didn't come back. Well, that's one method. Another method is, take him to the side. I don't know. You know, at some point with one guy around here was out in the parking lot passing out tracks. He was an ultra dispensationalist and we had to tell him to stop. And, and he did, you know, but it there's it, I think it's pretty common.

Not that you're not entitled to express your opinion. But I think the bottom line is, what does the word have to say about what you're saying? If it's there, then you have to study it out. If it's not there, the one who can't back up what he's saying has to be quiet. I've been thinking about this a lot. Mike, I'm sorry I interrupted a little bit there. Oh, go.

I've been thinking about this a lot because obviously like Courtney said we're talking about overseers here in this this context but You know when I think about getting opposition and the this idea of silencing and gagging, you know, what is the gag? what's the thing and My mind just gravitates back to first Peter 315 and First of all, it's a personal responsibility And then it has an outcome and so first Peter 3 15 says sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, so that's a you thing Always being ready, that's a you thing To make a defense to everyone who asks that's a you thing and give an account for the hope and that's the key word I think in that verse is that is in you, yet with, and then how it's done, gentleness and reverence. So the thing is, is that we know that God's word doesn't return void. We're talking about sound doctrine here in the context of Titus chapter one, and the importance of the overseer adhering to sound doctrine and being able to deliver it.

And I think that 1 Peter 3.15 kind of sheds a little bit of light in the fact that You know, we go tit for tat. You know, we pull out our apologetics training and it's like, you know, we get real quick on how to defend the faith. But I think what's interesting in the passage I mentioned there is that hope is the central goal there. It's the hope that you have.

It doesn't mean that they have it. It doesn't mean that they understand it, but it doesn't return void when it's based on the scripture, when it's sound doctrine. And so that's just one of the verses that kind of came to mind. And even if you're dealing with a fellow that's handing out tracts in the parking lot, you're providing a defense that, hey, this is not sound doctrine. We do have a hope that is sound, and it goes like this. You do it with gentleness and reverence, even still. So, just some thoughts. Yeah, it's... How do I say this? I think that... The hope has to be visible in you.

You have to, under grace, you have to arrive at a place where you do study God's word all the time. You check him out. You just don't go to Sunday school. the main service that you actually have a practice in your life of reading God's Word and absorbing what it says and fellowshipping. So you're equipped, maybe is the way to put it.

And so it talks further about good conscience when you're being slandered and good behavior in Christ, you know, it won't be put to shame. So It's definitely not an outward battle that you can judge in such a way of like, oh, that overseer, that elder, really won that battle. That's not the silencing outcome that you get. But what you do get is you get the Word of God being correctly conveyed in that hope that you have, like you're talking about, that's personal to you.

And those are things that don't return void. Also, just going back, you know, we take these in verses and words and stuff, but if you go back again on the qualifications of the elders, which again, this is in context, not that, again, we don't fall into this also as far as our refuting, but for the qualifications, it's in verse, what, eight?

9. Holding fast, the faithful word, which is in accordance with the teaching, so you have to know the scripture, be faithful to it, so that he will be able to both exhort in sound doctrine and refute those who contradict. So it's incumbent to be knowledgeable, and you're teaching according to the Word, and that you exhort with sound doctrines. And the purpose is to do exactly what it is, refute or contradict, or to refute those who contradict.

I must say, Courtney, I'm not a very good reprover. Incorporating question six with this, Paul gives a reason that they do what they do. And they do it for financial gain. That's what they do it for. Well, you know, Barclay said that when a teacher or preacher looks on his teaching or preaching as a career, designed for personal advancement and personal profit and gain, he's in a perilous condition.

But one last thing I've got to say about this. There are those I've found in Bible studies, Sunday school churches, that aren't in it for the money, but they're in it to be recognized as someone who really matters. That they're scholarly, that their opinion matters, or they're always looking for the one little thing in a class where they can take issue with it. And usually it's a minor thing. You know, it's like, well, how many Jews did cross the Red Sea? you know, stuff like that.

And you, you, you, uh, what, what's the phrase for that? Uh, um, no, there's a, a phrase for that, but I, I think that, uh, I think it's called a me monster. Yeah. Screaming at the noise. You know, there's always a one upper out there. I agree. You know, I say Charles Spurgeon had a young guy come into his office and he was having this debate with Spurgeon. And so Spurgeon was talking to him and Spurgeon stopped on his foot and showed right away he had a sin nature. That's a true story. I love that.

I don't remember that. stomp on your foot. Now I know what I'm in for next time. And you can't lift a good leg yet. So you do deal with that. The thing is, is that, you know, I think not only the elders and they have a responsibility, but also the whole body of believers really need to be aware that, well, sometimes it's that they haven't come along far enough. They really don't know what they're talking about. They think they do, but they don't. Sometimes they have whatever motivation they have, you know.

And sometimes you let the Lord work that motivation out of them. Sometimes you have to step in. So. All right, Courtney, you're up. Okay, you were six and seven or whatever? I did six. I incorporated it into five. I just gotta say I thought we didn't have to move miles back to November or October 24th. I'm not sure what you're tracking down there on questions, but I had another thought. Yeah, go.

You know, one of the things, the silencing behavior is, again, to Korty's point, we're talking about overseers, but, you know, silencing the sin nature. How does one even silence their own sin nature? And it's the exact same way that you silence false doctrine. And it's always grounded in truth. The flesh is always, and false teachers are always set to interfere with, I mean that's their nature, is to interfere with truth, to counterfeit it.

So I was just thinking about, you know, this issue of silencing is really important because it starts personally, even with the believer. And a lot of the instances that you're talking about, you know, that whether it be in the parking lot or somebody that walks in or whatnot is, You know, it's the same in the sense that you're silencing the sin nature, someone that maybe has an issue with pride or wants to one-up a situation. But that's our sin nature, that it does the same thing to us.

And so, how are we approaching? There's only one authority that silences. And so, yeah, I was thinking about that too. All right. Courtney, you're right. Put my some pages out and put it back in. You're right. I still have a question. Sorry. Now, December of twenty four. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's my fault.

So question eight is what did the false teachers what did this false teaching do? And we kind of already addressed that. What's interesting is that you have to look at these people. They were very skillful in what they were doing because they were destroying entire families and church families. In your lifetime, you've gone to classes, Bible conferences, seminars, where, boy, the teacher was spectacular.

But he didn't really know what he was talking about. It's not like a politician. They sound so convincing, but they don't know what they're talking about. Because they don't base what they're, like one of these, a good example would be someone who is a real advocate for the Green New Deal. They never look at the facts.

You know, it's based on what somebody else assumes is correct. So the effectiveness of the one who, the skillfulness of the one who is a false teacher, the more skillful they are, the greater emphasis there is onto silence then. Does that make sense? I have a story, if you're interested. I got silenced once. Oh, God forbid. Yeah, Mike Doyle.

I don't know if you've heard of him, but no. This actually happened when I was very excited about my faith, and in doing so, my zeal got away from me a little bit, and I didn't know. I've talked to you on Monday nights about the one naturism that kind of swept through, I was a little confused about creation and this whole gap theory and all of that stuff, and I was teaching in a class, it was a college class, and there's several thousand college students in Lubbock, and I had a really cool audience, and I was very zealous, like I said, but I got away and started teaching these things that weren't quite, I mean, they would be not sound doctrine, because they were not founded in the scripture around creation. But Jeremy Thomas actually pulled me aside and asked me to go to coffee. And he sat me down and he walked me through the creation story in the scripture and explained to me how God's word fits together and how the hope is actually interconnected and every single phase of what God revealed about himself built on itself and you know through the nation of Israel and teaching Israel and and now teaching us and so it wasn't it was probably three or four hours of sound doctrine that Jeremy shared with me where I backed down and I remember just thinking, man, I was so stupid when I thought that, because it didn't align with God's work.

But that was a situation where there was a positive outcome to sound doctrine being shared, and it did silence me. I no longer taught those things.

Oh, good. Yeah, there's a positive outcome. Yeah, I'm like... Your snicker is pretty funny. And that made a difference. That changed the trajectory of my thinking. I understand. I think one of the biggest problems we have within the church today are the Reformed people, especially those who have been to Master's Seminary, John MacArthur's place, because they're taught that they're right and they will not accept anything other than what they're teaching. And they will meet with you and talk to you, but they are not budging. They are not budging. OK, last question. Courtney, you ready? I'm ready.

Who was the prophet that was talked about in this verse? Well, one of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, cretins always are liars, evil beasts, and lazy gluttons. The guy's name was Epimendes. who lived in the 6th century B.C. and was regarded by his contemporaries as a prophet, a great religious reformer, and a predictor as well as a poet. He's the one that came up with the line that cretins are liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons from one of his writings. He received wide acceptance in the Greek world as being true. Paul agrees with them. With the writings of verse 13, this testimony is true.

The cretins generally tended to be liars, beastly people, lazy and gluttons. I find it interesting, a guy 600 BC, 600 years before Paul lives, he's going to quote this guy to talk about the people on Crete. I wouldn't like to have that talked about people of Denver are liars, beastly, lazy, and gluttons.

I wouldn't be happy about that. Okay. Now, of course, your character didn't change in centuries. I've been trying to improve the old man and nothing. That's right. I also think there is, it's like, that's still today. You're creeping. Yeah, it is. That's how many thousand years? Yeah, that term is still I didn't yeah, I never did. I didn't either. I didn't think about it. It's like you're a Cretan, you know, it's like that's a term that well, maybe not as using that's now but that it stems from this. It's like wow. Okay. Well, you can work on the word refute. All right.

Alright, so we are now in Lesson 5, if you have it. And this is going to be, I can probably almost just get over the verses we're going to cover in this one. Again, Chapter 1 and these verses we're going to cover in Lesson 5 are verses 13 through 16. So, I'll go ahead and just read the verses that are on your lesson. Titus 1, 13-16 in the New American Standard.

This testimony is true. For this reason, reprove them severely so that they may be sound in the faith, not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth. To the pure, all things are pure. But to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed." How would you like to be described as that? That's high praise right there.

Again, we're following through on all this. The other thing I think about too, and we'll get started just barely here, I'm thinking, you're Titus, and Paul says, go to Crete. These are the people you're going to minister to. And he's laying out all these things. They're liars, they're cheap, they're gluttons, they're terrible people. Go have fun.

Go have your ministry in Crete. And I'm thinking, is Titus going, Can I offer to be in Corinth or Ephesus or Thessalonica, anywhere else but Crete? Because he's now finding out that Paul is giving him all the background on these people and it's like, man, why am I the guy going here? But he willingly goes and is ministering there. We'll just barely get started on this.

Basically just read the verses. So question one, the word refute found in verse 9 and the word reprove in verse 13 both translate the same Greek word. What is the difference in context? So first we'll read verses 7 through 9 for the context of refuting.

So, for the overseer must be above reproach as God's steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sordid gain, but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, just, devout, self-controlled, holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that's key, the foundation, so that he will be both able to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. So first we see that refuting is in context with the responsibilities of an elder. Also we see that in contrast with the first responsibility of exhorting in sound doctrine. So this stems from the verse 9 that expresses that elders, thus by association, need to hold fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching.

So again, the key, it's kind of like whatever we have in front here, knowledge before the facts and the tracks and all, whatever, I haven't used that one in a long time. But you need to know first, you got to be grounded first before you can ever refute anybody.

If you're not, you're refuting somebody on a false basis and where are you at? If you're not with sound doctrine and you're trying to refute somebody, what ground are you on? So, as the elder needs to be on sound doctrine, we also, if we are to refute somebody, and it's kind of what we just went through, you know, silencing somebody, the elders are to do that, but also we are to be, well, as we'll see, you know, scripture is to refute, to exhort, to all the basis of what you can use scripture for. And it is to refute, but you have to know sound doctrine. That is the key. I think we don't want to miss that first step, which is sound doctrine. So, what is the principle expressed here with refuting someone who contradicts God's word? And basically, I'm giving the answer, in order to refute someone who contradicts the scripture, you must know and hold fast God's Word.

So, and I was talking to her, if you remember, and Miles, you remember, Wanda, who is here, she always used to love when I quoted out of Zodiaty's or Webster's dictionary. So, I've gone back to Webster's. So, in the back of my mind, I'm hearing Wanda going, oh, Webster's or Zodiaty's. So from Webster's Dictionary, refute means to prove wrong by argument or evidence, show to be false or erroneous. Or the second is deny the truth or accuracy of something.

So, how effective or correct can you refute someone if you do not know accurately God's Word? So again, the refuting has to be based on knowledge, the truth. you can't refute if you don't know the truth or you don't know the scripture, you can't do that because you're on shaky ground at that point too. So again, when he says refute, it's based on to deny the truth, so you have to know the truth or that accuracy, you have to know it accurately. So again, the refuting is, the key of refuting is the basis of knowledge and the truth that you know in God's Word.

So, I don't know, we're already two minutes over. We'll get into it and we'll get into how the Greek also, not only Webster, but how, and Wanda is shaking now, and Zodiati is the word, and it is the same word, both refute or reprove. So it's the same word, but a little bit different. Meaning behind it. So we'll get into the Greek a little bit and it's kind of I hate to be greeky geeky But it is kind of interesting to see the word and how it's used. But then also the the Greek mood tense And and that how it different it's two different ones here, too Which also gives you an indication of what they mean by the word what Paul meant by the word? so anyway, we'll get into all that next week and Let's close Heavenly Father, we thank you.

We thank you again for this time. We thank you again for your Word. Again, as we get into it, what we see is the qualification for the elder and what they need, but also, by extension, for us to be able to be grounded in your Word, so to be in season and out of season any time to be able to defend our faith, and that faith, the defending is based on knowledge, knowledge of your Word, and the accurate deciphering of your word so we just we pray for that for each and every one of us and again that when we have to refute it's based on the truth so we just pray for Roger in the next meeting just bring forth the word accurately and to prepare our hearts to receive it we again just thank you for this day and your blessings this day and send Jesus name we pray amen