“Stopping False Teaching in the Church, Part 2” (Titus 1:12–16)

Series: “Titus: Godly People, Godly Church,” #7Text: Titus 1:12–16

By: Shaun Marksbury Date: June 9, 2024

Venue: Living Water Baptist ChurchOccasion: PM Service

Introduction

Last time, we began considering how to stop false teaching within the church. Paul begins by attacking it at its source: false teachers. These individuals must be silenced within the church, either through refutation or through church discipline. The desire in silencing false teachers is that they repent, but the ultimate goal is to maintain purity within the church.

That is only half the battle, however. The Southern Baptists are learning this in its current battle. Last year, they ousted Rick Warren’s church for hiring a female lead pastor and encouraging others to follow him in bringing women to the forefront of the church. However, that is only part of the battle, for there are perhaps over a thousand women who hold the title “pastor” currently in the convention, such as children’s pastor or worship pastor. So, some are trying to clarify that this also is not in keeping with the Baptist Faith and Message. There are many churches that also promoted Beth Moore, having her and others preach. So, we’ll see if the effort to unify around the SBC confessional statement is successful.

It's one matter to get rid of a false teacher. It’s another to address the false teaching that’s been left behind. Deceivers deceive people, and it’s not enough to simply silence the false teaching. It’s like pulling a weed — you must be sure to get it by the roots. Otherwise, false teaching will once again sprout within the church.

This evening, we’re going to consider two ways to stop false teaching in church. First, we stop false teaching by reproving believers. Second, we stop false teaching by recognizing unbelievers. Let’s consider the first of those:

Stop False Teaching by Reproving Believers (vv. 12–14)

One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” 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.

Paul begins by referencing a particular author. Remember that Paul had a wide education and would have read various sources. Paul didn’t need to reference his name, but it was Epimenides of Knossos, a man somewhat mythologized in the six hundred years since he lived. Paul notes his reputation for having prophetic insight, though he is not implying that Epimenides had true divine knowledge or insight (there can be false prophets).

This self-styled revelator happened to get something right about the Cretans. Incidentally, I’ve been pronouncing this “Cretian” without really thinking about it, but it is Cretan. I got the other pronunciation from the old KJV without knowing it. The term carries a negative connotation that’s persisted for well over two thousand years.

As Epimenides put it, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” Not sometimes; he said they always are. They are perpetually or incessantly this way.

First, they are always liars. Epimenides said that because Cretans claimed, for instance, to have the body of Zeus buried on the island. In Epimenides’s mind, though, Zeus was a deity and could not die. The Cretans made stuff up to gain tourism — come to Crete and see the resting place of the Olympian most-high! So bad was Cretan lying that the Greek verb κρητιζω means “to speak like a Cretan, to lie,” and a noun κρητισμος, “Cretan behavior, lying.” Of course, lying should not be a part of a Christian congregation, but we cannot put false teachers above lying.

Second, they are always “evil beasts.” The NIV renders this “brutes.” Rude and brutal would be a range here. Someone suggested that perhaps Epimenides had the image of the Minotaur here, the half-bull, half man beast that dwelt at the center of the labyrinth in Crete. Just as one of the qualifications for an elder is that he cannot be “quick-tempered” or “pugnacious” (v. 7), Titus must recognize that false teachers can become brutish by forcing others to comply with their false teaching.

Third, he says they are always lazy gluttons. That is a more dynamic way of translating this phrase, which is literally idle bellies or, as the KJV has, “slow bellies.” In Philippians 3:19, Paul warns about those whose god is their appetite. Here, we have the picture of gluttony, personal-pleasure seeking, mixed with laziness.

Paul was recently in Crete, so he can confirm this behavior for himself. Some might complain that he’s guilty of stereotyping; there are talking heads today who would decry such cross-cultural judgments. Of course, he’s quoting a Cretan, and not all stereotyping is bad; it can be helpful for missions like the one Titus is undertaking. Certain traits can mark a particular people, even though there are always outliers. The main issue is to keep any stereotype in balance so as to not become impartial and unjust.

He's not saying that every single Cretan will be this way; he expects that Titus will find some to be elders who are not this way! Even so, especially when he sees false teachers in Crete, Paul can say he sees liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons. It is the general truth, and there may be some looking for lies so they can have an easier Christianity.

It’s that possibility — that some Christian converts might gravitate toward false teaching because they have an appetite for it — that Paul says what he does next. He writes, “For this reason reprove them severely.” The ESV and the NKJV translates this “rebuke them sharply.” This is the same word translated “refute” back in v. 9, and it comes with the modifier “severely” or “sharply.”

This is something that the modern church cannot countenance. There’s the eleventh commandment present-day believers hold to, and it’s “Thou shalt be nice.” It isn’t “nice” to tell people that they are wrong. To refute or reprove someone’s beliefs, exposing their error and doing so with any kind of edge is the height of apostasy. There will even be people today who say they agree, but will wring their hands and say they are “concerned” and we need to “do better.” Church members may leave because of how “judgmental” the church has become, though they will be nice and say something like “God is leading us in a different direction.”

Again, it’s true that elders should not be pugnacious or quick-tempered (v. 7), and their speech should always “be with grace, as though seasoned with salt” (Col. 4:6). Still, rebuking is an unpleasant but necessary aspect of a pastor’s duties, as we noted in v. 9. In 2:15, Paul tells Titus, “These things speak and exhort and reprove [same word] with all authority. Let no one disregard you.” After all, the Father disciplines us in love, so we should not faint when He reproves us though our elders (cf. Heb. 12:5; Rev. 3:19). The Word itself can reprove us of sin (James 2:9), and that is what the elder of a church should be using. Just as the apostle sometimes used severity in writing and in person (2 Cor 13:10), an elder must be open to being used by God to make pointed application of God’s Word in the lives of God’s people.

We do so recognizing a couple of limiting realities. First, while we should expose a person to their sin in such a way that the Holy Spirit may convict them unto repentance, we can’t force people to confess; that’s between them and God. Moreover, we cannot generate repentance in their hearts — only God can do that. Even so, we also recognize that the Holy Spirit may use pastors/elders to turn a lost sheep back toward the flock.

Second, we must tell them to stop in certain, clear, and concise terms. The Greek term here means to chop it off, to rebuke with severing. Sometimes we struggle with correcting others because we want to show love to those around us. Indeed, it is because we love those around us that we confront error and put a stop to it. That’s why it’s necessary to sometimes do what the Bible does — name names of false teachers and condemn specific teachings. This is what God commands of Titus.

The purpose is “so that they may be sound in the faith.” Of course, this is true of false teachers — we want them to repent. But, in the context of church membership, it seems the pronoun here points to those who are tempted toward deception, rather than the deceivers themselves. The members of the church must understand why elders are silencing a potentially favored teacher and condemning his teaching.

That’s love; we want people to be sound. True believers believe wrong things all the time, and praise God for His grace! Even so, God’s grace challenges us to change and grow, and He uses elders to help accomplish this task. So, when we see our brothers or sisters slipping into error, we go to them for their own good, hoping that someone will do the same for us someday. This is how we get unsound Christians onto solid ground again. Let’s be clear: if the people in our church are unsound, then the church will never be sound.

We see that the believers in Crete were interested in Jewish myths or, as the KJV has it, “giving heed to Jewish fables.” This is an example of unsound or ungodly faith. Jesus confronted Jewish traditions added to the Word of God, such as the ceremonial washing of hands before meals (Mark 7:2–8). Jesus quotes from Isaiah 29:13 there — “But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts [or “commandments”] of men” (v. 7). He then goes on to say, “Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men” (v. 8). The Pharisees were adding their own commandments to God’s Word, and then they were even neglecting what was already there, all in the name of tradition.

Such practices continued in the Christian church, prompting Paul to warn about the commandments of men here. The Reformation Study Bible suggests that this may be “a reference to the kinds of legends about Old Testament figures that are found in many of the apocryphal Jewish writings (1 Tim. 1:4; 4:7; 2 Tim. 4:4),” and, of course, the Roman Catholic Church has added these apocryphal writings to the canon of Scripture. In the case of Roman Catholicism, the catechism of the church anathemizes anyone who declares we are justified by faith alone, as Scripture says, and thus have turned away from the truth. That may have been part of it.

There may have been another aspect to this. Perhaps this was like the asceticism in Colossae. In Colossians 2:20–23, Paul says,

If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with use) — in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.

There are people who present human wisdom in creating commandments. I’ve seen Christians note that improperly prepared pork and shellfish can be dangerous, but then say that God therefore doesn’t want Christians to eat it. The Seventh Day Adventists made much of that, saying that we can be healthier if we make godlier choices; this can be true, but it is adding the commandments of men to Scripture. We see the same thing in the Hebrew Roots movement. I’ll note one that’s closer to home, those who say that drinking alcohol is a sin; there’s obviously human wisdom in abstinence to avoid drunkenness, but that’s another example of adding the commandment of men to Scripture. There was even a Christian prohibition poster with the words, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch,” ripping these words from their context and thus proving the apostle’s point.

We must avoid teaching that adds to Scripture. Those who do become arrogant. That is why Paul told the Corinthians that he wanted them to “not to exceed what is written, so that no one of you will become arrogant in behalf of one against the other” (1 Cor. 4:6). There’s a certain pietism that causes people to look down their noses at others because of a particular list of scruples; Ecclesiastes 7:16 warns, “Do not be excessively righteous and do not be overly wise.” Those who add to Scripture and shame other believers for not holding to their personal traditions create problems in the church, and they will gravitate toward false teachers who will take advantage of them if they don’t repent. Mythology, no matter how biblically-aligned it seems, must be rejected.

Sometimes, though, they won’t repent. One reason may be because we’re not dealing with true believers. Sometimes, we are dealing with false converts, those who wrongly think they are believers. That brings us to the next point:

Stop False Teaching by Recognizing Unbelievers (vv. 15–16)

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.

Before we consider this point, let’s consider what the apostle is saying. He begins this verse by saying, “To the pure, all things are pure,” or, “to the clean all things are clean.” In other words, the mature Christian, the one who knows his righteousness is in Christ alone, is not worried about whether a slice of bacon will make God angry. He isn’t swayed by people who say having a circumcision or keeping a Saturday Sabbath will make God happier. Why is he so secure? It’s because he knows that he has already been purified before the throne of God in the blood of Christ.

The false teachers were telling people to avoid things. This was happening in Ephesus, so Paul addressed in 1 Timothy 4:1–5. He says that there are some who pay attention to the “doctrines of demons” (v. 1), and these are “men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth” (v. 3). We’ve already considered that a bit, and Paul says here, “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer” (vv. 4–5). Things which one person might morally object to, a mature Christian can partake of them because of a right focus.

Paul also addressed this in an abused passages about the weaker brother. RC Sproul considered this in his teaching, “The Tyranny of the Weaker Brother.” In passages like Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8, the apostle Paul says that we should give deference to a new believer who may be struggling with issues of conscience; for instance, if someone saved from idolatry is going to be bothered by my eating of meat that has been sacrificed to an idol, then I won’t eat that in front of him. However, if that weaker brother begins demanding that everyone rids their personal homes of meat, then there is a problem, and we will need to correct his misunderstanding. Christians are not obligated to change what they enjoy because someone is offended, though we also don’t go out of our way to offend.

Those who have been purified through the gospel know all things are pure. However, the one who is constantly bothered may evidence that he has thinking like the unbeliever. It was the Pharisees who thought you could bring demons into your body without knowing it because they were themselves defiled of heart. They only saw defilement around them because it was in them. And the professing Christian who does the same, even after receiving repeated corrections evidence that their minds and consciences are defiled and unbelieving.

They are defiled because their minds and consciences are. All things become a potential point of stumbling to the mind mired in sin. The person who is dirty on the inside infects even seemingly good things. For instance, a person might wear a cross as a talisman, even though the person professes belief in Christ. I was watching a video from a preacher, and he said that a woman called his church to ask why he kept a skull on his desk; he explained that it went back to the practice of Puritan preachers to remind themselves of how limited our time is on earth, but she called him a liar and said it was because he secretly practiced the occult! Defiled minds can see the bad in good and can turn good things bad.

The reality is that no object has sanctifying or cleansing power. The Bible defines the gospel as the power of God. Until they come to Christ and the gospel, they will continue in this state. And it gets worse.

Paul says here in the next verse, “They profess to know God.” That is, they confess God, just as one confesses God unto salvation (cf. the same term in Rom. 10:9–10). Some think confession or profession of God is enough. Others are satisfied if a person can sign off on a creed. However, none of that means the person is a genuine convert.

Jesus says we will know them by their fruit. As such, Paul says here that “by their deeds they deny Him.” Anyone who has encountered the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit should be changed by the experience, even if there are a few lingering struggles.

Paul will explain in 2:12 using this same terminology that the grace of God “instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age.” The difference isn’t by what you profess with your mouth — the people draw near to God with their lips. The difference isn’t by working harder and doing radical things for Christ — Jesus said those touting radical stories of works will fail to enter into heaven (Matt. 7:22–23). The difference between the believer and the unbeliever is the grace of God that is active in their lives. The unbeliever is known by his works, not simply by what he says.

Paul says here that they are “detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.” A mark of a hell-bound sinner is detestability or abominable behavior (Rev 21:8). Disobedience is also a mark of unbelief, for in 1 John 2:4, the Spirit says, “The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” Finally, whereas the man of God is trained by the Word of God for good deeds and fit for good works (2 Tim 3:16–17), false professors are unfit for any good deed.

Once you recognize unbelievers, you can begin sharing the gospel with them. They may say they believe the gospel, but those who believe the gospel are transformed by it. The grace of God includes the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, and that means that a person will live differently as a Christian.

However, if the person does not repent and begins spreading false teaching, they then enter the category of being false teachers. And they’re not worth keeping around just for another point of view. We don’t go along to get along.

So what does Paul tell Titus in response? V. 1 of the next chapter: “But as for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine.” We must exalt the Word of God in the midst of the detestable and disobedient. The leaders of the church must draw a line in the sand, like Moses, and call the faithful and repentant to the Lord’s side.

Conclusion

The church can never claim to love and honor God’s Word unless it is also willing to rebuke teachings and philosophies that are contrary to God’s Word. God said that He is against false prophets and teachers, so a church will never be sound if it allows a mix of sound and unsound teachers. With that in mind,

Don’t take everyone at face value everyone who tells you, “I believe in God and I have something neat to share.” The demons believe in God and tremble, James says, and Paul notes that they want you to believe damnable heresies. I hope you see that this is not just the responsibility of the elders in our church. We must acknowledge that there are true and false believers among those who call themselves Christians, and we are called to discern false messages: and false works. Having done so, do not submit unto these subtle words of the evil one by watching or listening to his minsters of darkness on TV, on the radio, or online.

I hope that you will consider yourself in light of verse 16. Do your works line up with your profession? If not, why not? Have you simply grown distracted? Or is it indicative of a deeper issue, that you have never been regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit unto new life?