Titus 1:10-13
Titus 1:10
"For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially
they of the circumcision:"
"For there are many unruly": (anupotaktos), "insubordinate;
undisciplined; rebellious; independent; not subject to authority"
There were many believers on Crete living in a state of spiritual anarchy.
These types are insubordinate to every type of authority and are not used
to the authority of God's Word and the pastor's teaching.
Three characteristics of revolt against doctrine are covered in this verse;
1. the unruly, or "the undisciplined"
2. the vain talkers, or "those with empty arguments, and
3. the deceivers, or "those who mislead others".
The noun (anupotaktos) is translated "lawless" in 1 Tim. 1:9
"Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for
the lawless and disobedient."
Heb. 2:8 "Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For
in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not
put under him . But now we see not yet all things put under him."
There will be no insubordination to Jesus Christ!
"vain talkers": (mataiologos), "empty argument; words without
content". A combined word in the Greek, from (mataios) "empty"
and (logos) "word". The old King James here, "vain",
referred to "emptiness" (a few generations ago).
Solomon spoke of "vanity of vanities" in describing the empty
life that has all this world has to offer but does not have God.
Here, these people are expressing viewpoint from empty souls. These are
babes in Christ commenting on spiritual issues with which they are not familiar
either in principle or in practice.
People who would never think of criticizing an engineer or doctor or an
accountant, because they don't know those professions, seem to think nothing
of making judgment as experts in the plan of God. So you have hundreds of
opinions on child training, education, marriage, politics, how to run a
church. Imagine a person who can't add fractions telling a mathematics professor
that his explanation of a calculus problem is wrong.
Prov. 29:11 "A fool utters all his mind; but a wise man keeps it in
until afterwards."
1 Tim. 6:20 "O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust,
avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of sciences falsely
so called."
READ 1 Tim. 1:6,7 for reference to "vain janglings", the old King
James word.
"and deceivers": (frenapateis), "deceiver; misleader"
The verb form appears in Gal. 6:3 "For if a man think himself to be
something, when he is nothing, he *deceives* himself."
READ Eph. 4:11-15 for the defense against being deceived.
The deceiver is a person that thinks that every man is king and that what
he thinks is correct. This category includes the legalist, the moralist,
the humanist, the one who is disoriented to the grace of God, who, therefore,
communicates false doctrine in opposition to the truth.
"specially they of the circumcision": a reference to the Christian
Jews who were adamant about including the keeping of the Law as part of
the salvation package. Some of them were associated with the congregations,
but they insisted on mixing Law and Grace.
(Lest we criticize, however, remember that neither Titus not any other believers
in the 1st Century, Jewish or Gentile, had a copy of the completed New Testament
canon. Titus may have had some parchment copies of some of Paul's writings,
and there may have been one or more Torah scrolls on the island. But imagine
trying to understand the Christian way of life with so little help!)
The Jew is very proud to be a Jew, and rightly so in many respects. But
he may also feel superior to Gentile believers, possibly because Jews were
among the earliest believers on Crete, some of them having been in Jerusalem
on the day of Pentecost. Jews generally considered themselves better than
Gentiles, and the name "The Circumcision" was borne proudly.
READ Eph. 2:11-22. Christ has joined together the Jew and Gentile; but the
Judaizer wants no part of this. The Judaizer is not a Grace believer, and
he clings to his traditions with a grip of steel.
READ Rom. 2:17-29
There is an obvious need on Crete for crash programs of straight, thorough
teaching on Salvation, Grace, Positional Truth, and a hundred other doctrines.
Topic: CIRCUMCISION
Topic: POSITIONAL TRUTH
Positional Truth is the title of the categories of teachings about the Christian's
union with Christ. I am including the study here, even though this is not
a passage dealing with union with Christ. But union with Christ, and many
aspects of the teaching of Positional Truth, would have been understood
by Titus, and could easily have been used by him to point out to Jew and
Gentile that both have been united in Christ.
Titus 1:11
"Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things
which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake."
"whose mouths must be stopped": (epistomizw), "to stop the
mouth; to silence someone; to bridle; to muzzle".
Hence, "whom it is necessary to silence". It is imperative to
teach those who are negative. Believers who are in revolt against God's
authority, who will not obey, will only cause trouble among the congregation.
These types must be silenced. They must either keep quiet and grow under
the authority of the one teaching, or they must be required to leave.
Matt. 22:34, Jesus Christ put the Sadducees to silence.
READ Titus 2:7,8
READ 1 Pet. 2:11-15
"who subvert": (anatrepw), "to cause to fall; to overturn;
to destroy"
The colloquial meaning of the word is seen in the Oxyrhyncus Papyrii, P
Oxy I 69:2, "they broke down a door leading into the public street."
Or in P Oxy VI 902:11, "I have been reduced to complete ruin ."
In this verse, the word is used in the sense of overturning something.
READ 2 Tim. 2:15-18 for the sense of turning something upside down spiritually.
"whole houses": (holos oikos), "entire households; whole
houses"
This may be a reference to the fact that churches met in people's homes.
Hence, "they corrupt entire local churches". Or, the phrase could
refer to "families", households in the familial sense. Then this
would say "the corrupt entire families". I have read discussions
of both ideas, and I have no objection to either.
Phil v.2 *
1 Cor. 16:19
Rom. 16:3-5
Col. 4:15
False teaching destroys a local church when it remains unchecked. The false
doctrine doesn't have to be something obviously heretical, such as denying
the deity of Christ, His resurrection, or the virgin birth. It can simply
be any human viewpoint about any doctrinal topic.
All believers have human viewpoint ideas; but when someone starts promoting
some such idea publicly in the congregation, it becomes subversive.
Legalism, false teaching, human viewpoint, are the leaven which leavens
the whole lump. There must be strong emphasis from the pulpit to protect
the congregation from those who are vocal with false ideas.
"teaching": (didaskw), "public instruction"
"things which they ought not": "things that are not proper"
...such as, giving advice from the human point of view from a platform of
pseudo-authority.
There will be believers who have been around a while and have built up a
following, a mutual admiration society. A mutual admiration society is a
group, small or large, who agree in some area of mental attitude sin, usually
associated with some form of sinful judging. These people will pump each
other up, using sins of the tongue, evil speaking, to try to tear down the
character or work of someone else not in the group.
Or, a vocal older believer will teach false ideas from a platform of authority
which the others in the group have allowed him to exercise. This teaching
may involve outright lies. Or it may involve partial truth using scriptures
outside of context. These will be mini-sermons which sound good but which
are false or lack content. So you get all types of teaching on how to run
the church, marriage, child training, law keeping, legalism, along with
every form of behavioral control from the platform of a "busybody"
(allotroepiskopos).
"for filthy lucre's sake": "for the sake of dishonorable
profit" There were those on Crete who taught for money, dishonestly.
It seems that the Cretans had at least one thing straight; they paid the
Bible teachers for their time. "...money is held in such high honor
among them that its acquisition is not only regarded as necessary, but as
most honorable." Cretans were very money oriented; they would not think
of asking someone to do some work without being paid well for his efforts.
Of course, this led to abuses...
Now, we know from scripture that those who minister might be supported financially
in their work. This concept is originally based on the congregation in the
wilderness, and in the promised land, caring for the Levitical priesthood.
For example, the meat offerings belonged to the priests as part of their
sustenance.
Titus 1:12
"One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, "The Cretans
are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies."
"One of themselves": that is, a Cretan.
"a prophet of their own":
The following quotation is thought by some scholars to be from the Cretan
poet Epimenides who lived in about the 6th Century B.C. He was reputedly
a prophet, or an oracle, and the author of political and historical works.
However, of all the works ascribed to him by archaeologists, not one is
certain to be his. Therefore, it is not entirely certain that the line in
this verse of Titus is that of Epimenides.
Epimenides' life is mostly legend, anyway. According to Diogenes, he was
supposed to have fallen asleep in a cave and waked up after 57 years. Later,
the Athenians sent for him to purify their city from the plague which was
said to have been sent by the gods because of the murder of an important
person. Epimenides is credited with having lived a long life, either 157
years or 299 years, depending on the source; and he is in a list of seven
ancient Greek wise men.
Plato called him "a divinely-inspired man". Plutarch calls him,
"A man dear to the gods." It is curious and unique to find a Greek
writer quoted here in the canon of Scripture. However, since divine viewpoint
is expressed, there is no reason to exclude this quotation. At any rate,
in 1:13 Paul corroborates the truth of the statement by saying, "This
witness is true..."
"said, The Cretans are always liars": (pseusteis), "liar".
The word here indicates the condition of mental sin which produces habitual
lying. An example of this is the systematic lying which develops out of
a person's desire for the praise of others, such as bragging, tall tales,
exaggeration. Lying includes the teaching of false doctrine.
"evil beasts": (kakos thurion), "an evil and brutish man".
This Greek word was used in ancient times to refer either to an actual wild
beast or to a man with beastly tendencies. There are many things which can
cause a man to become brutish: alcoholism, drug addiction, fornication,
certain ingrained patterns of mental attitude sin, hatred, revenge tactics,
etc, all of which, it seems, were problems on Crete at one time or another.
"slow bellies": (gastereis + argai), "glutton who is averse
to labor; a lazy glutton". Refers to a person with little or no self-discipline.
This is characteristic of some people without Bible teaching.
"Slow bellies?" This old KJV verse rings with diction, anachronistic
to be sure, but this sort of language forces one to go to the Oxford English
Dictionary, to the certain joy of one who loves his language.
I have one of those editions of the OED which has all the material of the
previous edition squeezed into two volumes of microscopic, that is to say,
Lilliputian, text, for which I paid $25 in some book club introductory offer.
I use a magnifying glass to read it. The latest edition is about $2,200
U.S., but I'm saving my shekels for the CD-ROM version (about $900).
Anyway, for an etymological adventure, look up "belly" in the
OED, and try to find out why the 1611 KJV translators used this phrase!
I'd type it out for your from my volume, but I have presbyopia (remember).
This verse shows that there is instability in every area of life on Crete,
such as can be seen in many areas of modern society as well.
Titus 1:13
"This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may
be sound in the faith;"
"This witness": (marturia), "testimony; witness" [English
cognate: "martyr"] The apostle Paul is affirming the truth of
the statement in verse 12.
"is true": (aleitheis), "true".
This is the unqualified appraisal of the apostle Paul who speaks from education,
experience, and doctrinal orientation. Paul places the stamp of approval
on the Cretan poet's statement, even though the statement, when originally
written in about 600 B.C., was not inspired scripture. The statement is
divine viewpoint even though uttered by a pagan.
"wherefore, rebuke them": (elegkw), "to put to the proof;
to refute; to detect; to lay bare; to expose; to reprove".
This statement, in context with v. 14, is directed at church members, at
the false teachers who are in the church and upsetting things. The elder
is the protector, the shepherd, of his own flock. Sometimes he will have
to confront those who are a direct threat to his congregation.
The teacher's weapon is the Word of God; he uses truth to refute lies. In
so doing he protects the flock.
"sharply": (apotomia), an adverb, "cut off abruptly"
"that they may be sound in the faith": (hugiainw) . Literally,
"to be in good health" In this context, however, it is their faith
which is to be uncorrupted. The stated purpose, them, of the very straightforward
teaching, the reproof, the rebuke, is the restoration of the errant believer.
Summarizing the passage:
Titus 1:10 "For there are many insubordinate, those whose speech is
without content, misleaders, especially among the Jews."
Titus 1:11 "Whom it is necessary to silence, who overturn whole churches,
by public instruction teaching things which are not proper for the sake
of dishonorable profit."
Titus 1:12 "One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, 'The
Cretans are habitual liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons'."
Titus 1:13 "This testimony is true; wherefore, rebuke them sharply,
that they may be uncorrupted in the faith."
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