Ensured to be Above Reproach, Part 2

Lovely beach scene. Waves and sand and stuff

Last time we looked at what it meant to be a true teacher of the Word. There were a lot of characteristics that defined what a leader of the church should look like. Now, we are looking at a group of people who don't fit those categories at all! It turns out that this position isn't for everyone! What do we do with those who don't? That is going to be the topic of this sermon as we pick up where we left off last time.

False teachers are to be silenced and made sound.

Unfortunately, the attackers of truth are legion. Paul goes on to show that there are many who display the opposite of those characteristics above who nevertheless clothe themselves in the uniform of the teacher.

Paul begins with the fact that there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers. The first word is descriptive of their character, namely that they are disobedient. Hardly a person above reproach.

Paul zeros in on what sort of insubordinate they are by going through their actions which center around sins of speech. They are deceptive (which requires no explanation) but they are also empty-talkers, the word is literally "worthless words."

So who are these people? While they could represent many different kinds of teachers of error, Paul brings up one group in particular, the circumcision party. You know how there are people today who teach error in the church? Turns out that has happened since always. These guys, in short, taught that in order to get to Jesus, you had to become a Jew first which involves, you guessed it, circumcision if you were male. Hence the name. That wasn't the only thing that they likely taught. They probably would have insisted further that the rest of the law had to be followed in order to achieve salvation, something that the gospel does not teach (see verse 14). It is also possible that they were teaching things like forbidding marriage (perhaps as seen in 1 Tim. 4) which could explain why whole families are being upset (vs 8) (Knight III, 298). What's worse is that they were doing this for money, which brings to mind many of the prosperity teachers of our own day.

There will be no shortage of people willing to do this. Some definitely know exactly what they are doing, but they continue to do it because there is a lot of money in telling people what they want to hear. But what is truly scary and terrifying to me is that there are some who are doing so thinking that they are actually presenting the truth. If you all come to my church history lectures, you will discover that a lot of the heretics of the past weren't people who hated the church but were trying to help it! But they left sound words to do so. We see people doing that today who are blunting what God has to say about sexual ethics because they want to try to reach people. It's tragic.

This was and is a hard challenge to respond to, because most of these teachers aren't just making stuff up. The circumcision party could point to sections of the scripture that say, "you must be circumcised," going all the way back to Genesis 17. As Dr. Bray put it, "The most effective form of deception is misapplied truth." (489) The words are there, but they have to be understood in context to be applied correctly. If you can attach some truth to a lie it makes it all the easier to believe. We have seen very clearly from the book of James, for instance, that there are real, moral expectations on Christian lives. That is 100% true. We don't say one prayer and then ride the escalator to heaven on flowery beds of ease. BUT we don't get to base our salvation on that behavior. Its subtle but makes all the difference. As Dr. Bray put it, "The most effective form of deception is misapplied truth." (489)

For this circumcision party, they were getting more than just a fine point of doctrine wrong. They were missing the whole point of the world. The truth gives all glory to God for my salvation, and that is the entire point of the world! The other gives at least some of the credit to me. We do not receive salvation by our performance, rather our performance is a resultof our salvation.

Do you see the importance of that distinction? To be fair, not every point of theology rises to that level of importance. Your answer to whether or not Adam had a bellybutton isn't critical to salvation. This is part of the reason I have us recite the Apostles' Creed. That really contains the fundamental truths of Christianity. That is as foundational and 101 as it gets. And if we get those wrong, we can be led down some hard paths. False teaching is like wearing a glasses prescription that isn't yours. If you wear someone else's glasses you distort the whole world in front of you. And that doesn't just affect your eyes, it affects your walking, whether or not you bump into things or people! It affects others! This isn't just hurting "your eyes" but your whole person.

Imagine if you didn't functionally believe as the Creed says "in the forgiveness of sins." It's a short line, but it means everything doesn't it? If you felt like you had to earn God's favor, as these false teachers did, that turns your life into one big pile of anxiety. You would be desperate for any sort of assurance that you might find, even if that means flying a plane into a building.

The Circumcision Party is therefore opposing the whole point of the universe and hurting people in the process. This is why they are being addressed in such harsh terms including a stereotype of Cretans: being liars.

Now, it is worth pausing here because we are living in a time where such language can be seen as Paul being a racist, which is a real problem because He is writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Does the Holy Spirit have it out for the Cretans in such a way that all of them are liars? One could try to read it that way, but there are a number of reasons why this isn't that.

For one, habitual liars who are known for their lying wouldn't qualify as elders. If all Cretans were liars, then none would be able to pass the qualifications for elder that are laid out here, and Titus would be wasting his time. Paul isn't writing off the whole of the island. So what is Paul doing?

That leads us to our second reason in that this phrase has some historical significance to it. Verse 12 tells us that Paul is quoting from a prophet/poet who was himself a Cretan, a man that we at least think was named Epimenides who would have written this about six hundred years before Jesus was born (Bray 489). So why does he say that about his own countrymen? Apparently, the Cretans claimed that Zeus (the head god of all gods, if you know your Greek mythology) died and had his tomb there on their island (Bray 491). Such a falsehood was apparently widely known, so much so that there is a Greek verb Kratizo which means "play the Cretan" or "lie" (Knight III, 298-9).

Paul is taking that well-known stereotype and applying it to the false teachers. Bray even pursues a thought that Paul is actually applying this label theologically. The lying Cretans are denying that Zeus is still alive, and the false teachers are doing a similar thing with the real God. He concludes by supposing that Cretans seemed especially vulnerable to false teaching and to plan accordingly (491-2). It's a possibility.

So what are we supposed to do about it? Modern day solutions call for banning, canceling, and in more violent cases, eliminating them. Paul's solution is very different. Those who are liars are to be rebuked and then then made sound in the faith. In other words, those who are teaching the wrong things, yes, need to be stopped so they don't do further damage, but also they need to be given what is true so that they can be made whole. Notice what a different approach that is. I think it affirms two things.

First, this corrective Paul offers maintains these false teachers humanity. Even enemies of the gospel are still in the image of God. We can't just crusade them out of existence. Canceling is too easy. They are worth the hard work of rescuing them from these teachings. That doesn't mean we do this with limp wrists and overly empathetic tones. These are eternal matters we are dealing with here. We are to sternly rebuke. If a child starts swinging a gun around, we don't reach for gentle parenting techniques in that moment. There is a stern rebuke and a stopping of that behavior. With the danger removed, we have a lot of instruction to teach them how to do this well. We don't shoot the kid! He is still in the image of God.

Secondly, this corrective Paul offers maintains the hope that we have in the gospel. No matter how far gone people appear to be, even if they are picture-perfect examples of stereotypical liars, we instruct on the real hope that the gospel can transform them, too. Paul himself is quite the example of this, isn't he? He was literally on his way to go persecute more Christians in the name of false doctrine when Jesus literally knocked him off his high horse and made him a believer. Such is the hope for anyone we approach with the truth.

And if they do come to a knowledge of the truth, everything in their life changes. That is where we come to this verse 15. It might seem a tad confusing at first. Is this saying that those who understand the gospel (the pure, here) are able to do whatever they want? Nothing is off the table for the Christian? No. As Denny Burke explains, these false teachers saw the world as filled with rules that God didn't actually give (like forbidding marriage). Those things that are indeed good and right are to be enjoyed, not needlessly encumbered by rules (Burke, 508). Some believe that it is holier to never eat meat but eat only vegetables (something that was apparently true all the way back to Romans 14). That's not what God says, and those who embrace what God says in His word see the pure things for what they are.

However, if you are defiled by false teaching, well then everything is viewed the wrong way! The whole purpose of life is to glorify God, but if you think the purpose of life is to glorify yourself, then even the good things that you do are done for the wrong motivation. It messes up everything! Even if you are good to your spouse you are doing so to make yourself look better and as such gain no credit. This is why false teaching has such bad results. And we've only scratched the surface of what sort of downstream effects those things can have. This is why false teaching is denounced in such harsh language, and rightly so.

Application

So what do we take away from this passage? Well, for one, we have to realize that false teachers are out there. This passage has become no less needed today than it was then. This means that we cannot just uncritically listen when the Bible is being taught. Always, always, always look into the Bible and compare what you are hearing, even me! Don't half-listen.

Second, the people that we put in positions of authority have to be thoroughly tested. We don't just put people into positions of teaching authority to be nice. They have to be seen if they are up to the task not only to teach truth but to confront error.

Third, when we confront, we do so in no uncertain terms, but with the motive of love and desire to bring people to the truth. We don't take cheap shots towards people online or in person, and if this is the way that we deal with false teachers, then how much more patient and loving should we be with family members and friends who might have just said something wrongly.

You as a congregation have a massive responsibility in looking for men who fit these qualifications, and the leaders of the church have a similarly massive responsibility to vet those choices. Because we are not trying to build and maintain and institution. We are trying to bring the Bride of Christ Home.