Titus 2

[00:00:00] You are listening through the Bible Studio series with Pastor Nate Holdridge. Join us as we continue our study with a new testament book of Titus. Here's Nate.

[00:00:31] It is good for us to think about how a community of believers enables us to accurately see ourselves and God and others.

[00:00:46] And that seems to be part of the organization of the Church that Paul has in mind when he begins this next section of his letter to Titus.

[00:00:57] First, he talks about the older men in the Church who are so important to the body of Christ. He says, but as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine.

[00:01:07] Older men, are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love and in steadfastness.

[00:01:17] At the end of chapter 1, he mentioned how false teachers had brought destruction and had upset whole families.

[00:01:27] And here now, Paul is going on and saying, but as for you, they come in and they upset whole families. They disrupt people's faith.

[00:01:39] And when he said the word upset, it's the same word actually that was used to describe Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers.

[00:01:47] And these false teachers had come into the Church there and had overturned people's faith, had disrupted the body of Christ and the fellowship.

[00:01:58] And so Paul announces to Titus, he says, that's not the way that you are going to operate. But as for you, I want you to teach what accords with sound doctrine or what would lead to a healthy sound kind of life for doctrine, a way of living out this faith.

[00:02:21] And of course, we remember that it's God's grace that trains us to be a people zealous for good works.

[00:02:27] This is not a restrictive life but it's a healthy life, a sound life, a beautiful life, a helpful life.

[00:02:34] And so first here, he goes to Titus and says, so I want you to exhort the older men to behave in a certain way.

[00:02:46] Now, he's going to in this little passage talk about older men and older women and younger men and younger women.

[00:02:53] And of course, one question that we might ask is how do we determine who is who in any particular church at any particular time?

[00:03:03] Obviously, the old and young line question changes in various times and cultures and customs.

[00:03:12] Leimeck in Genesis chapter 5 was 182 years old when he fathered Noah. But he was in the average lifespan of that day and age, a young man.

[00:03:26] So how do we determine it here in our own time and culture? In Proverbs 16, it seems to be that gray hair is some kind of indicator of older age.

[00:03:39] But that just seems to be a time marker or physical feature that is attached to age but not everybody has that and some people get gray hair very young in life.

[00:03:50] Perhaps this is just in relationship to Titus, some men would be older than him, some would be younger and the same with the women.

[00:03:59] He could simply ask the question, when is your birthday? When what year were you born and he could come to some kind of determination on who was younger and who was older.

[00:04:10] But it seems to just refer to stage of life and especially stage of life as it relates to the household because he's going to talk about mothers and mothers who are no longer mothers in the sense of having young children in the home, exhorting the younger women who do.

[00:04:28] So there must be something here about stage of life and maybe a way to think about it would not be in the age realm older and younger but in the experience realm experienced and inexperienced wise and still gaining wisdom.

[00:04:46] So he mentions older men and he mentions them first I think for a reason they were to set the tone within the church and to set the tone within the family.

[00:04:59] He tells them that there to be sober mind it this would indicate some temperance in their use of wine they weren't to become drunkards.

[00:05:10] But more than just the way that they handled alcohol but they're staying sharp mentally.

[00:05:17] And as men age it seems that it becomes tempting to justify sin or sloth or self-focus and to lose our focus upon the kingdom of God.

[00:05:31] Of course David made a mistake like this when at the time when the kings went out to battle he avoided it and sent Joe Ab and his servants in all Israel but he remained at Jerusalem.

[00:05:42] And by remaining at Jerusalem he one day on his balcony looked down and saw a young woman bathing and fell into the trap of lust and eventually murder.

[00:05:55] And it led to great pain being brought into his kingdom and into his family not to mention his own soul.

[00:06:04] So to stay sharp to stay engaged to say look there's a work for me to do I must be involved with it.

[00:06:13] Not only that but he also says there sober mind it and dignified dignified means worthy of respect and treating others correctly.

[00:06:24] It is a temptation it seems as men age to become too comfortable or too loose talking down to those who are young and unwise with the opposite sex.

[00:06:38] No there needs to be still a dignified way of treating other people and actually being worthy of the respect of others.

[00:06:50] He also talked to the older men about being self controlled having self mastery in every area of life and being sound in faith love instead fastness.

[00:07:00] So to have a good relationship with God that's faith with people that's love and instead fastness that's with the self.

[00:07:11] So in other words the older man of God is to continue to grow in Christ.

[00:07:16] So God's grace trains older men to live exemplary lives.

[00:07:24] This means that older men are called to be involved in the lives of others.

[00:07:30] It's grace that God has fathered and invested in us so we if we are men who are aging must be willing to father and invest.

[00:07:41] We learn from God's word that we aren't self made and that we didn't receive grace because we deserved it.

[00:07:52] No, grace means that I've been purchased by God that I've been chosen by God that I've been made and built and loved by God.

[00:07:59] So you know God has asked me to graciously go out to other people and I think a lot of times older men will minister to others that they feel are deserving.

[00:08:12] But grace says no one deserves and so I want to extend myself because God is filled with grace and mercy.

[00:08:20] So the older men.

[00:08:22] Number two, he mentions the older women in verse three.

[00:08:25] Older women he says like wiser to be reverent in behavior not slanderers or slaves to much wine they are to teach what is good and so train the young women to love their husbands and children.

[00:08:38] So the older women you know the experience of life is theirs and older women can be an incredible force within the body of Christ especially if they are blessed to be in a situation where they have much time for service in the kingdom of God.

[00:09:02] Now when Paul specifically calls out the women of the church for service to others inside the church he is elevating the role of women within the body of Christ.

[00:09:15] The current or modern thought at the time of Paul would not have been that older women had something to offer but Paul saw it that way within the church.

[00:09:27] So he exhorts the older women to be reverent in behavior or as the new living translation says to live in a way that honors God not to be cavalier people.

[00:09:38] So you know to be reverent again there is something that can happen as a person ages where they become too loose, too comfortable, too confident and their own opinions that everything that they feel must be fact.

[00:09:55] But the older wise woman is reverent in her behavior she still is fearing the Lord. She respects God's opinions more than her opinions.

[00:10:07] She is also not to be a slanderer he says these are gossip within the church that go about revealing secrets as Proverbs 20 verse 19 says and this is the devil's work because it undercuts other human lives

[00:10:24] and destroys people's reputations. It's a concern for others that is not godly as we are supposed to be concerned about others in a godly and beautiful sense but it is an ungodly concern for others, a tearing down of others so often due to an insecurity within our own hearts.

[00:10:46] Also they are not to be slaves to much wine. Now on the island of Crete this is apparently found a little too often and armed with an internet connection and a little too much wine older women can cause great pain so it's very important for older women to make sure that they are not enslaved to alcohol, that they are not enslaved to any substance but they are not in the same way as they are.

[00:11:15] They are not allowed to be a clear substance but they are able to perpetually have a clear mind and not to fog or cloud their mind with a substance.

[00:11:26] Then he says that they must teach what is good.

[00:11:32] Now it seems that Paul really isn't so much referring to a public function of teaching although that would happen within the church but for other women.

[00:11:45] But here he seems to be talking about within the home relationally. The Christian home you have to remember was a totally new thing back then especially on Crete and in other Gentile areas.

[00:11:58] So older women who understood what a Christian home should look like needed to be busy explaining that to younger women in the church because it was a brand new thing. It was a totally new thing.

[00:12:13] And I think in our modern world that we are living in a Christian home is a totally new thing for so many people.

[00:12:19] So many have not lived or grown up with a father and a mother who as husband and wife are committed to one another, loving one another serving the Lord together.

[00:12:29] Raising their children for Christ many people have come to know the Lord and that has not been their childhood or their experience.

[00:12:37] So they need others to come alongside of them to teach them and to train them.

[00:12:42] So older women through the grace of God were to continue their mothering ministry if they had ever been mothers previously through teaching and training the younger women in the church.

[00:12:56] So as we think about this, you know for women who have been blessed to actually have children, you know many understandably connect to those child raising years.

[00:13:09] And some will wonder what they're to do after their children are grown.

[00:13:16] Of course there still is parenting to do of your adult children. That's you know absolutely true.

[00:13:23] But still we are allowed to older women are allowed to mother inside of the church.

[00:13:30] The culture might tell you that you've put in the hard work of raising children now it's time for you to do you.

[00:13:38] But the Bible says that it's now time for you to prepare the next generation.

[00:13:44] Grace will teach you that it's time for others. Grace nurtured you so you want to nurture others.

[00:13:52] So you must take the time to apply the grace of God to all the complexities and details of life in the lives of others.

[00:14:03] Then he says in verse 4 he says, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children to be self-controlled pure working at home kind and submissive to their own husbands that the word of God may not be reviled.

[00:14:17] Now Paul seems to be saying to Titus that this is not your responsibility directly.

[00:14:23] You're to teach the older women who will teach the younger women.

[00:14:28] And the younger women through the grace of God would be bringing the gospel into their homes.

[00:14:35] And they would be the word he uses is trained. They would be trained in a few different ways.

[00:14:44] First to love their husbands and their children. One of these loves is natural, the love for your children.

[00:14:52] And the other love is adopted to choose to be loving a man.

[00:14:59] In that culture and Eastern culture marriages were much less romantic than in our Western idea of marriage.

[00:15:07] And we can't imagine marriage without romance, without love but in that culture it would be very easy for them to imagine marriage that did not have feelings and emotions attached to it.

[00:15:18] So they had to learn to be trained to love their husbands.

[00:15:23] To bring that love from God into the home and where they put their treasure there with their heart end up being also.

[00:15:32] Now the love for children is natural in a sense but here it has the idea of some control that there's a love that still disciplines

[00:15:43] and still puts the child not at the center of the home in a place of worship but in their proper setting.

[00:15:52] So, you know he's calling these young women to love their husbands and children.

[00:15:59] Now it is worth mentioning that a young woman today who is not married and without children can love a future husband or future children

[00:16:09] by the way that she walks with God in her single state.

[00:16:14] Also Paul said she's to learn how to be self-controlled.

[00:16:19] This meant that they were to live lives for God.

[00:16:23] There are to be pure, this speaks of a sexual wisdom to live a chaste life.

[00:16:32] And then he also mentions working at home.

[00:16:35] Now this doesn't seem to be I don't think a treatise against the career woman philosophy or a prison for a woman to be kept in that she can only work at home if she's married and has children.

[00:16:49] But it seems to be more a guide or an excertation to guide the home and to make certain that the home is not a place that is neglected.

[00:17:00] That this should be cared for and nurtured and blessed.

[00:17:05] So some women will have the opportunity as wives and as mothers to be able to stay at home with their children but not all will be given that beautiful opportunity or even choose that beautiful opportunity.

[00:17:18] But the big question is, is my home and my family in a place of neglect? It should not be.

[00:17:27] No matter how we choose to handle this life that God has set in front of us, the home and my children should not be neglected.

[00:17:34] My marriage should not be neglected for the sake of career.

[00:17:38] He also talks about being kind.

[00:17:41] This speaks of being good and useful.

[00:17:45] It's sort of something that speaks of the atmosphere in the home.

[00:17:50] There's nothing like a woman who sets that kind of grace tone within the home.

[00:17:56] And then of course, something that is controversial in our modern time, Paul said, submissive to their own husbands.

[00:18:04] Now in a sense he's giving a qualifier because he's saying they don't have to submit to every man within the community but to their own husbands yes.

[00:18:13] They need to arrange themselves underneath their husbands five times.

[00:18:18] This has been shown throughout the New Testament.

[00:18:21] Of course, Christ submitted to the Father so it shouldn't be an indicator to us of any kind of inequality or inferiority but a coming under.

[00:18:32] I've defined marital submission this way that there's no inferiority from one to the other but the wife makes a choice to place herself as an equal underneath another equal her husband in order that there can be order and function in the marriage and function.

[00:18:50] I know I said order twice there so I need to work on my definition there a little bit but you get the idea.

[00:18:58] There's no inequality but choice from one equal to come under the other equal for orders sake.

[00:19:07] Now of course, husband should be asking the question is my wife flourishing under my leadership it's a major responsibility.

[00:19:15] He talks to the young women now the younger man he says in verse six he's very straightforward with them he says likewise urge the younger men to be self controlled.

[00:19:25] Show yourself and all respects to be a model of good works and then you're teaching show integrity dignity and sound speech it cannot be condemned so that an opponent maybe put his shame having nothing evil to say about us now.

[00:19:39] Titus was to be a model for the young men by showing them his good works and integrity and dignity and sound speech but there was one thing for the young men to focus on that was being self controlled.

[00:19:51] The older men had six things the older women had five things the younger women had seven things but the young men had one thing learn how to be self controlled.

[00:20:03] Be self controlled sexually be self controlled with your leisure be self controlled in your career and your focus be self controlled.

[00:20:13] So this is all important for younger men you know to learn how to rather than be takers perpetually to learn how to be self controlled and to be a giver who serves others rather than taking all the time rather than indulging the self constantly to put some restraint upon your life and say no.

[00:20:32] Going to give of my life and heart now verse nine he goes on and talks to the workforce or the slaves in that culture he says bond servants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything there to be well pleasing not argumentative not pilfering but showing all good faith so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our savior.

[00:20:56] Now many first century Christians were slaves because many first century people were slaves. Now of course in America's history we have a horrible reputation or a horrible history in the sense of the slavery that we invited into this nation and although there are some wonderful things about our history racial suppression.

[00:21:25] The putting down of people of color in order to for selfish gain promote a you know basically white people is such a stain upon our nation's history.

[00:21:43] But when we think so when we think of slavery we think of some of the ugliest things that we've known and slavery in the Roman Empire was also an ugly thing but it didn't have quite the ugliness of what we know of in our more modern history.

[00:22:04] It wasn't quite a ethnic or racial kind of slavery as much as it was a social or class kind of slavery and it was something that if you had to pick what it was closer to our modern forms of employment versus our historical version of slavery you probably say that it's a little closer to our modern form of employment.

[00:22:31] But still it was far from it and I think ultimately the gospel message permeating throughout the Roman Empire was the thing that destroyed their version of slavery as well.

[00:22:45] So for our purposes I think it'd be good for us to think about how the gospel helps us in our workplace because here he promotes a submissiveness to their masters.

[00:23:00] In the way that Jesus lowered himself to the father we can lower ourselves to those that we report to. He says to be well pleasing and not argumentative.

[00:23:09] Jesus took injustice he did not argue he was silent and Jesus he says he goes on to say not pilfering but showing all good faith. Jesus gave and did not take so if we think about the Lord and the way that he worked and operated it should impact the way that we work as well.

[00:23:30] So here in these brief 10 verses a Paul has done a good job of painting a picture of a Christian community and has painted the picture of this multifaceted multi-generational multi-class ethnicity group coming together serving and loving one another.

[00:24:00] So we need other people in order to accurately see ourselves and to be able to be pushed and to grow.

[00:24:07] And so Paul is encouraging the believers to have responsibility for one another.

[00:24:13] For the grace verse 11 that has appeared bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled upright and godly lives in the present age.

[00:24:27] And for our blessed hope the appearing of the glory of our great god and savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself of people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

[00:24:41] Declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority let no one disregard you.

[00:24:50] So in closing out this chapter he mentions that grace has come. Why would we want to have a community like this? Well because grace has appeared.

[00:25:00] Grace is literally the kindness, the goodwill, the gift of God. You know he's given us so much. He's given us every spiritual blessing and the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

[00:25:12] His grace has come and of course we've seen his grace in the cross of Jesus Christ.

[00:25:19] So his grace has been released upon us. And what it did to us he says there in verse 11 is that it brought salvation to us.

[00:25:32] It actually made salvation universally available. And you know salvation from sin and death and wrath and punishment and self and corruption and decay and from the earth itself.

[00:25:50] But not only that it also trains us. It didn't only bring salvation but it also trains us to renounce ungodliness and to live a godly kind of life, self controlled upright and godly lives in the present age.

[00:26:08] So the kind of life that is being promoted in the community older men, older women, younger women, younger men is promoted by God's grace. It trains us to live in that kind of way.

[00:26:25] How does God's grace train us to live like that? Well God's grace shows us that Christ died for the old life and created a new life for us.

[00:26:35] That we have died with Christ and have also risen with him that we might walk in newness of life, Roman 6 verse 4.

[00:26:45] So we as we receive that grace are now wanting to walk with God. We're being trained to walk with God to live righteous lives.

[00:26:54] So a true understanding of grace does not promote an anti-nomean licentiousness but a godliness. And it does not promote a legalism and a kind of slavish fear of God but a sense that I'm approved, I'm loved, I'm accepted by God.

[00:27:15] We just want to walk with him because we understand his grace. And then he says in verse 13 that we are waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of Jesus Christ.

[00:27:24] Grace causes us to wait for Jesus's appearing because it secures our future. So his coming is not a frightful thing but an anticipated thing.

[00:27:36] And when he came, he gave himself, he says there verse 14, up for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify himself for himself of people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

[00:27:52] Grace ultimately came to purchase us out of our slavery to sin and to make us impassioned for a life of good works.

[00:28:01] In fact, whenever Paul teaches us throughout his letters of the doctrine of election and predestination he always talks about what we are elected to and what we are predestined to.

[00:28:15] And he always talks about those things being connected to a godly life that were elected to a godly life. God chose us for a godly life. God predestined us to conformity to Christ.

[00:28:27] So here we see that once again, we've been set apart by God, by Jesus so that we would be a people who are zealous for good works, impassioned for service.

[00:28:41] So in other words, claimed by God so that we can serve God.

[00:28:46] So Paul then tells Titus in verse 15, declare these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority, let no one disregard you.

[00:28:53] So Titus had to declare and exhort and rebuke in these things on the island of Crete. He had the apostolic authority to run with the gospel on that island.

[00:29:08] And any minister who holds a word of God authoritatively has that same authority borrowed from the apostles even today to teach and to proclaim and to say this is God's word, let us run in it and to exhort and rebuke and declare from it.

[00:29:27] So let the grace of God run, speak it to one another, exhort one another in it. God bless you. Amen.

[00:29:35] Thank you for listening. For additional resources and teachings or to contact us, please visit us at Nateholdrich.com.