Today Paul warns Titus to watch out for people who say they know God but who deny God by the things they do. Anyone who professes to know the Lord ought to have some holy "fruit" in their lives. This is how Jesus said we are to recognize those who are pretending to be something they're not. "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit." (Matthew 7:15-17)
Some of what Paul is going to say today is quite harsh, but it makes him angry when the truth is perverted because this hurts people. False doctrine can prevent people from coming to Christ to begin with, and false doctrine can discourage believers so much that they have no real joy in their faith.
We want to be careful to keep in mind as we read this next passage that Paul is not making anti-Semitic comments. He himself is a Jew. He loves his people so much that he once said he'd almost be willing to give up his own salvation for them. (Romans 9:3) He's not talking about the Jewish people as a whole, but about those who have become Christians and are teaching Gentiles that they must become circumcised and follow the law of Moses. Some of the Gentile believers are thoroughly confused by this message, for it is by grace through faith that they have been saved, not through circumcision or the observance of the law. As we've said many times in our study of Paul's letters, righteousness has always been by faith, and Abraham is the perfect example of this. He lived before the ritual of circumcision came into being. He lived before the law was given. And yet, because he believed God, God imputed righteousness to him. (Genesis 15:6) There's nothing the Gentiles can do to "add to" their salvation in Christ. They aren't to be persuaded to live under the law, for the law did not save them and the law cannot keep them saved.
"For there are many rebellious people, full of meaningless talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision group." (Titus 1:10) Normally, in the epistles of the New Testament, when the author uses the term "the circumcision", he means the Jewish people as a whole. But not so in this verse. Paul is talking about "the circumcision group", which is a sect that formed from among the Jewish Christians. They tried to persuade the Gentile Christians that they would never be good enough in the eyes of God unless they became circumcised and placed themselves under the law. As Paul said to the Galatians who had been confused and discouraged by this message, this is foolish. (Galatians 3:3) Their salvation was brought about not by works but by faith. Their faith was growing and being perfected by the Holy Spirit and not by the law. If they were saved without the law, how can putting themselves in bondage to the law make their salvation more real? If anything it would take away from their dependence on Christ and place their dependence on the flesh, which can never be depended on.
Paul says the motive of these deceivers is to gain something for themselves. "They must be silenced, because they are disrupting whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach---and that for the sake of dishonest gain." (Titus 1:11) We typically think of dishonest gain as having to do with money, and it's likely that some of these teachers were profiting financially by giving their "spiritual advice" to people, but there are other types of things a false teacher might be trying to gain. It could be popularity or fame, for example. There have been many false prophets throughout the ages and I dare say many of them were driven not so much by a desire for money as a desire for power. We have only to look at cult leaders like Jim Jones or David Koresh for examples of this.
Next Paul has some critical words to say of the people of Crete---the people to whom Titus is currently ministering. These are not a people easily led into the truth to begin with, for they have a reputation of having little familiarity with honesty. "One of Crete's own prophets has said it: 'Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.' This saying is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the merely human commands of those who reject the truth." (Titus 1:12-14) Paul is probably quoting the Cretan philosopher Epimenides, who said such a thing of his own people because he knew his own people well enough to know that it was true. The Greeks actually made up a new word based on the behavior of the people of Crete. It was the word "cretize" which meant "to lie".
"To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and their consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny Him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good." (Titus 1:15-16) The Apostle Paul, the Apostle Peter, and many other Jewish Christian apostles and teachers are no longer living under the law. When ministering to Gentiles they eat with Gentiles and they eat whatever is set before them in Gentile households. These Jewish Christians are saved by faith in Christ and there's nothing in the food that can make them unsaved. In the same way, the Gentile believers are saved by faith in Christ and there's nothing that can make them "more saved" by observing the law in regard to foods or circumcision. Paul is not saying that salvation gives us freedom to sin; he's saying salvation gives us freedom from bondage to the law. But there are little sects here and there who treat things that are not unclean as though they are, being suspicious that anything enjoyable is probably sinful, and not having the faith to believe that the blood of Christ is powerful enough to make them righteous. They think they can undo their salvation by enjoying things that God has created for man to enjoy. And it wasn't just food they were concerned with. Some were abstaining from marriage as if to enjoy a marriage relationship or to enjoy raising a family were a sin. I've known people who seemed to regard anything fun as a sin, haven't you? There are many godly things in this world that the Lord wants us to enjoy, and it's actually a sin not to enjoy any of our blessings.
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