Tough Love Titus

Titus 1:10-16

¹⁰ For there are many rebellious people, full of meaningless talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision group. ¹¹ 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. ¹² One of Crete’s own prophets has said it: “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.” ¹³ This saying is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith ¹⁴ and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the merely human commands of those who reject the truth. ¹⁵ 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 consciences are corrupted. ¹⁶ They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.

There is a powerful sense of annoyance baked into Paul’s message to Titus – Paul is ticked off with blabber mouths peddling lies about distractions like compulsory circumcision. These are faithless greedy liars pushing diversions that face away from the message of Jesus. Paul notes the clear hallmarks of these kinds of deceptions: motivated by money, against the truth, living hypocritically, rebellious and unproductive. The Bible translator’s subtitle on this section is telling: “Rebuking those who fail to do good”. Paul’s targets have failed to do good and Paul doesn’t want Titus getting led astray. Given the harsh tone of the passage I need to remind myself that I am in the Titus crowd and not the failure crowd – I want to heed Paul’s warning – I want to hear properly, obey the commands of Jesus and produce the good(s).

This passage builds my confidence to stick to the fundamentals and ignore the hype: Jesus is the way and any strange accessories tacked onto this truth are just that: deceptive baggage. Hear Paul’s tough words and tough love: shake off the lies, be “strong in the faith”, keep the truth and do good!

Jesus, I want to be aligned with your Gospel and immune to lies. Let my life and work produce good! Amen

Written by Sam Stewart