Titus, Part 2: How to Silence Deceivers and Purify the Mind

Titus 1:10-16 (CSB)

Last week, we started our sermon series on the book of Titus. We saw how Paul wrote this letter to Titus with instructions on how to “set right what was left undone” and to “appoint elders in every town” on the island of Crete.

We ended last week with verse 9, but before we move on, we first need to go back and look at that verse again, for really, it is part of this next section. To review, it said that elders, or pastors as we also call them today, need to know the Bible so well, that they not only hold on to what it says and teach it accurately, but are able “both to encourage with sound teaching and to refute those who contradict it.”

Why is it so important that a pastor be able to defend the faith? Paul tells us why. Moving on to the second half of chapter one, he says in verses 10-14:

10 For there are many rebellious people, full of empty talk and deception, especially those from the circumcision party. 

11 It is necessary to silence them; they are ruining entire households by teaching what they shouldn’t in order to get money dishonestly. 

12 One of their very own prophets said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” 

13 This testimony is true. For this reason, rebuke them sharply, so that they may be sound in the faith 

14 and may not pay attention to Jewish myths and the commands of people who reject the truth.

Why does Paul want Titus to be sure to appoint leaders who are skilled in apologetics? So they can withstand and correct the misinformation that is being spread by the “many rebellious people, full of empty talk and deception” who are leading others away from the truth.

For you see, in Crete, there was a problem. As Christianity had grown there, so had false versions of the faith. There were many people there who were spreading a false gospel.

In his commentary on this chapter, Charles Ellicott translates verse 10 as, “For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers,” and then he explains: “these often would be found to be possessed of the gift of fluent and deceptive speech, and would deceive many.”

Ellicott also adds a quote from someone he refers to simply as “Professor Reynolds,” who said: These are people “who must say something, and who have broken the peace of many a home and shattered the prosperity of many a church; the multitude of teachers who have nothing true to say is the curse of the kingdom of God.”

Have you encountered these types of people before—the people who just love to hear themselves talk? They always have to say something. But they don’t speak in a vacuum. They make their opinions heard, and when they do, it negatively affects everyone else. As Professor Reynolds said, they “must say something.” And they “break the peace of many a home and shatter the prosperity of many a church.” In other words, they sow discord. They cause churches to split and people to fight.

Sadly, this is still a problem today. And now, this multitude of “teachers” who have nothing true to say has only grown in number as the internet has amplified their voices. These false teachers are still severely harming the kingdom of God.

In Paul and Titus’ particular case, these people who talk and talk and must make their opinions heard were from the “circumcision party.” These were the people who were insisting that in order to be a Christian, a man had to be circumcised. They most likely also thought the Gentiles must avoid unclean foods and follow other ceremonial laws like that. While we don’t know all the points they were arguing for, we know it wasn’t the message that Jesus had taught. Whatever they were speaking about, it wasn’t, as Paul said in the beginning of the letter, the truth that leads to godliness which he was entrusted with.

Paul says that Titus must pay attention to this problem. As he said in verse 11, “It is necessary to silence them; they are ruining entire households by teaching what they shouldn’t in order to get money dishonestly.”

The Greek word translated as “money” is kerdos, and it means “gain” or “profit,” but it doesn’t always mean money. They simply might be trying to gain favor with others.

But Titus needs to guard against these people who were peddling a form of Christianity that didn’t line up with Jesus’ message.

These are the same sort of people who Paul also warns against in Galatians 1:6-7 (NLT) when he says, “I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ. You are following a different way that pretends to be the Good News but is not the Good News at all. You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ.”

Today, the amount of false teaching that exists at our fingertips is astronomical. We’ve got people selling all sorts of untruths about Scripture. They want to gain followers and be popular and well-liked. A lot of them are seeking to make money from it, too. Because at the end of the day, why are these people peddling these lies? They see a profit to be made. They tell people what they want to hear, and so people buy their books and attend their conferences and churches.

As true followers of Jesus, it can be rather overwhelming to stop and think about all the lies that are being spread. But Paul says, “it is necessary to silence them.” So, how do we do that?

First, we can refuse to give these lies a platform. We should not partner with those who are deceiving others.

Second, we can refute the lies by speaking the truth. We might wonder if it’s a waste of time to combat the lies, but if we don’t, how will people know the truth? We need truth-tellers. As Paul says in Romans 10:15, unless we speak the truth, “How, then, can they call on him they have not believed in? And how can they believe without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher?”

The devil certainly is not silent. So, it’s necessary that we combat his lies with the unchanging truth of God’s Word. If we don’t, false teachers will continue to ruin “entire households by teaching what they shouldn’t.”

To show the extent of the corruption Titus was up against, Paul cites a well-known Cretan poet who said: “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” According to Ellicott, Paul is quoting the ancient philosopher Epimenides.

N.T. Wright in his commentary, Paul for Everyone: The Pastoral Letters, says that this quote is known as the “Cretan liar paradox.” For if a Cretan says that Cretans are always liars, wouldn’t that mean we can’t trust what he says since he’s a Cretan?

Wright thinks Paul is making a bit of a joke here, and I agree. These people who are sowing discord and teaching what they shouldn’t, in order to be popular and well-liked, are more than just liars. By quoting Epimenides, Paul is indirectly calling them evil beasts and lazy gluttons, too. I really love Paul, don’t you? He’s very relatable, because don’t you just want to call some people names sometimes, too?

But whether Paul meant to be humorous or not, even the Cretans knew they were a deceptive bunch of people. That’s why Paul said, “This testimony is true. For this reason, rebuke them sharply, so that they may be sound in the faith and may not pay attention to Jewish myths and the commands of people who reject the truth.”

Paul wanted Titus to silence the deceivers, and now he wants Titus to rebuke them sharply. I think he means not only those doing the talking but also the people who believe the lies. The lies need to be rebuked, so people know the truth.

Then, Paul adds a final thought. He’s spoken about the false teachers, and now he turns to the deeper issue: purity. What makes something pure? That leads us into verses 15 and 16, which say:

15 To the pure, everything is pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; in fact, both their mind and conscience are defiled. 

16 They claim to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good work.

In order to understand what Paul is talking about here, we need to remember what was going on at this time in the early church as it was forming. Think back to the book of Acts.

Remember when God spoke to Peter in a vision and showed him a “sheet” full of every kind of animal that was considered “unclean” to eat? Acts 10:9-16 tells us what happened. It says, “Peter went up to pray on the roof about noon. He became hungry and wanted to eat, but while they were preparing something, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and an object that resembled a large sheet coming down, being lowered by its four corners to the earth. In it were all the four-footed animals and reptiles of the earth, and the birds of the sky. A voice said to him, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’

‘No, Lord!’ Peter said. ‘For I have never eaten anything impure and ritually unclean.’

Again, a second time, the voice said to him, ‘What God has made clean, do not call impure.’

This happened three times, and suddenly the object was taken up into heaven.”

God told Peter that they no longer had to follow the dietary restrictions they had been keeping. It was the same way as circumcision—they no longer had to insist that followers keep these ceremonial laws and practices.

But beyond just changing the requirement of circumcision or “unclean” food, God was changing the regulations the Jews had established which prevented them from entering the home or eating with non-Jews. God no longer wanted them to consider Gentiles to be unclean.

That’s why, at the same time God gave that vision to Peter about the animals, He was also speaking to a man named Cornelius and supernaturally arranging it so Peter would go to his house and visit with him. After Peter arrives there, Acts 10:28 says, “Peter said to them, ‘You know it’s forbidden for a Jewish man to associate with or visit a foreigner, but God has shown me that I must not call any person impure or unclean.’”

So when Paul says, “To the pure, everything is pure,” it doesn’t mean that everything is pure and therefore everything is permissible. Some people have misinterpreted this verse and think it means that nothing is sinful. That is antinomianism, which is a belief that because of God’s grace Christians do not have to follow any moral laws. But this verse isn’t saying sin doesn’t matter—Paul is talking about ceremonial purity, not moral purity.

I like what N. T. Wright says about this: “The trouble is that if people are not pure in themselves then everything they touch will become defiled, however pure it is in itself. They can keep what regulations they like and it will make no difference. Their mind and conscience will remain in a state of impurity.”

In other words, purity doesn’t come from avoiding unclean foods or being circumcised. Just because someone obeys ceremonial laws, it doesn’t mean that person is pure in God’s eyes. As Paul explains in Galatians 2:16, “we know that a person is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ.”  

However, this does not mean that moral obedience is irrelevant. As Paul explained to Titus, to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. If someone claims to know God but lives in disobedience, their actions deny their confession.

If people say that they know God and claim to follow Him, but “both their mind and conscience are defiled” and their actions are detestable and disobedient, then any good things they might do are not going to gain them any favor with God.

For example, if someone thinks that giving money to the poor is going to make them acceptable to God while at the same time they cheat, steal or live in sexual sin, they are fooling themselves.

If people’s minds are defiled and unbelieving, nothing they might do is pure. Paul says rather harshly: “They claim to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, and unfit for any good work.”

How do we make sure our minds don’t become defiled?

First, we need to stop listening to the kinds of teachers Paul is warning about. The voices we allow into our minds form who we are.  

Second, we must evaluate the messages we hear through the lens of Scripture. Do the voices we listen to line up with God’s Word? If not, they will corrupt our minds.

Once we’ve placed a watch on our minds, then how do we cleanse our minds from the things that have already defiled it? Jesus tells us how in John 17:17. He prays to the Father and says, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.”

Ephesians 5:25-27 echoes this. It says, “Christ loved the church and gave himself for her to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless.”

Scripture sanctifies. It purifies. It cleanses our minds. The more we read the truth found in God’s Word, the more our minds are washed and renewed.

This is why Paul tells Titus to be sure to appoint leaders who can hold to the faithful message as taught, so that they are “able both to encourage with sound teaching and to refute those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9).

Truth matters. Doctrine matters. Every church needs leaders who will hold fast to God’s Word so that the church is healthy and sound, because what we listen to shapes who we become.

So, who are you listening to? Are you testing what you hear against Scripture?  

Our minds are like gardens. An untended garden won’t stay fallow. Left alone, weeds will sprout up and take over, and insects will crawl in. In the same way, if we don’t carefully tend to our minds, weeds of deception will take root and grow. We must constantly be pulling the lies from our minds and planting God’s Word.

Let us be people who love the truth, who test everything by Scripture, who refuse to give falsehood a platform, and who allow the Word of God to wash our minds and hearts.

Pray: Heavenly Father, we confess that we have not always kept a watchful eye on the garden of our mind. Please forgive us and cleanse us. Please wash our minds with Your Word. Help us by Your Holy Spirit to rightfully discern the things we are listening to, so we don’t become defiled. We need Your help to combat the lies of the enemy. Please raise up godly leaders who will lead Your Church with integrity. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.