All Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible 1995 Ed. (NASB95), published by The Lockman Foundation

We live in a society in which empty talking, deception, and rebellion against God-given authority are the most prevalent they’ve been in modern history. Due to social media, the Internet, video-making websites, and the universal access that people have to these things, the culture is saturated with foolish ideas, vain ideologies, and captivating nonsense. There’s a special market for men in particular who claim to speak for God, and deceive thousands of people with their fascinating talk. Many of these men claim to be Bible-believing Christians, and make a good show of knowing vast amounts of information about seemingly Bible-related topics, but are really spewing out their own empty ideas, or the imaginations of others.

Besides the dominant cesspool of false teaching and stupidity on the Internet, even most American cities and towns are sprinkled with so-called “churches,” “ministries,” and such like, which are used by evil men teaching pseudo-biblical things. How should Christians, and specifically Christian leaders, respond to these types of men? The biblical, and apostolic, answer is clearly that such men need to be silenced. Such men don’t primarily need to be “understood,” or prayed for, or made friends with, but silenced. Their rotten teaching and ideas need to either stop coming out of their mouths, or people need to know that their words are foolish, false, and fatal to their souls, so they no longer give them their ears and attention.

This is Paul the apostle’s argument to his spiritual son and pastoral representative named Titus. In his letter to him, he’s giving him general and specific instructions for how he ought to establish and equip local Christian assemblies through good teaching and leaders. He starts the body of the letter by describing what kind of men are worthy to fill the office of a church elder or overseer. Then, he explains why these men not only need to be excellent in Christlike character, but also competent and willing to “refute those who contradict” sound teaching (v. 9). This explanation is what we’ll look at in this lesson. In these words at the end of the first chapter, Paul gives a vivid picture of the type of men that ought to be marked as most dangerous to young, inexperienced, and weak believers. And he points out the horrendous dangers they pose to believers and people in general, as well as how they can be identified. He basically describes such men as rebellious, deceptive, disruptive, depraved, distracted, and hypocritical. And worthy elders and overseers must be ready and able to silence them with sound, gentle, and bold arguments from the Scriptures.

Here’s an outline of how Paul lays out the truths about these rebels:

  1. Empty talkers are rebels against God. (v. 10)
  2. Rebellious men can upset whole families. (v. 11)
  3. The evil must be severely reproved. (vss. 12-14)
  4. The impure prove themselves impure. (vss. 15-16)

This is what Paul writes in this part of the letter:

“For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain. One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.’ This testimony I true. For this reason reprove them severely so that they may be sound in the faith, not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth. To the pure, all things are pure; but to those are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.” – Titus 1:10-16

Empty Talkers are Rebels Against God

The first thing we need to realize about false, hypocritical, teachers of the Bible and religion is that they aren’t innocent. They aren’t victims. They are rebels against their Creator and Ruler. That’s why Paul labels them as “rebellious” and “deceivers” (v. 10). Part of their rebellion is their opposition to the teachings of the apostles, but in so doing, they are simply exercising their revolt against God. They are opposing God’s Word because they hate its truths, teachings, and requirements, and they are speaking things in contradiction to it.

As such, the chief aim of their teaching is to deceive people into believing things contrary to the Scriptures. In the case of the rebels in Crete, Paul says that the most dangerous among them were “those of the circumcision”. He’s referring here to those who advocated and practiced the circumcision of those who were devoted to the worship of the God of Israel. In other words, these men were Jews. As such, Paul goes on to say that they were fixated on “Jewish myths” and “commandments of men,” just as Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and scribes for during His earthly life (v. 14). But make no mistake – these men weren’t speaking anything directly beneficial to people’s souls, but were taking “emptily,” with no good substance. And there were, and still are, many of them.

Rebellious Men Can Upset Whole Families

The second truth about empty talkers that needs to be heeded is that they are capable of disrupting and disordering whole families. It’s not just individual souls that are at stake, but households containing men, women, and children. And since families are the basic unit of churches and societies, single false teachers can corrupt, pollute, and destroy whole churches and communities. Christian leaders need to bear this in mind when they’re thinking about how to respond to false teachers.

How did these rebellious men in Titus’s day upset the consciences, minds, and hearts of multiple families? By distracting and deceiving the heads of those families. I don’t mean their physical heads, but their fathers and husbands. And note here that Paul is speaking of Christian households. That’s why Paul charges the elders that Titus appoints to deal with these false teachers. It’s the Christians on Crete who are being most harmed by these false teachers, as they pose as fellow believers by professing to “know God”.

This reveals to us a weakness in the Christian men of Crete, just as there is a profound and profuse weakness among Christian men in western culture. We are so particularly gullible, distracted, and undisciplined. We fail to think about what we’re thinking about, reading, watching, and listening to. And this is one of the major downfalls of western Christian men. We fail to filter all the media that we consume on a continual basis through the teachings, truths, and wisdom of Scripture. And so husbands and fathers are distracted and deceived, and their wives and children follow suit.

The first answer to this problem is for Christian men who lead households and churches to identify and refute false teachers. If they don’t, then more households are in danger of being ensnared by fine-sounding arguments about truth claims that contradict the teachings of the apostles. What’s worse is that the false teachings were, and are, upsetting families for “sordid gain,” or unjust profit. They’re in it for the money or material benefits. And men and families buy into them hook, line, and sinker. Therefore, Paul tells Titus, “they must be silenced”. Again, this is accomplished through careful and bold refutation of their claims with the teachings of Scripture, or “sound doctrine”.

The Evil Must Be Severely Reproved

After telling of the chaos and disorder that these rebels have caused among Christian families in Crete, Paul then emphasizes to Titus what is the general natural character of the Cretan people. There’s a reason that western culture has adopted the term, “Cretan,” to describe someone who is particularly despicable. It’s because of what Paul quotes from a Cretan speaker and teacher in verse 12. This man – himself a Cretan – described his own people as “always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” This could well describe most western and westernized cultures today! Here we see Paul using a commentator from his opposition against the opposition to the gospel in Crete, and reminds Titus that the empty talkers he has to deal with tend to be deceptive, beastly, and lazy eaters. And Paul then confirms this testimony by declaring it true from his own experience. This serves as the reason that Titus is going to need to use severity, directness, and confrontation to silence the false teachers. With such people, this is the best tactic.

Paul describes their silencing as coming through the act of “severely reproving” them (v. 13). To “reprove” someone means to carefully point out their error or sin through the biblical truth that speaks to that particular subject. And Paul tells Titus to do this to these rebellious men. They need to be treated like this because they need to be “sound” or “healthy” in the faith, so they can be true believers, and glorify God. As they are, they are unhealthy in faith, belief, and practice, because they’re believing lies about God and His Word. But note this – the fact that Paul provides this goal for their chastisement shows that they aren’t hopeless, or unable to change. They can be persuaded of their error and sin, and believe the sound faith of the gospel.

But he goes on to point out the specific unsound teachings they’re devoting themselves to. They are “Jewish myths” and man-made commands of truth-shunners. These Jewish myths were likely stories such as those found in the Jewish religious texts of the time between the Testaments, which sought to extrapolate or explain Old Testament teachings with foolish reasoning. They often took the wonderful stories of the Old Testament and added their own fantastical spin to them. On the other hand, the man-made commands are obviously those such as the rabbinic teachings devised by the Pharisaical class, which sought to make it harder to disobey the commands of the Law of Moses, but actually distracted from the heart of that Law. These false teachings were enamored with such man-made religion, and were teaching it to others, leading to deception, distraction, and the disbelieve of biblical teaching. And they were simply speaking out of the abundance of their hearts, as Paul goes on to say.

The Impure Prove Themselves Impure

The last point Paul brings to Titus’s attention is that these rebels and empty talkers are wholly corrupt, and corrupt everything they do, in spite of their claims to knowing God. He begins by reminding his brother that everything is pure to those who are pure through faith (v. 15). This statement alludes to the “commandments of men” that the false teachings are advocating, especially the circumcision. These commands obviously included the clean and unclean food restrictions required by the Law, and by rabbinic tradition. The deceivers were asserting that some foods were still spiritually impure for people to eat, and would make them impure if eaten. This notion was summarily nullified by Jesus when He “declared all foods clean” (Mk. 7:19). The apostles went on to confirm this teaching, including Paul, such as in Romans 14 with regard to meat sacrificed to idols. For those who are in Christ, all physical, material, things are clean, since they can all be used by believers to glorify the Lord, and do good for others. Therefore, they’re all pure.

On the contrary, those who are impure in their natural, unbelieving, state, make everything in their lives impure and defiling. This is because their “mind and their conscience are defiled” (v. 15). That is, everything they think and choose, and their standard for morality is all impure to God. This is a description of the doctrine of “total depravity,” which means that people are innately and comprehensibly bent toward disobeying and dishonoring God. Such was the case with these rebels.

But the worse thing about the false teachers was that they claimed to “know God,” but denied Him through their “deeds” (v. 16). To “know God” means that you experience the core of who He is – which is love – and that you respond in turn with love for Him. In a similar way, Genesis says that “Adam knew his wife, and she conceived”. Knowledge of a person in Scripture always implies a devoted, friendly, and mutually beneficial relationship.

Sadly, the false teachers proved that their claim to knowing God was false, since they were “detestable, disobedient, and worthless for any good deed” (v. 16). Does Paul actually say that these men are detestable?! Yes, that’s what he called them – they are worthy of being detested and abhorred. The Scriptures never teach that there’s no place for despising wicked sinners who are destroying people’s souls. People like these should be detested because they are disobedient to the clear commands of God they’ve learned, and they’re thus unable to do any good deed. This is another truth of the natural state of people – they can do nothing that’s innately good. Only that which is done out of a heart of fearing God and loving others is “good” in God’s sight – which is the only kind that matters. If someone is living in disobedience to the teachings of Christ, and is teaching others to believe things contrary to them, with success, they must be silenced by the Christian men who are aware. Not only do such people threaten to deceive through their speech, but also through their hypocritical behavior.

Are You Willing to Silence and Reprove Deceivers?

This passage challenges us – especially Christian men and leaders – to be watchful against people who are teaching unbiblical beliefs or practices, and to be poised to argue against them. When I say “argue,” I don’t mean arguing for the sake of arguing, or doing it for enjoyment, but for the purpose of dissuading false teachers from their deceptions. As a Christian, and especially a brother in Christ, do you understand the essentials and main teachings of the New Testament enough to be able to refute false claims about the Lord’s nature, work, and Word? Can you argue against wrong views of Jesus, His work of salvation, and what it means to be a Christian? If not, then you need to start studying the Word today. You must be prepared to refute heresies, deceptions, and false teachings, not only for your sake, but for the sake of your brethren in Christ, and unbelievers that are trapped by their false beliefs.

In addition, as Titus and the Cretan elders needed to be, you need to be willing to severely correct, chastise, and reprimand empty talkers who are rebelling against the truth. You must have enough fear for the Lord, love of His Word, and love for others, that you can say hard things when someone needs to hear it. Especially if you’re a pastor or church leader, you need to be eager to confront and argue against false teachers when you’re put in the situation where that’s needed. We must follow the example of our Lord when He regularly argued against the deceptions and foolishness of the religious leaders and teachers of His day, and be willing to do the same. Fight the good fight of faith! Watch out for false teachers, false teachings, and rebellious hypocrites who claim faith in Jesus, but deny Him through their sinful lifestyle and words. Seek the Lord for strength, wisdom, and diligence, since we can’t wage this warfare without the power of the Holy Spirit. He must work through us to wield His sword of the Word, and pulverize the strongholds of deceptions that hold rebellious men, and even believers, captive to the devil’s lies.