Father, we ask that you would continue to pour out your Holy Spirit upon us as we read your word again and as we think upon your word.
Father, we ask that you would not just help our minds to be conformed to your word, but that we would be disciples of Jesus who are gripped by the gospel, who are learning to live for your glory.
Father, we ask that your word would touch our hearts and bring before us those different ways that we deceive ourselves and think your word applies to others and not to us.
And as well, Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would deal with our fear of your word, our fear that your word will hurt us, that you will hurt us.
Father, draw us to yourself.
Make us mindful of your son and his death on the cross for us.
And all this we ask in the name of Jesus, your son and our savior.
Amen.
Please be seated.
So I don't know how many of you, how carefully you are listening to Rachel read the Bible, but I know that the first time, and I'll be honest with you, many, many times when I'm reading the Bible, my eyes are just going over the page fairly quickly.
I'm not really taking it in.
But I remember the great shock when I saw it in the Bible that all Cretans are liars, lazy beasts, and gluttons.
And then it says, this saying is true.
That was a huge shock to me because it seemed as if the Bible is perpetuating prejudice and, in fact, encouraging prejudice.
And that was separate from the fact that the first time I read this text as well, it really, it came to me or it felt to me as if the Bible was being very sexist as well in terms of how it treated women.
And so, you know, it's part of the reason why in the early years of my Christian life, which probably went on way too long, I would keep reading parts of the Bible that I found helpful to me.
And parts of the Bible which troubled me, I would steer away from them.
So I wouldn't read books like Titus very often because of the apparent sexism and prejudice and encouragement of sexism and prejudice that I saw when I read the book of Titus.
So I know it's not really, some of you, if you're guests, you're maybe even surprised that I would be sort of talking about this in public.
But the fact of the matter is that many of us, maybe for decades in our Christian life, are afraid to read parts of the Bible because of things that it says in it.
So we're going to look at Titus.
So it would be a great help to me if you got your Bibles out.
We're going to look at the type.
We're going to look at Titus chapter 1.
And we're going to go through the whole chapter.
And let's just see what it says and what it doesn't say.
How it confronts our hearts.
How it confronts our culture.
And at the end of the day, we desperately need God's word.
And it's going to begin in a surprising way.
In a way that, in fact, if we take it seriously, is going to trouble us even more.
Listen to how it goes.
And in the original language, the first four verses are one complicated, long sentence.
And I like pointing these things out that has some grammatical flaws in it as well, by the way.
And it goes like this.
Paul, a servant.
That's a doulos, sometimes translated as slave.
Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth,
which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began,
and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior.
To Titus, my true child and a common faith, grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
And as I said, it's a complicated sentence, and there's some grammatical issues.
But here's just a few things for you to know about Titus.
Titus was Exhibit A in the Council of Jerusalem when they were trying to have a debate as to whether pagans who became Christians had to be circumcised.
And Titus was Exhibit A as a pagan who had become a Christian, and the church in Acts 15 decided they didn't have to.
The pagans, for many of us guys here, it's not a requirement to become a Christian to be circumcised.
And Titus as well, this book is being written to Titus by Paul probably in about the year 63 or 64,
a couple of years before Paul himself is martyred under Nero.
And Paul is giving Titus advice about how to order and structure the church,
because there's been an evangelistic campaign in the island of Crete, and many people have come to faith.
Paul has moved on, and now Titus is to bring some order into the situation.
But here's the thing. If you could put up the first point, that would be great.
This is, on one hand, going to seem like it's a very, very obvious point,
and not actually very surprising or important.
But we need to spend some time on this, because it's actually very mind-blowing,
and very important to us to understand who we are and what goes on in the world.
The true and living God, self-revealed in the Bible, never, ever, ever lies.
In the time that the New Testament was written, in paganism, one of the things about the pagan gods,
they lied all the time. They lied all the time.
That doesn't mean that pagans lied all the time, but the gods lied all the time.
If you think about it for a second, members of the great faiths, some of the great religions on the planet,
in Hinduism and Buddhism, it's not, I'm not saying that Hindus, as individuals and Buddhists, that they lie a lot.
I'm not saying that at all.
But truth is a complicated, it's not really grounded.
The desire to tell the truth and the seeking of telling the truth isn't really grounded in the religion and the philosophy.
Because at the end of the day, in both of those faiths, the goal is to get beyond difference,
to understand that all things are one, truth and falsehood, evil and good, you and I, tree and me,
that ultimately the distinctions between these things are apparent and not real,
and the whole goal is to get beyond good and evil, beyond difference,
and ultimately beyond truth and falsehood.
So it actually means that the idea of us, and if we're honest, human beings both greatly desire to know the truth,
we're also afraid of the truth, but how is this desire for the truth grounded
when ultimate reality is ultimately going beyond all difference,
including the difference of truth and falsehood?
In Islam, once again, not saying that individual Muslims lie,
but in Islam, God is God.
If he wants to tell a lie, he can tell a lie.
If he wants to tell the truth, he can tell the truth.
Who are you to speak to him? Slap, slap, slap.
Just being a bit, sorry, I don't want to be dismissive.
But God is so sovereign and so powerful, he can do literally whatever he wants,
whatever he feels like, it's completely and utterly up to him.
In a sense, he's not bound by having to tell the truth.
And so, and then you think in our modern world, you know, in university probably,
there'd be many, many people in university that say the whole idea of truth
and knowing the truth is a modernist conceit.
That any claim to know the truth is really just a claim to know power
and to desire to have power over others.
And, I mean, one of the ironies is if that you say then is your claim
that all truth claims are just power claims,
is that claim that you just made an attempt to have power over me.
They'd want to insist that it was true, not actually a claim of power.
That, in fact, in both the ancient and the modern world,
on one hand, humanly speaking, existentially, we have a great desire,
we have this complicated relationship with truth,
but as part of that complicated relationship with truth,
we do want to know the truth.
We know that we ourselves tell lies,
but we hate it when somebody tells us a lie.
Sometimes, in relationships, we want to bring the truth out in the relationships.
Others, times, we're hoping that our wife or our husband
will not speak the truth to us.
We have complicated relationships with the truth,
but what's it grounded on?
One of the reasons that in the modern world
that the truth is very hard to ground
is because at the very heart of modern thought,
this is the government, this is the media,
this is the university, this is arts and entertainment,
there's a great incoherence.
Because as a key building block of how people think in the modern world
is the belief that life came about completely and utterly by random chance.
And after life came about, then evolution happened.
So in a sense, the modern story is,
life came about completely randomly by chance.
Eventually, men and women descended from the apes,
therefore know the truth and tell the truth.
That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
It doesn't follow at all.
The Christian story,
the big overarching story,
is a very, very, very different story.
And I think that the Christian story,
as revealed in the Bible,
is the only story that actually makes sense of our lived experience.
The Christian story is that fundamentally,
the true and living God,
self-revealed in the Bible,
never, ever, ever lies.
And this God who never, ever, ever lies,
and only is the truth and speaks the truth,
that he created and sustains all things
and made human beings in his image.
And so it is that we human beings have a desire and a drive
to speak and to know the truth.
The true and living God,
self-revealed in the Bible,
he is the same one who's created all things,
designed, in a sense, all things,
sustains all things,
made human beings in his image.
And therefore, we have a fundamental desire and drive
to know the truth and to be in the truth.
That in our heart of hearts,
we want to be people of the truth,
not people of the lie.
To tell another group of people
that they are people of the lie
would be a huge offense.
Every human being wants to be
part of the people of the truth.
So some of you might say,
George, okay, this is,
this went really in a different way
than I thought this text was going to go.
But this is how the book of Titus begins,
by making these very, very bold claims about God.
But some of you might say,
George, but the problem is we all lie.
Like, George, you lie, don't you?
You've lied in the past.
You lie today.
You're going to lie in the future.
Like, how does that fit in with your story?
But you see, this is actually, once again,
why I believe that it's only,
if you think about it,
that the biblical narrative,
the biblical meta-narrative,
is the only narrative
that makes sense of our experience.
Because as I described at the beginning,
just a few minutes ago,
how the biblical narrative works,
I didn't complete the narrative.
And to complete the narrative
is that the true and living God,
who has, in a sense, existence in and of himself,
is the one who's created all things,
designed all things,
he sustains all things,
he made human beings in his image.
And at some point in time,
in our primal history,
we human beings decided that we would be God.
I think Genesis 3,
regardless, for any human being,
secular, spiritual, not religious,
there is no story more true
that has ever been written than Genesis 3.
But Genesis 1, 2, and 3
explains so much of human life
and human endeavor.
So human beings rebelled against God
and desired to be God,
to have his role.
And in doing that,
we became bent,
we became twisted.
And God did not annihilate his image in us,
but our reflecting the image
and the likeness of God
became impaired.
We became impaired.
We became bent or twisted.
And so on one hand,
we now have a complicated relationship with God.
On one hand,
in the depths of our beings,
we long and yearn for the true and living God.
On the other hand,
in the depths of our beings,
we do not want God to be present.
We want to be God ourselves.
We want to know the truth.
On the other hand,
we don't want to know the truth.
We want to be able to manage
and massage what is said
so that the truth that is said
in public or about ourselves
will be ones that further our own ego
and our own drives and desires.
But at the same time,
we want others to speak
the unvarnished truth to us.
Unless it hurts.
We have a very complicated relationship
with the truth.
And I think only the biblical narrative
actually grounds that
at a very, very fundamental level.
And it reveals to us
why it is that we need a savior.
That I can never leave myself
to save myself.
I can never leave myself
to fix myself.
It doesn't matter
if I have an out-of-body experience.
It doesn't matter
if I meditate,
if I learn physics
and anthropology
and poetry
and music
and business
and all of those other things.
I can never leave myself.
I can never leave
my bentness,
twistedness,
fallenness.
Those aspects of me
that still very much show
and reflect
that I am a designed being
and that I am made
in the image of God.
Yet there's something.
I can never leave that
to save myself.
And so it is
despite all of my desires
to justify myself,
to appear righteous to myself,
to appear completely
and utterly controlled,
despite all of my desires,
whether it's done
through spiritual,
not religious,
whether it's done
through religious ceremonies
and rituals,
whether it's done
through science
or the humanities
or art
or philosophy
or political action
or political institutions,
I cannot save myself.
And unless God
comes into space and time
to do what I cannot do,
then I will always remain
and all of the people
around me
will remain bent and twisted.
Our complicated relationship
with the truth
and our complicated relationship
with lies
reveals that we need
a savior.
And that's the other thing
about this text
which is so completely
and utterly powerful.
Like, it not only reveals
that the God who does exist,
that the true and living God,
self-revealed in the Bible,
never, ever, ever lies,
but it also reveals
that he saves,
that his desire is
that we will begin
to live a life with him
under his care
and authority
that will go on
for all eternity.
Like, look again
at Titus 1.
Look at verses 3 and 4
in Titus 1.
Like, at the same time,
just after in verse 2,
it says,
the God who never lies
has promised before
ages began
and at the proper time
manifested in his word
through the preaching
with which I have been entrusted
by the command of God
our Savior.
To Titus,
my true child,
in a common faith,
grace and peace
from God the Father
and Christ Jesus
our Savior.
That the text
introduces us,
you know,
one of the reasons
that we fear the truth
is because many people
use the truth
towards us
in a brutal way.
And if we are honest,
sometimes we use truth
in a brutal way.
In a way to shame,
to humiliate,
to put down
as a means for us
to gain power
and control.
And we often project
and transfer
what we do ourselves
and what we are worried
that we will do ourselves
and what people do
to us ourselves
and we project that
onto God.
And the same self-revelation
of God
that reveals
that he only speaks
the truth
that he never,
ever,
ever lies
reveals
that he is Savior
and that he has sent
his Son
into history,
into space and time
to save us.
If you could put up
the next point,
Rebecca,
when I receive
the Gospel,
I receive
grace-filled
power from God
which makes me
right with him
and leads me
to start living
right with him
and all that
he has created.
it's important.
In all of our
understandings
of the Christian faith,
it's not just
that I have
this individual
personal relationship
with God
that has no social
consequences
nor consequences
in terms of
how I relate
to the created world
and other people.
It's not just
that the cross,
as we put our faith
and trust
in what Jesus
has done for us
on the cross,
that we are
receiving a power
that comes from God
to make us
right with him
but that same
power that comes
from God
that makes us
right with him
and all begins
to work within us
a desire to live
right with him
and God didn't
just create me.
It's not a
narcissistic world
where there's just
me and God.
It means that I
start to have a desire
to live right
with others.
That that's what
grace does
when grace
comes into our lives.
It's one of the signs
that we have received
grace from God.
Not that we live
perfect lives
but often what
should be characterizing
Christians is not
perfection but
penitence.
Lord have mercy
upon me.
And that's what
grace does when it
comes into our lives.
And that's one of the
things that's,
this is the introduction
to the entire letter
and Paul is going to
be driving this home
in terms of the fact
that not only does he
want the people
in the Cretans,
the people on Crete
to come to a faith
in Jesus but for them
to understand that when
they come to a faith
in Jesus it's not a
license for them to
be arrogant.
It's not a license for
them to be violent.
It's not a license to
do whatever they want
but that the same
grace that's going to
make them right with
God will be to begin
to put within them
the ability and the
hunger and the
yearnings and the
longings and the
self-awareness and
the delivery from
self-deception so
that we can actually
start to try to live
right with other
people and with
the created order.
If you could just
put up the next
point, another way
to put this is that
God calls us,
that's the significance
of the elect,
it's an image of
God calling us
ordinary human
beings.
Like, you know,
if you come here
today and you're not
sure whether you're
a person that's
giving your life to
Jesus, you're not
even sure if you
want to have
anything to do
with Jesus.
What I can tell you
right now is that
God is calling you.
He's calling you
as you sit there.
He's calling you
by name.
He wants you to
come to him.
He wants you to
hear his word.
He wants you to
hear about what
Jesus has done for
you on the cross,
that you might
respond with
open-handed faith
and receive from
him the power that
can only come from
him, that's filled
with grace and
mercy, that will
make you right
with him.
And God calls us
so that we will
come to saving
faith, know
the truth, live
a godly life, and
begin to live with
him forever.
That's what Paul is
wanting the people
in Crete to
understand.
Now, some of you
are going to say,
okay, George, you've
spent a lot of time
on this.
Is this going to be
one of those times
where you're a little
bit like a magician,
you know, and you
have the dancing
girls and all that
other stuff, and
you're trying to do
some little sleight-of-hand
stuff so that we can
forget this other
sexist and
prejudiced stuff.
No, I'm not doing
that at all.
And depending on how
you look at it, what's
going to come next is
either greatly tragic
or greatly incoherent.
But it's really
important for us to
grasp this opening
introduction before we
see what it is that
Paul is going to say
and isn't saying in
the rest of the book.
So let's look at
verse 5.
Is Paul now going to
be making some
sexist statements?
Is he propping up
patriarchy at the
expense of women?
Verse 5.
This is why I left
you in Crete, so
that you might put
what remained into
order and appoint
elders in every town
as I directed you.
And the word elder
here, we'll just
pause.
In the Greek, it
sounds like
presbyter.
And we're going to
see in a moment
that the presbyter
position and the
episcopus or the
bishop's position,
he's sort of
treating them
almost as
synonymous.
And so it's
not the same
word as is often
used for pastor,
which comes from
a different word.
There's a different
text that come
out of it.
The word underlying
the word that we
use as pastor
comes from the
idea of shepherd.
But this word
elder isn't
describing somebody
who's old.
In this room, I
don't know if
there's some
visiting clergy,
but as in
Anglican polity,
I'm the only
elder in the
room.
I know I'm
getting elderly
as well, but
I've been an
elder since I
was 28, when I
was set aside to
have this role of
the presbyter in
congregations.
And different
denominations have
different ways of
ordering them and
all that type of
stuff.
But there's this,
most denominations,
apart from Salvation
Army and Brethren,
have some sense of
the elder who's
set aside.
And so that's
what's it.
So I'll just say
it again.
Verse 5, this is
why I left you in
Crete, so that you
might put what
remained into
order.
That's his big
task, and he has
one other task,
and appoint elders
in every town as I
directed you.
If anyone is above
reproach, the husband
of one wife, or
literally, a one
man woman.
That's what it says
literally in the
Greek.
A one man, sorry, a
one woman man.
Yeah, yeah, I'm
getting old.
Not only will I
have to be doing
this very shortly
with a walker like
this, but my
eventually goes so
gag-a, you're going
to have to take me
away from here.
The cane will
gently drag me
aside, and I'll
sit there happily
singing hymns and
praise songs.
Anyway, sorry,
hopefully in tune
still.
It literally says
a one woman man.
That's literally
what it says, a
one woman man.
His children are
believers, continuing
in verse 6, not
open to the charge
of debauchery or
insubordination.
For an overseer, that
is the word that's
usually often
translated as
bishop.
Episcopus is the
underlying Greek
word.
As God's steward,
must be above
reproach.
He must not be
arrogant or quick
tempered or a
drunkard or violent
or greedy for gain,
but hospitable, a
lover of good,
self-controlled,
upright, holy, and
disciplined.
And in the original
language, verse 9 is
emphasized.
If we were using a
more modern way to
communicate the
original language, it
would be bolded.
He must hold firm to
the trustworthy word as
taught so that he may
be able to give
instruction in sound
doctrine.
It also means healthy
or wholesome doctrine,
and also to rebuke
those who contradict it.
So, here's the first
thing.
I'm going to go in a
way that you're
completely and utterly
maybe going to
surprise you, but it's
a really important word
to Canadians today.
Brothers and sisters,
those of you who are
here are Christians,
we are not Muslims.
We are not Hindus.
We are not Buddhists.
You can be a very,
very, very devout
Muslim and never go to
the mosque once in your
entire life.
You can be a very
devout Buddhist,
very, very devout
Hindu and never go to
the temple once in
your entire life.
It's very interesting
that Paul here, he's
done a ministry of
evangelism throughout
the island.
Many people have come
to faith, and it's
not now that he says,
well, now that they're
in faith, just teach
them to download
Matt Chandler's latest
sermon, because what it
means to be a
Christian is to just
listen by yourself to
sermons from really
good speakers like Tim
Keller or Matt
Chandler, and that's
the Christian life.
He doesn't say, just
by the way, every once
in a while you should
come together a little
bit like a crowd, and
I'll just zap you with
the Holy Spirit, and
somebody will have a
prophetic word, and
then afterwards you
just sort of disappear
and you go back.
As I put it here, if
you could put up the
point, Rebecca, that
would be great.
God does not make
happenstance crowds.
Sorry, every once in a
while I have to show
you that I'm educated.
God does not make
happenstance crowds.
He forms communities
on the move.
It doesn't create static
communities, but communities
that are going to be on
the move, because the
rest of the letter is
going to be about how to
transmit the faith,
movement, how to
transmit the faith to
new believers, how to
share the gospel with
people who are outside of
the church, how to
transmit the gospel to
children, the new
generations that keep
arising.
God here calls, first
of all, he calls you to
a saving faith with
himself, and then he
calls you into
community, and the
community is going to
have some type of
structure.
It's a very, very
powerful word, because
especially in 2016 in
Ottawa, where you can
have far better sermons
than I can give, you can
find online for free.
You can just spend your
Sunday mornings going for
a drive in the country,
or, you know, hanging
out at your favorite
cafe or Tim Hortons.
You can listen to Tim
Keller or somebody like
that, way better speaker
than I am, way wiser than
I am, and that can be your
Christian life, and the
Bible basically says that's
not the Christian life.
That while a devout
Muslim or a Buddhist or a
Hindu can be devout in
all of those ways within
their own context and
never actually meet with
others, Christians are
designed, God has called
us to walk together.
Could you put up the next
one?
Here's another way to put
it.
Some of you have been
here before over the
years.
This is one of the little
sayings that I've
developed.
We enter the Jesus way
one by one, but we walk
the Jesus way with Jesus
and others.
We enter the Jesus way
one by one.
We have to come to a
personal saving faith in
Jesus.
We don't inherit the
Christian faith from our
parents or our
grandparents.
We might be told it by
them, but we have to
receive it for ourselves
personally.
So we enter the Christian
faith through the Jesus
way one by one, but we
walk the Jesus way.
We're to walk it, not to
sit it.
And we walk it with Jesus
and with others.
And that's the Jesus way.
That's the Jesus way which
is presented in the New
Testament.
And somebody might say,
okay, George, whoa, whoa,
look at that time.
husband of one wife, a one
woman man.
Well, let's look at verse
six again.
If anyone is above reproach,
who can be an elder, who
can be an episcopist?
Anyone who is above reproach,
the husband of one wife, a
one woman man.
For many years, I was a
supporter.
I don't know how to go
into it.
I'm just going to go into
it.
This might not be very
polished or anything like
that.
Just a little bit of a
personal history about me.
For many of you, you know
that for many, many, many,
many decades, I was a firm
supporter that women could be
elders.
This text was a problem to
me.
And the way that churches
and many Christians, not
necessarily saying you, the
way that many churches deal
with this, the very plain
sense of the original
language that's consistent
with other texts in the
New Testament, some churches
deal with this by talking
and understanding that the
Bible is just a repository of
symbols.
It's sort of like if you go to
watch Daredevil on Netflix
and the Punisher goes into a
room and when he opens the
door and in the room, there's
a whole pile of different
weapons.
And the Punisher can go and
get a different weapon,
whatever he feels like he
needs.
And some people say that
they're being biblical because
the Bible is like the
Punisher's room of lots of
weapons and explosives and
ammunition.
And you can just sort of pick
the bits and pieces of
ammunition you need for the
task that's at hand.
But that really goes against
the whole understanding that
God never lies and that it's
one word that he speaks.
It's that the call of the
Christian is to have a
consistent and coherent
reading of God's word, even
if that means you go against
the culture.
But that the goal is not just
to always go against the
culture, not just to be what if
the culture says yes, I'm going
to say no.
If the culture says no, I'm
going to.
It's not just to always be a
pain in the butt to the
culture.
It's that mindful of the
culture, mindful of what you're
understanding, mindful of how
they understand things at the
same time that we want to
ultimately read and know the
Bible and have the Bible
form us and the Bible speaks
one consistent, coherent word
and we need to seek it.
And, you know, there's others
who basically say that, well,
you know, you can never solve
these problems of why it is
that in Acts, in Romans 16,
which we just looked at last
week, and if you're curious
about what I said about it, you
can go online and listen to it.
And in Romans 16, it's very,
very clear that Phoebe is a
really important person.
The church has lots of
authority, that Prisca teaches
Apollos, that Junia is an
apostle and Junia is a woman's
name, that they have
significant ministries that
they teach, that there's
women who prophesy and pray in
public gatherings with men and
women.
If you read the New Testament,
you read the book of Galatians
and you read the book of
Ephesians and you read other
books, it's very, very clear
that women, there's no
distinction between whether or
not women have the abilities to
lead, whether they have the
abilities to teach, whether they
have the abilities to exercise
different types of authority.
It's very, very clear if you
read the New Testament that
there's this fundamental
equality in the receiving of
different gifts.
And so some people just say,
well, you'll never figure out
the difference, so we should
just pick the nice Canadian
option and say that women
should be elders.
In other words, we'll just
ignore Titus.
Another way that people deal
with it is just say, well,
that's just a cultural thing.
Paul didn't know better.
But the problem is that the
very same texts in the rest of
the Bible that help us to
understand Paul's great desire
and high value to women and all
of their gifts are the very same
ones that show that, in fact,
Paul was quite willing to go
completely and utterly against
his culture.
And the other problem is, and it's
the same one with the so-called
trajectory argument, is that
somehow or another the Bible is
incomplete, but if you follow the
Bible, you can see the trajectory
and where it's going to go.
And this idea that there's texts
like this are just Paul's
cultural blindness, or that the
Bible has some trajectory and
there's the truth which it's
pointing to, but it doesn't
actually articulate, that I never
held those positions when I was
trying to understand Titus 1,
because I understood that it's a
blank check, a get-out-of-jail-free
card to ultimately believe
whatever you want.
Now, it could justify apartheid.
It could justify any moral thing
that our culture wants that the
Bible says, no, we can always just
say, well, it's just a cultural
thing.
We can always make up some
trajectory.
So for many, many, many years,
had lots of other things that was on
my mind.
I just said, Titus 1 exists,
1 Timothy 3 exists, Romans 16 exists.
I have no idea how there's a
consistent message here, but the
problem isn't in the Bible, the
problem's in me.
The problem's in me.
And then about six or seven years
ago, I was reading something and
there was a footnote, and I'm one of
these really weird people who reads
footnotes.
You know who you are.
We're a very, very tiny club,
footnote readers.
I'm coming out of the closet.
I'm a footnote reader, and I love
footnotes.
I always look at them.
People see some of the books.
I have two page markers, one for
where I'm reading and one so I can
find the current page and the
footnotes at the back of the book
so I can keep going back and
forward and looking at them.
And anyway, what I now believe is
this.
I think there is a very consistent,
coherent way to read the New
Testament, where virtually Acts 16 and
Titus 1 fit together very clearly.
Phoebe wasn't an elder or an
episcopist.
Prisca wasn't an elder or an
episcopist.
Junia wasn't an elder or an
episcopist.
Philip's daughters who prophesied in
churches, they weren't an elder or an
episcopist.
that what the Bible is saying here is
not supporting patriarchy and it's not
denigrating women because the New
Testament very clearly teaches that
women can teach and they can lead.
What the Bible here is saying is that
not that all men are elders and women
are non-elders, but that God sets aside a
very, very, very small group to have the
role of elder in a community on the move.
And only men are called to that particular
position.
And what it means, not that all men are,
but just a very, very small number of men
are.
And once you see that distinction between
that authoritative type of teaching and
role of an elder and all the other things, I
think you can have a completely and
consistently consistent reading of the
word of God.
And it's a very, very, and what it means is
that those more traditionalist readings of
the Bible that want to try to make it look
as if that men are somehow superior, that
men are giving these roles because we're
not controlled by emotion or we have
better abilities to speak or lead, all
those traditional and patriarchal assumptions
are completely and utterly rejected by the
New Testament, I believe.
And in fact, actually, if you go back and you
read 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, if you read
all of the Pentateuch, when you see about
why it is that God chose Israel, what is
it that God consistently says to the nation
of Israel?
I didn't pick you because you were the
best.
I picked you because you were the least,
because I wanted to show my glory.
And in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, he describes
Christians as not being the wise and the
powerful of the world, but the weak and the
foolish.
That God uses the weak and the foolish to
shame the wise.
And so I know I'm an elder.
And I'm not saying that God has chosen me
to be an elder because I'm smarter than you
folks, holier than you folks.
In heaven, when God reveals the meaning of
our lives to us, I'll turn red.
Not because he sings my praises, but because
of all the things about me that are weak,
that led him to choose.
Any elder.
I really believe that.
And so what this text is saying is that a
man or a woman can be the president of the
United States.
A man or a woman could be an astronaut, a
race car driver.
They can care for the kids.
They can run businesses.
They can sing songs.
They can play classical musical
instruments.
They can be deputy ministers.
They can do all of those types of things.
A man or a woman can do all of those types
of things.
If that's what they want to do, if that's
the gifting, if that's the vocation, God
calls different people to do all of those
different things without any type of
distinction whatsoever.
But he just calls a very, very tiny number
of men and only men to be the elder or the
Episcopal in the church.
And I think that's a consistent way to read
the New Testament and the Old Testament.
And it's profoundly countercultural.
I resisted very deeply wanting to come to that
conclusion.
It is very un-Canadian in 2016.
But at the end of the day, I believe that the
true and living God, self-revealed in the
Bible, never, ever, ever lies.
And that he saves us as he tells the truth.
It's all for our good.
I've lost my...
There we go, in the notes.
Now, some of you are going to say, well, George, I
don't know what I'm going to think about.
Here's what I want to say about what I just
said.
If there's one takeaway that you get from this,
be...
I'm going to make a bit of a Bible reference
here.
Be a Berean.
I can't remember where it is in the book of
Acts right now.
And I can't find my place in my...
I spot in the notes.
But one of the things...
It says that when Paul went to Berea, the people
there were more noble than others.
Because as he spoke day by day, they searched the
scriptures to see if that was true.
And that's what I want you folks to do.
Search the scriptures.
Read the Bible from cover to cover.
Read quietly.
Read deeply.
Read to note the things that are similar and the
things that are different.
Read to know for yourself.
Read the Bible.
Be a people of the Bible who soak your mind and
your hearts in the scriptures.
And know that God who speaks in the Bible doesn't
lie.
He wants you to know the truth and he wants to
save you.
And that no Christian should be like I was in the
early years of my Christian life, afraid to read
parts of the Bible because I thought it would make
me sexist or make me prejudiced.
Nobody should fear God's word.
Know there's a type of godly fear which is based on the
idea that God is God and that I am not.
That God is God and that comes into conflict with my
God project.
And that's that there's a type of godly fear.
But God doesn't want anybody to fear his word.
He wants them to search the scriptures.
That's what I urge you.
Search the scriptures and share with me how you read the
Bible.
I just want to know and read the Bible in a consistent,
coherent way that brings God glory.
Please pray for me that that's what I can do.
I'm almost out of time.
What about the, that sexist stuff, George?
Actually, before we go to that, could you put up the
next point, Andrew?
You'll notice here where it goes back, you can pray for me in
terms of an elder about all the different things about elders.
They shouldn't be, they shouldn't be arrogant or quick
tempered or violent or greedy for gain.
Here's the other thing about the Bible and knowing the truth.
One of the reasons that people are uneasy about knowing the
Bible is that many of us have met Christians who read the
Bible because they like weapons.
They like to justify their anger, their intolerance, their brutal
treating of people, their brutal put-downs, their superiority.
Many people that we have come across, I remember being the chaplain in a
college for a while and there's this one student and all he ever wanted to
do was show his superior knowledge.
He had this unbelievably complicated, arcane, reformed, systematic theology.
He would ask me questions about whether I was this or that.
I didn't even know what the word meant.
And he did it to mock me, to show that he knew more than I did.
And we've all come across people like that.
And here's the thing, if you read Titus 1, knowing true doctrine never gives
anyone permission to be arrogant, quick-tempered, brutal, aggressive,
and I would add anger-driven.
No, you're not understanding true doctrine if it leads you to be brutal and cruel.
It doesn't matter how technically correct it is.
You have missed the point.
God's word humbles us, always humbles us.
It touches our heart to humble us.
And that's sort of what the lead-in is to this part that's apparently prejudiced.
Verse 10.
Let's look at that part.
If you didn't hear it before, you're going to hear it now.
The thing that, I don't know how many times I read Titus before, it shocked me.
For there are many here who are insubordinate,
for there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers, and deceivers,
especially those of the circumcision party.
They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families
by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.
One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said,
Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.
This testimony is true.
Therefore, rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in faith,
not devoting themselves to Jewish myths
and the commands of people who turn away from the truth.
To the pure all things are pure,
but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure.
But both their minds and their consciences are defiled.
They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works.
They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.
Now that's a pretty shocking statement.
Now here's the problem.
Here's one of the things that you understand that you have prejudice.
If I'm driving along the road,
and somebody's driving really poorly,
and I eventually get by them,
and I say to myself,
Ah, woman.
That's a woman.
I'm prejudiced.
Now you fill in the blank.
A man, a black, a white.
Ah, a guy who drives an Audi.
Ah.
You know, one percenters.
Okay?
If you pass another person,
you say,
Oh wow, they're not driving very well.
But you pass another person,
and you say,
A woman.
You have a prejudice problem.
If people here think they don't have any prejudice issues,
it just shows your lack of self-awareness.
Just shows your lack of self-awareness.
It's a human problem.
It's not a problem for men,
or a problem for women,
or a problem for whites,
or blacks,
or Asians.
It's a human problem.
This categorizing,
and dismissing,
of people.
So is that what Paul is doing here?
You know what Paul is doing here?
He's setting the hook.
You see,
all of Paul's readers
who weren't from Crete
would have agreed with this.
In the ancient world,
there's actually a word
coming from Crete
that if you call somebody
to Cretanize,
or that they're Crete,
you're telling them,
you're describing the person.
If you were to say to somebody,
Oh, he's like a,
he's a Crete.
I don't know how to say it exactly in Greek.
What you're saying is that
they lie
and are untrustworthy.
It's actually in Greek.
And it goes back to the fact
that in the Greek,
Crete religion,
they believe that Zeus,
the head of the gods,
was born in Crete,
but also that he died in Crete
and was buried in Crete.
And so for the rest
of the ancient world,
how could the supreme God
be buried in Crete?
They're obviously liars
and untrustworthy.
But if Paul just said this,
there'd be a problem.
Just look across
at chapter 3, verse 3.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Those Cretes,
those Cretes,
they're liars,
evil beasts,
lazy gluttons.
Verse 3.
For we are,
after he's done all the other stuff
that we'll look at,
you know, next week.
For we ourselves
were once foolish,
disobedient,
led astray,
slaves to various passions
and pleasures,
passing our day
in malice and envy,
hated by others
and hating one another.
Dang it.
I'm a Crete.
In the Old Testament,
if you go back,
there's this very powerful story
where David had slept
with another man's wife
and then he makes her pregnant
and he calls her husband
back from the front
and he gets him drunk twice
to try to get him
to sleep with his wife
and then when he fails to do it,
he has Uriah killed in battle.
And then Nathan the prophet
comes to speak to David
and Nathan tells a parable
about there was a very rich man
who had huge flocks
and he had a guest who came
but rather than taking
one of the lambs
from his own flock,
he went to this really poor guy
who only had one lamb
and he treated it
like it was his favorite pet,
almost like his son
or his daughter
and the rich man
took that little lamb
from the poor man
and killed the poor man's lamb
so he could feed it
to the guest
and David gets irate
and says,
that man deserves to die
and then Nathan says,
you are the man.
You are the man.
And what Paul is doing
in Titus 1
is making us realize
by the time we get to Titus 3
if we're listening carefully,
you are the man.
You are the man or the woman.
I point at somebody,
I have three fingers
pointing back.
Every human being does
unless you are missing
those three fingers
but then the story
doesn't work.
But you are fundamentally
three fingers pointing back
and he is setting the hook.
See, here is the problem.
The problem is
that you might say
it is insubordination.
I call it cutting edge
creative thinking.
You might call it
insubordination
but I call it
that you are just
insecure in your leadership.
You might call it
insubordination
but I call it
the fact that
I am actually
theologically trained
to know the Bible
better than you do.
You might call it
empty talking and deception.
I call it
superior verbal skills
and confidence.
You might call it
empty talking and deception.
I call it
that I am better educated
than you are.
You might call it
shameful gain.
I call it
being practical with money.
You might call it
circumcision party.
I call it
appropriating the best
of our traditions.
You might call it
empty myths and stories.
I call it
I just know more things
than you do.
You might call
our minds and consciences
defiled.
I call it
that I am liberated
and progressive
and I am gripped
by the gospel.
You might call it
detestable.
I call it
appropriately contextualized
in our culture.
In other words
we read
Titus 1
verses 10
to the end
and all we do
is think
boy I wish
that that church
knew about that text.
Boy I wish
my dad heard that.
Boy I wish
the young people
knew that.
Boy I wish
the men knew that.
The women knew that.
The bishops knew that.
The priests knew that.
And we don't see
the three fingers
pointing back
at ourselves.
See that's
the context
within the word
which the word
of God
comes to us
is that
in the words
of the psalm
we flatter
ourselves
too much
to detect
or hate
our own sin.
Could you put up
the final point
and I invite you
all to stand?
And the final point
is a prayer
and
you know
all of this stuff
about flattering
ourselves too much
to detect
or hate
our own sin
it just shows
that we need
a savior.
It just shows
that we need
a savior.
that we need
God
to exercise
power
to make us
right with him
and we need
to not only
be gripped
by how he's
made us
right with him
but gripped
in such a way
that it starts
to change
our lives
that we can be
so in a sense
comforted
by the security
that it's not
it's no longer
me justifying
myself
me making
myself
righteous
me making
myself
looking superior
me trying
to manage
my appearance
so people
don't see
the sin
or the emptiness
or the hollowness
that's in the depth
of who I am
that it's me
managing my image
that at the end
of the day
the gospel
is this profound
message
that God
and only God
can make us
right with himself
that there's not
a hollowness
that would devour
us at the center
of us
that God saw
our need
and loved us
so much
that he sent
his son
to die upon
the cross
for us
that only
as the gospel
grips us
can we actually
begin to have
the security
to look
at our own
self-deception
and self-flattery
to consider
without unmaking
us
that every time
I point
at another
person
I'm pointing
three fingers
back at myself
so for some
of us
maybe this is
a way
to begin
to enter
the Christian
faith
it's a conversion
prayer
for others
of us
who are
followers
of Jesus
I suggest
that Titus 1
leads us
to desperately
need to pray
a prayer
like this
so if
those who are
led
if you would
like to say
it out loud
with me
that would
be great
dear Lord
please help
me
I flatter
myself
too much
to detect
or hate
my own
sin
please bring
your word
to bear
on my heart
that I might
repent
and amend
my life
please make
me a disciple
of Jesus
gripped by
the gospel
living for
your glory
Father
pour out
your Holy
Spirit
upon us
deliver us
from a fear
of your word
make us
people who
search the
scriptures
to know
the truth
thank you
Father
that you
are a God
who never
lies
never
ever
lies
and that
you love
us
and you
sent your
son to
die upon
the cross
for us
Father
we praise
you
and all
this we
ask and
thank
in the name
of Jesus
your son
and our
savior
amen