20230319 Titus 2 Gospel-Shaped Living for a Healthy Faith

What came first, the chicken or the egg? Do you first love someone or serve them? Feelings lead to action. Now, consider the opposite. If we do nice things for those we are not fond of, experience teaches that actions can lead to feelings. This is true for our love and service to God. Does not love have to come first, for our service to be genuine? God uses our service to stir up in us a deeper love for him. Our thoughts, feelings, and actions are connected. No perfect trajectory exists from thinking to feeling and doing. They are interrelated.

Titus 2 deals with how we ought to live. The Christian message is that humanity is fallen, and Jesus is the solution. Any teaching that hints that we are the solution and we either have to be different or do differently is an anti-Christian message. We need to study a text on lifestyle according to the author’s intentions. Tit 2:1 places this text in the context of our series. Everything taught accords with healthy teaching. Healthy teaching goes beyond accuracy. It offers a wholesome message to wholesome people. It offers the proper nuance in each situation. It is patient. It does not compromise but understands its audience and its struggles. It empowers and guides us in the right direction. Healthy teaching cares more about pointing to Jesus than conforming people to a moral standard. Healthy teaching is not just a transfer of information, but it is personal and offers tools to apply it. Paul wants healthy Christians. Titus 2 serves this goal.

To discover the Christian message, we must read lifestyle passages in context. When we read Tit 2:1-15 verse by verse, we read Tit 2:2-10 out of context. The proper context for Tit 2:2-10 is Tit 2:11-15. This study will follow the logical order: Context (Tit 2:11-14, 15), Command (Tit 2:2-10), and Consequence (Tit 2:5, 8, 10), rather than verse by verse.

Titus 2:11-14, 15 presents the context of Gospel-Shaped Living.

First, Tit 2:15 is Paul’s reflection on Tit 2:1-14. He writes, “Teach this at all costs!” “Declare these things, encourage, exhort, rebuke, with all authority.” “Do not let anyone get in your way of teaching this.” This is God’s inspired commentary on Titus 2. This content is important.

Second, Tit 2:11-14 offers the gospel context. Tit 2:11 begins with the word “for.” This means that the content on gospel-living (Tit 2:2-10) flows out of the gospel. Tit 2:11-14 presents the work of God in Christ with Exodus language and links salvation with good works.

Tit 2:11 reads, “The grace of God appeared,” which refers to Jesus’ coming (c.f. 2 Tim 1:9-10). He brought salvation for all people. This does not mean that everyone’s sins are forgiven, but that no kind of person is beyond saving. No sin, ethnicity, or worldview is out of God’s reach.

Tit 2:14 describes the work of Christ in Exodus language. Christ gave himself on our behalf. The Passover lamb was slaughtered so the Israelites could live. Christ ransomed us from all lawlessness. The LXX is an Ancient Greek version of the OT. It is helpful to see where NT authors get their ideas based on word choices. The word “ransom” first occurs in Exod 6:6 (LXX), in referencing Israel’s deliverance from the slavery of Egypt. Paul teaches on Christian salvation in Exodus language. Our bondage was not with physical chains but the chains of sin. Christ’s work cleanses us to be God’s treasured possession. This expression “treasured possession” or “his own possession” (ESV) is another connection to the Exodus.[i] According to Exod 19:5, God delivered Israel from Egypt to be his “treasured possession.” This is the effect of Christ’s work. We are cleansed and are Jesus’ precious possession, zealous for good works.

Tit 2:12-13 highlight two effects of salvation, righteousness and hope. The grace of God trains us to deny godlessness and worldly passions and live self-controlled, godly lives in the present age, and live in the blessed hope of the glorious second coming of Christ.

Application:

Many have never felt precious in someone’s eyes. Our text says, Jesus gave himself for us with the intention of making us his treasured possession. Christian, you are precious in the eyes of the one who matters the most.

Robert Beavers is known for his contribution to family therapy. He studied family dynamics and analyzed the ingredients for a healthy, well-functioning family. What distinguishes adequate families from optimal families is one word. This word is “delight.”[ii] Other studies have highlighted the long-term benefits of being someone else’s delight for well-being, mental health, careers, and social life. How much more will we thrive in all things knowing that we are God’s delight and his precious possession? God’s delight is a big link between the gospel and good works.

Titus 2:2-10 presents the Commands of Gospel-Shaped Living.

Paul instructs five groups of people, older men, older women, younger women, younger men, and servants/slaves. These lists occur elsewhere like in Col 3-4, Eph 5-6, and 1 Pet 2-3. I find it most helpful to be most concerned about what is addressed to us, rather than insisting others do their part. After a sermon, a mother told her teenager that the pastor said he had to obey her. The son replied, “parents do not provoke your children to anger.” Both are right but both would be better served by doing their part.

(1) For older men (Tit 2:2), the content is short because he addressed elders in Tit 1:5-16. They are to be “temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled” and healthy in faith, love, and endurance.

(2) Older women (Tit 2:3) are to be reverent, not slanderers, or addicted to much wine but teaching what is good. Older women are called to the same standard as elders in the church.

(3) Following is that older women will teach the younger women (Tit 2:4-5) to love their husbands and children, be self-controlled, pure, busy at home, kind, and subject to their husbands. I will comment more in the application.

(4) Younger men (Tit 2:6-8) likewise need to be self-controlled. Paul writes that Titus is to set an example himself by doing what is good, and in teaching his example needs to be incorruptible and dignified. His message is to be healthy and beyond reproach.

(5) Bondservants or slaves (Tit 2:9-10) need to be submissive to their masters in everything.

Application:

(1) This text assumes at least three generations in the church. The older women who teach the younger to love their children! One of our values is to be a multi-generational church. We need people in various stages of life. This enriches our theology in seeing how God’s wisdom applies to all stages of life. This value will affect our worship services: the message, the music, and the length of the service. If we sing too many thee’s and thou’s, we may unintentionally communicate that younger people are not expected or welcome. If the music is too loud, we communicate that older people are not welcome. We desire to be a community where older in age or older in the faith are spending time with the younger in the faith so that we can grow together in Christ. This passage stresses the younger learning from the older, but Jesus taught that children teach us a lot about the faith he is after (Mat 18:4).

(2) Now we need to talk about submission. This is a hot topic, and it divides churches. Particularly here, wives to husbands and slaves to their masters. Remember that Tit 2:1 teaches this teaching is for a healthy faith and Tit 2:15 that this must be taught at all costs, and Tit 2:11-14 presents this as an outflow of the gospel. This text is not moralism, or a guide to turn people into model citizens. It is the result of the Spirit of God stirring up joy in people to live in a way that glorifies him.

For the topic of submission, we look to Jesus. He came not to be served but to serve (Mk 10:45), he became a servant and humbled himself unto death (Phil 2:7,8). It is through willing submission that salvation was made possible! As we follow Jesus, the Christian life is one of giving up rights. It is picking up our cross and following Jesus.

Tit 2:2-10 highlights wives submitting to their husbands, and servants to slaves, but other scriptures tell children to submit to their parents, all people to governments, and Christians to submit to elders. In a presbyterian model of government, elders submit to one another and to the denomination. No one is excluded.

Now, for wives submitting to their husbands. We can all agree it is not a bad thing. We are glad Paul did not write that women are to be insubordinate to their husbands. We will see below that getting hung up on this point misses the point of the author. Eph 5 offers the fullest explanation of Christian marriage. Eph 5:21 begins with submitting yourselves to one another. Eph 5:22 follows with “wives submit to their husbands,” and Eph 5:23 with husbands laying down their lives for their wives as Christ loved the church. When I hear people say that in a healthy Christian marriage when a couple disagrees, the husband decides, I do not know how that reflects a Gospel-shaped marriage. Eph 5:21-33 pictures a husband and wife who love each other both and want what is best for the other. At the end of the day, the wife will have to submit to her husband’s laying down of his life for her. More is to come in the third point.

Concerning slaves submitting to their masters, the Bible gets condemned for not condemning slavery. The concern in this passage is not changing the social structure of the day, but within the structure to instruct on a gospel-shaped life. One who submits to one who does not deserve it, reflects Christ.

Titus 2:5, 8, 10 show the Consequences of Gospel-Shaped Living.

In the Greek, Tit 2:2-10 is made up of three sentences that end in the same way, with three phrases I skipped. When we are God’s redeemed, cleansed, and treasured people we live a gospel-shaped way and God builds his kingdom. What concerned older men, older women, and younger women makes up one sentence in the Greek, which ends with: “so that the word of God would not be reviled” (Tit 2:5). The next sentence about younger men ends in, “so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us” (Tit 2:8). The final sentence about servants being submissive to masters ends with, “so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive” (Tit 2:10).

Application:

We bear witness to Christ when we show that he is more precious to us than our own rights! Paul is concerned about the reputation of the church, the word of God, and God. This is where our conduct fits. When we fail, this does not make us less, the children of God. Healthy Christians understand that they have a role in a bigger story than their own. Healthy people have a lifestyle that is attractive, and that other people will want. This is not true about all aspects of the Christian life. Unbelievers do not want to follow in the footsteps of a crucified Messiah for the Glory of God. But having a multi-generational community where older men instruct younger men, and older women instruct younger women, is relevant and appealing in our individualistic community. People love a healthy Christian community. It is attractive, it makes God look Good, and gives his word an amazing reputation!

This third point helps put the submission passages in perspective. In the first century when women had no rights at all, submission to husbands looks different than it does today for a gospel appeal. Today, macho, toxic masculinity in some Christian circles in the name of male headship has the opposite effect and gives God a bad name! Christians are all called to humility and submission. In addition, a big appeal of the Christian worldview is how it promotes the dignity of all life. Therefore, while the teaching on submission remains true for all time, because the end goal is the reputation of the church, applications can vary. Our highest priority is a wise lifestyle for a good witness.

Conclusion:

What came first, the chicken or the egg? Through the gospel lens, God always comes first. He initiated our salvation. Jesus saved us, and we are his delight. He gives us the desires and power to live in his ways. When we keep his ways, we see God’s wisdom, we know that he is for us, and want to serve him even more. The text shows us that an ordered life is the result of the gospel. An ordered life gives God a good reputation. A healthy faith works itself out in gospel-shaped living that brings glory to God.



[i] It occurs nowhere else in the NT.


[ii] Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: It’s Impossible to Be Spiritually Mature, While Remaining Emotionally Immature, Updated edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), Ch 3./Breaking the Power from the Past.