Believing Means Behaving

When the Apostle Paul left instructions for how his protégé Titus was to lead his church community, Paul specified an important and essential role that older men and women should play. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg looks closely at this set of guidelines and explains how these roles continue to be vital in our churches today.

Or in Titus chapter 2, we're looking today at verses 2–4. Paul gives instruction for these various categories of people that are in the congregations that Titus serves. These various categories of people, whether they are slaves or whether they are young women, young men, older women or older men, they're all to be taught, he tells Titus, so that they might understand the indissoluble link between what they profess to believe and how they then in turn behave.

So that, if you like, their creed will be revealed in their conduct, that their faith is a faith that functions, that their belief is then established in their behavior. And you will notice that he begins with older men. With older men.

I find it quite striking that he begins with older men, and I hope you do too. I think if somebody was writing in our present culture, they might be tempted, if they were influenced by the culture, to begin with children or with teenagers. Because that's what you always hear, that's what you read in the literature, they always tell you, is the children is the teenagers that are the future of the church. Well, in one sense that is true, but they're not the key to the development of the church. They could never be the backbone of the church.

They could never be the group that is given the wisdom necessary for the church to function as God intends. Who would you go to for that? For maturity, physical maturity, spiritual maturity, biblical understanding, a grasp of the gospel. Who should be these people? Older men.

So he starts at the right spot. Make sure, he says, that the older men are sober-minded, dignified, and self-controlled. Well, there's a challenge to begin with, isn't it? Sober-minded, keeping their heads dignified and under control. Every stage of life has its own peculiar challenges and its own peculiar responsibilities.

Older men don't need the same instruction that the teenagers are going to get, but older men need to be taught to live in such a way as you would expect to be becoming of senior members of the community. Hippocrates, in his day, had the stages of a man's life in seven, not dissimilar to what we find in Shakespeare. And the sixth stage of life, according to Hippocrates' calculations, was the age between fifty and fifty-six. So that once you got beyond fifty-six, you were in stage seven. The final stage.

No stages after that. Now, I know that apparently forty is the new twenty and all that jazz. But nevertheless, we understand that as in society, so in the church, the people of God ought to be able to expect that those mature men will display a maturity that is marked in the way that Paul intends, so that they will be—notice—sound in faith, sound in faith. Healthy in their faith, not just coasting but growing, in faith towards God, in love towards others, and in steadfastness in relationship to the circumstances of life which bring their own peculiar challenges at every stage. Now, let me just mention, what I see as the biggest danger in responding to this and in seeking to apply it—and this is just my own personal observation—I have observed that what a man is in his thirties and his forties, unless corrected by grace and held to account by his wife and his children, what he is in his thirties and forties, he will be to a greater or lesser extent in his sixties and his seventies.

And when you take that in church life—and I've lived in church life for all of my life—I've noticed that older men at the end gravitate to one of two extremes. On the one hand is kind of sentimentality. They sort of seem to have lost it. You know, they're just sort of, oh, yes, yes. It's not that grace has done anything to them.

They just kind of… They just punched out. But on the other hand is censoriousness. And the antidote to it is the grace of God. But the pastor's role, given to Titus here, is to see to it that the older men in stage seven, which is over the age of fifty-six, are sober-minded, dignified, self-control, and healthy in their faith, in their love towards one another, and in their ability to remain steadfast in face of trials. And I think all of us who've lived in Christian circles for any length of time would be able immediately to write down on the flyleaf of our Bible the names of those who have helped us in this regard. He goes on from there to the older women. The older women are not going to be left out from the equation.

Of course, they shouldn't be, because they're absolutely vital. In the same way that older men have such a significant role to play in a developing congregation, so do older women. And the older women—notice the word likewise—in the same way, from the same perspective, these women are to be reverent in behavior. Reverent in behavior. In other words, their disposition is a disposition which is developed before the searching gaze of God. They are to be, if you like, like Anna, who served in the temple at the time of the birth of Jesus and John the Baptist, and she was bowed before the greatness of God and awed by the wonder of his provision.

When older women are filled with those kind of things, then you will find that they won't be filled with many of the other kinds of things. If they do not find themselves filled with the Holy Spirit, then they may decide that they should try to fill themselves up with much wine. And if they fill themselves up with much wine, they may find that when their tongues just rattle, they become slanderers rather than those who are supporting the ministry and undergirding the gospel and so on. There's a direct correlation there, isn't there? It's not uncommon for wine to loosen a person's tongue, and once their tongue is loosened and they feel loosened and they feel a little bit of freedom, then what may come out may not exactly be that which is commending the gospel. You see how practical this is?

This is not theoretical stuff. This tells us something about the context in Crete. If he says, now, when you're thinking about the older women in the church, he doesn't say, now, the older women in the church should all make sure they're members of the choir. You know, make sure they do this and make sure they do that. He says, no, the older women in the church are to be reverent towards God, they're to live under the searching gaze of God, and you need to make sure that they're not slanderers and that they're not filled with wine. In other words, that they're not out of control.

That their tongues are under control, both in terms of the output and also in terms of the input. In 1 Timothy, of course, he addresses it even in relationship to the matter of apparel and to the way a woman dresses, and to the necessity of deportment and the necessity of that which is enhancing to a reverent perspective on God. And in the same way that you see some old guys trying to dress like they're teenagers, the danger is that an older woman may decide that she needs to take on the challenge of her daughter, not by allowing her to be her daughter and remembering what she was herself thirty-five years ago but in seeking to outdo her daughter. There's to be none of that in the church.

No, the imperishable jewel of a gentle and a quiet spirit is supposed to be the jewelry of the lady of deportment, and externally she's not to be looking for that. Now, the reason this is so important is because the role of these older women in the church—they must be reverent in their behavior, you will notice—not slanderers, not given to much wine, because they're to teach what is good. Now, the teaching here is the lifestyle teaching before it is any other kind of teaching, and they're to teach what is good—teaching, by example, in the home and in the community. Does that rule out the possibility of formalized teaching?

No, it doesn't. But is formalized teaching what Paul has in mind here? I doubt it very much indeed. I don't think for a moment that when Paul wrote these words, he was anticipating a classroom setting with a three-ring binder and some woman up the front telling everybody else how this is supposed to happen. I'm not saying that there isn't a place for women teaching women in that way.

There clearly is. But I'm just suggesting to you that the callow didaskalas, which is here, which is a unique word in Greek, is not embodying that kind of instruction. Where it's so, then he would have used the appropriate word.

He used a very interesting word. So in other words, how then does this instruction take place? Well, it takes place in the everyday events of life. It takes place in the casual conversations. It takes place in the arranged meetings.

It takes place in the way in which women within a congregation rub shoulders with one another and learn from one another and give to one another. And the training that is taking place of these young women is training. Training. So in other words, the picture is a not uncommon twenty-first century picture—that of a personal trainer. A personal trainer.

Somebody who is coming alongside, not now to help us lose two inches off our waist or whatever it might be, but someone who's coming alongside us in teaching us what is good. Let me tell you what's good here. Well, I love this. Yeah, but it's not good. Well, I thought I should do that.

Yeah, but it's not good. And so train the younger women. The place of older women in a congregation is a vital place, as it is with older men.

Not to go in classrooms and wait for people to walk in, but to live in such a way in the community that you will be attractive to people who are younger than you, who will seek you out, and who will be encouraged by you. Because these younger women are to be under the tutelage of the older women. Isn't it interesting that Titus is not told to teach the younger women? He's not told to teach the younger women. He's told to make sure that the older men are fine, that the older women are fine, but then it's not his job to teach what is good to train the young women, but it's the job of the older women to teach what is good and to train the young women. It bears testimony to what Paul says to Timothy in 1 Timothy, where he says, treat the younger women as sisters and treat the older women as mothers. There's great wisdom in that, isn't there?

Both in terms of moral purity, in terms of not allowing your affections to wander, in terms of the peculiar risks that are wrapped up in the intimacy that a younger woman may feel with a pastor, with a confidant, with somebody who means a great deal to them. Now, what are these older women to teach these younger women to do? What are they supposed to be doing?

Well, there are a number of couplets here, and we're not going to be able to get very far into them, and I'll stop before it gets really tough. We'll have to come back to it when it's tough, but first of all, they're to teach them, train them, how to love their husbands and their children. Now, we know that so well that we might not be caught off guard by it. A training on how to love your husband. But isn't this Annie, get your gun? I mean, isn't this doing what comes naturally? I mean, you just love us, don't you? Ladies, I mean, be honest. You need a training program to know how to love me?

Yeah. Because I'm going to some of these older men to find out how to love you. Now, you see, when we think in terms of love, we think almost inevitably on love being the victim of our emotions. When an actual fight—what Paul is referencing here is love, a love which is the servant of our wills, that serves our wills. Because when we got married, we weren't asked anything in our wedding vows about emotion. Unless you had somebody who let you write your own vows, which should never happen, if you had any sensible vows at all, then you know that no one ever asked you, So how do you feel about your husband today? All of that feeling is assumed and anticipated and expected, but those aren't the questions. And there's a reason those aren't the questions.

Because emotion will come and go, will ebb and flow. Challenges and difficulties inevitably come. So the questions are, Do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband to live together according God's ordinance in the special relationship of marriage? Will you love him, comfort him, obey him in sickness and in health, and keep yourself only unto him so long as you both shall live? Answer, I do. I will. Okay.

You're gonna need an older lady. Because you're not gonna go very far along the road before you go, Hey, wait a minute, I didn't bargain for this. When you said you were gonna work hard and we were gonna live in the suburbs, I didn't realize that that meant you were gonna leave before breakfast, you were gonna come home after supper, you were gonna fall asleep with that jolly remote control in your hand every single night. And I'm sick of this. Okay? Well, hang on.

Don't go crazy. Look around. There'll be a lady here who's been through this. She'll be able to tell you, Let me tell you, I sorted him out. I can help you. I live through it.

I can help you. How do you love your teenager when they've gone into, I don't want to talk to you ever again in my entire life mode, when they've gone into, How do I ever get parents that are such idiots? When they've gone into earphone mode, when they're in, Hey, talk to the hand. And you're just about going totally out of your box with it. What are you gonna do?

Well, you can come and see a pastor, and we can tell you, we pray with you and everything, but you need an older lady. You need somebody who said, You know what? X and I almost despaired of Z when he, she was. Let me tell you how we lived through it. Let me tell you what we've done. Let me tell you how we prayed. Let me tell you about the grace of God. Let me encourage you.

And what about the tiniest ones? You bring your baby home from the hospital, and you don't even like it. It doesn't happen routinely, but it does happen, right? It's called postpartum depression. Who's gonna help you with that?

Where you need a three-ring binder? No. You need an arm around your shoulder. You need tender eyes in a lady that understands. You need compassion. You need encouragement.

You need everything that you can get from the embrace of a woman who is not theoretical but is able to be there for you. You see, Paul is not instituting a program here. He is describing a life here. He's describing the way in which ministry, interrelated ministry in the church, is supposed to take place.

It's not programmatic. It is relational. It is as a result of knowing people. It is a result of being able to open up to people. It is a result of being able to say—or for the older woman to take the initiative as she sees the person—they've got three under the ages of four, and the mother looks as though she's just about to make a run for Finley, Ohio, or somewhere, and just leave them all behind. And you don't have to come up and go, you know, oh, I see, you're having great difficulty here, is it? Just come up and say, hey, come here, and come on. Let's get a coffee.

I can help you with this. A training program for loving husbands and your children. I've lived through this.

What do you do when you're overwhelmed and three and a half thousand miles from home, and your husband's a pastor who's not paying any attention to you? It's all very tender. It's all very real. It's all very biblical. Now, what Paul is actually unearthing, you see, is the nature of life itself within the community. Here are all these people from Crete.

The Cretan context is so anti-Christian. And he's saying to them, listen, you better make sure that you find in Christ and in one another the relationships that will not only sustain you as you seek to follow Christ, but also as you live your lives with one another. Our time is gone, and so we'll stop, but it gets even more daunting into this. We will return not only to train the young women to love their husbands and children, but also to be self-controlled and pure, and to be working at home and kind.

Now, that phrase is liable to start a fire in an age of feminist activism. Are we going to really take this seriously? Remember what we said at the beginning? The church is at its greatest not when it has embraced the culture and is able to show, oh yeah, we just believe the same thing about you about the nature of family life. We believe everything you believe about raising children. This is what we do as well. Yeah, we're the daycare generation.

No. When they actually say to the culture, we actually don't believe these things. Boy, that's a bit of a change, isn't it?

Now the gospel takes on a different look for people. Then they're going to want to know, well, why would you ever do that? And you can say, well, it's because of this old lady in our church. She's the problem. She's responsible. She started me on this.

It had never crossed my mind until I began to meet with her for coffee. God has a purpose for us at every age and every stage of life. You're listening to Truth for Life. That's Alistair Begg with a message titled, Believing Means Behaving. I hope you are benefiting from these practical lessons from the book of Titus. If you've missed any of this study, you can catch up online. All of Alistair's teaching can be heard or viewed for free on our website or through our mobile app.

You can find the series by using the search feature and keying in Get It Right. The study's also available on a USB drive at our cost of $5 at truthforlife.org slash store. The book we want to tell you about today is a perfect supplement to the teaching that we're hearing from Titus. The book is titled, Know the Truth, and it's written as a guide to lay out what Christians believe and why we believe it. Every chapter dives deep into a specific topic explained in scripture. For example, the opening chapter in the book explores what the Bible says about who God is, about his authority, his revelation, his attributes. The chapter about Jesus explains his deity, his humanity, his saving work on the cross. This book, Know the Truth, has been a trusted go-to source for Christian doctrine for more than 40 years. It's a great book to add to your personal library or to contribute to your church's library. Request your copy of the book, Know the Truth, when you give a donation to Truth for Life. To give, click the book image you see in the mobile app or visit us online at truthforlife.org slash donate. You can also call us if you'd like. Our number is 888-588-7884. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening. Tomorrow, we'll learn why the Apostle Paul's practical instruction for how we're to live as Christians is not ultimately about our happiness. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.