When we read today this phrase by Paul in Titus chapter 1, you don't immediately suck in your breath and shudder at the gravity of this term.
It doesn't offend our sensitivities. It doesn't confront our misconception of autonomy as Christians. See, we prefer to think that we have an option to obey Christ, to belong entirely to him.
So we don't quite get it when the Apostle Peter says that every Christian is a slave to God. We would rather believe that we can negotiate with him over the terms of his will. Have you ever been praying and suddenly you've found yourself negotiating with God? It's almost as if we try to strike the best bargain we can. We offer things to God and ask for things in return like we're negotiating a deal of some sort.
Well let me ask you this question. What kind of negotiation power does a slave have? Slavery is a concept we don't like to talk much about. And slavery is a position that we don't naturally want to be in. So what does it mean that we're slaves to Christ?
Today on Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen Davey is going to help us make sense of all of this. We're beginning a series from Titus called Slave Traits. Today's lesson is called From One Slave to Another. During the reign of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Christianity had become illegal. Persecution of Christians was sort of open season. The penalty for following Christ could be imprisonment, torture, perhaps even death.
Out of the halls of this history comes the story of a young man by the name of Sanctus who stood before the Roman governor. He was on trial for the crime of Christianity. His life was literally hanging in the balance.
He's saying trials are occurring around our world even to this day. He was repeatedly told to renounce the faith he possessed, but his mind was resolved to remain true to Christ. Every time he was asked a question, no matter what it was, he only answered by saying, I am a Christian.
No matter what the questions were, he always gave the same unchanging answer, I am a Christian. According to Eusebius, the church historian who recorded the events of this trial, the young man would not even tell his name or the nation or city to which he belonged, whether he was bonded or free, but answered in the same manner, I am a Christian. The story goes that when it became obvious that he wouldn't renounce Christ, he was condemned to a public death in the amphitheater.
He was attacked by wild animals, fastened to a chair of burning hot iron. Eusebius recorded that throughout all of this ordeal, his accusers continually tried to break his resolve, but they would hear nothing from him but that which they had heard throughout his trial, I am a Christian. For Sanctus, his entire identity, his name, his citizenship, his status in life was bound up in Jesus Christ. What defined him above and beyond everything else was that statement, I am a Christian. The term Christian wasn't just a title though, it was a way of thinking, it was a way of living. More than ever before, I have often thought we're in the generation where there is a need of going back to the biblical drawing board and answering the question, what exactly does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to live and act and think like a Christian? What do you mean when you say, I am a Christian?
That word is so elastic nowadays in our generation that it's sort of one size fits all. You can claim the title Christian today even if you don't really care about Jesus Christ. In fact, today you can be considered a Christian and deny the deity of Christ, the virgin birth of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the coming kingdom where Christ is king, the eternal state of heaven for those who believe in Christ and a future hell for those who don't. You can even find Christian leaders today who deny the need for Christ's atoning death work on the cross.
In fact, a growing number of people I've watched over the last dozen years or so, it's growing so quickly. It literally amazes me who call themselves Christians who don't even believe in the cross work of Christ and don't think you need to. You can be a Christian today and basically have the attitude that the gospel is really too restrictive and you know the Bible is a good book but it's a little too intolerant. A Pew forum on religion and public life in our country found that 65% of the people polled said they believed in the basic message of the Bible and they claimed the title Christian while at the same time believing in the legitimacy of other religious tenants which included everything from reincarnation to astrology.
What does it mean to be a Christian? Every so often I'll read from what are normally considered Christian or even evangelical journals and magazines and I've stopped all my subscriptions, have for several years now. If I want to read an article I'll read, we catalog them for the seminary students over in the library.
I don't want to pay any money for it. I'm more and more amazed though at how quickly the undertow of secular thought is sweeping the church out to a sea of moral uncertainty and doctrinal confusion. Many churches and denominations today are convinced that the commission from Christ has as much to do about saving the planet as it is to save people.
In fact more than ever before you're likely to be considered now un-Christian, not a very good Christian if you don't buy into the politically correct propaganda of the environmentalists and the abortionists and the gay activists and on and on. I was in the audience a few months ago at the National Religious Broadcasters convention where I along with a thousand or so were watching a debate that had been hosted by the National Religious Broadcasters Association. Obviously on the side of evangelicals but there was a particular debate where a leader from a mainline denominational church or association of churches was debating an evangelical leader on the biblical basis for homosexuality and same sex marriage. And so they kind of went back and forth as they debated their particular views of the scripture. I wish I had heard the arguments before but what I left amazed over was that this denominational leader, this woman literally claimed for her point of view and for those like her that they were the ones actually following the core values of Christianity.
They were the good Christians and anybody who would ever say that that kind of lifestyle is sinful just aren't really good Christians anymore. So the church needs to change her message if she ever hopes now to be viewed by the world as Christian. Sometime ago a man in our congregation sent me an article from the News and Observer and I knew then it would be placed alongside the Bible as inspired and so I wanted to make sure I read it carefully. He was actually sending it to me in humor and knew I'd be interested in it but the article interviewed a pastor from a mainline denominational church in our city. And the pastor was asked, what would you say to someone who's thinking about giving your church a try? The pastor responded, well they would be welcome regardless of who they are and regardless, note this, of their belief system. The pastor went on to add, we don't try to convert anybody. So the reporter asked him, well what exactly is your church known for? For believing in nothing.
Okay that's my answer, his answer was a little different. The pastor said, we are known for having a positive spiritual message so that we can feel better when we leave than when we came in. In other words, no matter what you believe in or how you might behave, church is all about feeling good about yourself. And feeling better about yourself when you leave than when you came. Again our church assembly article wrote in the margin of that article tongue in cheek the words, hey sometimes I don't feel better after your sermons, could you work on that? And I am, I am.
I'm trying to offend everybody so you won't feel so alone. The truth is you can believe just about anything you want to believe and feel pretty good about your position and opinion until you open up the Bible. As long as you keep that closed you're fairly safe in whatever your views or opinions may be. But the Bible has a way of messing all that up. Because the true gospel taken at face value from the meanings of the words of scripture has nothing to do with us relating to the world. Even though that's the mantra of the church today. The gospel is interested in saving people from the world and at the same time renewing the minds of believers who are constantly being tainted by the world. I get all these advertisements in my mailbox from churches.
I don't know if I'm a target or what it is but all churches that are opening up or starting or whatever they're doing mass mailing and it's all the same. In fact they all sound the same, look the same, say the same thing. We're relevant, we're dynamic, you can be comfortable with us. I mean even down to the coffee's great and the music's cool and the sermons are short.
Hold your comments on that particular point. We're all about being relevant which is to be interpreted we're not gonna provoke anybody. Can I tell you something about myself? It's not intended to be funny okay I want to tell you something. I need desperately need to be provoked. I hope my wife's not listening to this part but you know what I mean. I need to be provoked to live for somebody besides Stephen Davey.
I mean how tragic would that be? I need my mind renewed and transformed so that it doesn't so easily so quickly justify my sin. I need the Bible to act like a sword to cut through the facade of my intentions and true motivations. I desperately need the fellowship of brothers and sisters who are following hard after God.
It's what I need. I don't come here because I want to feel good about myself. You're gonna have to do a really good job to make me feel better about myself because I know me. We're here to feel better about God and because we know him we can then truly understand ourselves and put ourselves in the right perspective. I need to be exposed to this book that tells me where I'm wrong and where I'm right and what to believe and how to be equipped for life. I need my life redefined. Never before have we been in a generation where we need the gospel and all of Christianity redefined than now. So I want you to take your New Testament and turn to a letter where in 25 sentences or less the Apostle Paul is gonna basically stick his nose in every aspect of our business and redefine it all.
It's a short letter written to a young man named Titus. So turn to the book of Titus and in this book you will find he is redefining everything. He's gonna redefine spiritual maturity. He's gonna redefine true leadership. He's gonna redefine what it means to be a godly man and a godly woman. He's gonna redefine the home. He's gonna redefine pure relationships.
He's gonna redefine sexual purity. He's gonna redefine the Christian's testimony. He's gonna redefine the gospel and I have every reason to believe, and I'm not just saying this, that as we study this letter there will be people who will decide to join this assembly and there will be people who will decide to leave it. Paul wrote three letters to men who were serving as teaching elders. We refer to these three letters as the pastoral epistles, letters to pastors. We know them as 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus.
They were not exclusively for the benefit of the pastor, teacher, the elder, but for the congregations they led. They were inspired by the Holy Spirit and these letters then would become what we call books of the New Testament. Most of the books of the New Testament are these letters to churches and to pastors that you could read in 20 minutes or less. As early as the third century, the letter to Titus was included in a list of apostolic letters considered necessary for the life of the church and the Christian. Now most believe that Paul wrote Titus in between 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy. He will refer to both of these young men, Timothy and Titus, as his sons in the faith. You'll notice in verse 1, the letter begins a little differently than the way we write letters or emails today.
It begins with the name of the writer. You'll notice it begins with Paul. The name Paul is from the Latin polis, which means small or little. He'd been born a Roman citizen and this was his Gentile or Roman name. His middle name, so to speak, was Saul. His parents, his Jewish parents, had proudly named him after the first king of Israel. But throughout his ministry, he would choose to be known not after the name of the first king of Israel, this particular common Gentile name without any rich Jewish tradition.
Maybe he wanted to remind himself daily that he was small and God was great. We do know that Paul will refer to himself as the apostle to the Gentiles, Romans 11 verse 13. And more than likely, that's the reason that throughout his ministry, he would choose his Gentile name and we know him best as Paul. Now by the time he writes this letter to Titus, he's an old man. He's a veteran missionary, church planter, teacher, theologian. In his wonderful new publication entitled Insights on particular books of the New Testament, the chancellor of Dallas Seminary, Chuck Swindoll, writes that when Paul sent this letter to Titus, he had seen just about everything.
Let me read you a few sentences. He writes, Paul had survived years of misunderstanding, controversy, slander, betrayal. Disciples had thrilled him and then abandoned him.
Friends had come and gone. Thriving churches he had planted now flirted with apostasy. Congregations continued to look to him for guidance, but then thanked him by rejecting his authority or questioning his integrity. In success, he was accused of boasting. In prison, he was dismissed as a failure. No one knew better than Paul how rewarding, yet how frustrating ministry could be. He had suffered repeated disappointments with people. The scars he had received over the years would be his gifts to Titus, who needed these reminders as he struggled to stabilize churches on the unruly island of Crete.
Well put. There was no one better to prepare Titus for the challenges of ministry on this island than Paul. Crete was an island located right in the middle of the Mediterranean. If you wanted to travel to the continents, you stopped off at Crete. It became a cosmopolitan blend of religions and myths. One of the reasons Titus will be told, you need to stop these myths from spreading.
It's because the island was run over with them. All kinds of religions and views and people. During the days of Titus, the island of Crete held up to about a million residents located in about a hundred cities dotting the coastline of this island. The citizens of Crete had a reputation, though, that was known around that western world for being liars and deceivers. In fact, the expression existed during the days of the apostles that if someone was cretizing, he was lying. It became tantamount in its expression to someone who was dishonest. The expression playing a cretin with a cretin meant that you had tricked a trickster. You had out deceived a deceiver.
The very name of the island had come to represent corruption and deception and dishonesty and all kinds of vice. You talk about a mission field. Talk about pressure. Titus is going to need some inspired instruction. He's going to need some help. He's going to need words of wisdom. Who better than a wise veteran missionary church planter? Don't you enjoy getting around those that are older than you in the faith and you want to listen to their past? I think of the words of Hudson Taylor if you've read his large two-volume biography as a veteran missionary having served for decades pioneering the ministry into China.
On one occasion, he was speaking to his staff, the China Inland Mission, and an audience that had gathered, and he said these words. He said, it does not matter how great the pressure is. What really matters is where the pressure lies, whether it comes between you and God or if it presses you nearer to the heart of God. What great mentoring. In this letter, Paul is going to come to Titus and everybody who wants to know what it truly means to stand up and say, I am a Christian. Mentor us along, Paul.
Tell us how to stand and how to live, how to handle the pressure not only outside of the church but in a growing way inside the church today. Paul redefined life for us. The first thing that Paul does, which is extremely challenging and convicting, is how he will now refer to himself in this letter. I want you to notice further in verse 1. Paul, a bondservant of God, a bondservant of God. In addition to the name Christian, the Bible calls believers by a number of different names, branches, infants, children, joint heirs, citizens, friends, brothers, saints, and the list goes on and on.
All those titles sort of help nuance for us what Christianity means and what it means to be a Christian. However, the Bible uses one term more frequently than any other. It appears more than 40 times in the New Testament. It refers to the believer. From the original language, the Greek language, it is the word doulos, and it ought to be translated slave.
In fact, I recommend that you take your pencil and write into the margin of your Bible above or somewhere near this translation. It says bondservant, the word slave. The overriding description of the Christian's relationship to Jesus Christ is the relationship of a master and a slave. The problem is we'll not read it that way as English readers because going all the way back to the King James translation and before that predating the Geneva Bible, the word doulos was softened in its translation with the word servant or bondservant. In an effort to avoid the negative imagery and the cruelty bound up in the slave trade, which we're all aware of that swept through Europe and into the Americas, translators over the centuries chose to translate doulos a little more sensitively by translating it servant. It's interesting to know that the Greek language has several words that can refer to servants.
Doulos is not one of them, ever. Although the duties of a servant and a slave might overlap, in the mind of the apostle coming out of the first century and even in a way, you could say even to this day, certainly around the world where the slave trade still exists, but even today, you could note this key distinction. Servants in Paul's day were hired. Slaves were owned.
There's a world of difference. Servants had a measure of personal rights and freedoms. They could choose whom they would work for and what they would get involved in and what they would do. Slaves had no freedoms. They had no rights. They were considered in the days of Titus on into the days of our English-speaking world for centuries without any personal rights.
They were possessions rather than persons. But what's lost on us is when we read today this phrase by Paul in Titus chapter 1, you don't immediately suck in your breath and shudder at the gravity of this term. It doesn't offend our sensitivities. It doesn't confront our misconception of autonomy as Christians. See, we prefer to think that we have an option to obey Christ, to serve him, to belong entirely to him. So we don't quite get it when the Apostle Peter says that every Christian is a slave to God. We would rather believe that we can negotiate with him over the terms of his will, that we can protest a little bit with what he does to our bodies, that we can fuss at him about the inconveniences of the service he's assigned us, or that we can halfheartedly fulfill his commands for our lives, that we can maybe even complain about the lateness of his blessings or even the ill timing of his burdens. You see, we think we've been hired by God.
We haven't been. We are owned by God. No wonder we complain about the overtime, the long hours of inconvenient service.
Who's in charge of the benefit packages around here? Is my Christianity paying off? See, that's how you get to the idea where the church is really all about you and me, and if it serves me well, I may show up two or three times a month. That's the attitude of a servant, not a slave.
You see, have you forgotten? Paul would write to the Corinthians that you've been bought with a price. The metaphor is you've been bought out of the slave market by Christ. You have been bought out of that, and now you no longer belong to yourself.
You belong entirely to the one who bought you, 1 Corinthians chapter 6. Charles Spurgeon. It's interesting we read one quote by him.
Let me give you one more. This British pastor of the 19th century in London commented on this problem in his commentary on Titus, and he wrote this, where our authorized version softly puts it servant. It really is slave. The early saints delighted to count themselves as Christ's absolute property, bought by him, owned by him, holy at his disposal, and Paul even went so far as to rejoice that he had the marks of the master's brand on his body. He cried out, Let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. And that was the end of the debate. He was the Lord's, and the marks of the whips, the rods, and the stones were viewed as the branding of Paul's body as the property of Jesus the Lord. He ends by saying, Now if the saints of old time gloried in this, so should you and I. Stephen's going to explain this more, but it's going to have to wait until next time.
We're just about out of time for today. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Today's lesson is called From One Slave to Another, and it's part of a series from Titus called Slave Traits. Stephen has a book that takes you through the entire epistle of Titus and helps you understand more fully this important letter. We'd be happy to give you information on how you can get a copy if you call us today at 866-48-Bible.
That's 866-482-4253. I'm Scott Wiley, and I thank you for listening today. We're glad to have you with us. We'll continue through this series next time, so join us here on Wisdom for the Heart. .
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