Bad activities, bad causes, bad language, bad music, bad thinking, bad habits. That is the current of humanity. In fact, Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3 verse 3 that one of the signs of a corrupting decaying culture is that they will be haters of good. It rejoices in the perversity of evil. Have you ever noticed that people often want things that are inappropriate or harmful?
Sometimes just knowing that something is bad isn't motivation enough to not do it. In a world where far too many people love what's bad, God calls His people to love what is good. That's especially true for the group of men God has called to lead the church, a group called elders. The elders are to be men of personal conviction. Their lives are to be an example for others to follow. Keep listening to learn more about what God expects from the men who lead the church.
Here's Stephen. I read some time ago about a woman who made a very interesting observation about men. She wrote, I've learned that you can tell a lot about a man by how he handles three things. How he handles golf plans that get rained out, how he responds to an airline who loses his luggage, and what he says when the Christmas tree lights are all tangled up. That's true. That kind of leaks out what kind of man you are.
You just can't help it, can you? A number of years ago I remember traveling invited to speak out of town to a student body at a Christian college and seminary for their annual Bible conference. It would be my first visit on their campus. I took time, of course, to prepare my message and also what I'd wear when I showed up, the right suit, the right necktie, the right shoes.
I arrived, but my luggage did not. The president of the graduate school in his home I was staying ended up having to loan me some of his clothing for chapel the next morning to fit a particular dress code. He gave me his sport coat.
It was four sizes larger than I was. He gave me a necktie. He said, here you can wear this one.
It's a necktie I would have never purchased had I chosen it. Even shoes, I'd worn a pair of slip-ons, almost really like indoor-outdoor slippers, which wouldn't work. He gave me his shoes, a large pair of wing tips. I wear 10 1⁄2.
He wore size 13. I can remember just sort of clomping out onto the stage looking to feel like a clown. Showing up to speak somewhere for the first time is probably akin to what you've experienced when you're interviewing for the first time with that company. You want to put your best foot forward, right?
You want everything to be just right. You don't pack a bag, but you do polish a resume. Every good thing you've ever done, every award you've ever earned, every title next to your name you've ever had on a plaque, it's going to be there somewhere on that resume. They're going to want somebody with experience, right? They're going to want somebody with executive management skills, perhaps. They're going to want somebody with personal charisma or good taste, the right education, the right sense of manners, and all of those kinds of things. The people that matter out there, the people that tend to get jobs like those maybe that you're going after, are what the world would assess as being valuable.
How do we determine that? We determine it based on a person's intellect or physical attraction or maybe even a sense of physical intimidation, prestige, popularity, connections with the right people, just maybe enough pride to prove to the one doing the interviewing why you want to get the job rather than those other people. Nobody gets the job because they're humble or holy. In fact, you need to fit in with the crowd and keep that religious stuff to yourself, by the way.
You've got to be able to play the game. That kind of thinking, unfortunately, has sort of spilled over into the church, hasn't it? Titus shows up on the island of Crete in the first century and he has an apostolically commissioned job to find shepherds who are qualified to wear the mantle of leadership in the church. The Apostle Paul says to Titus, if you go back to chapter 1 and verse 5, you notice this little phrase, go appoint elders in every city as I directed you. In other words, Titus, you might be tempted to fill that job with the wrong kind of men, so stay on my page.
Stay according to my directions. Here is a resume list that will matter because it will reveal godly character. You see, Titus, and I think Paul is implying there are going to be plenty of candidates who want to lead. They're going to want the office like elder of the first century, like Dioptrophy is the elder who wanted it simply because he loved being out in front and up in front. He loved being the first guy in line so he could turn around and tell everybody how they ought to march, 3 John chapter 1 verse 9.
He simply loved to be first. You see, Titus, you're also going to run the risk naturally of looking at men for the wrong reason, you know, men with prestige, with power, prominence, charm, maybe physical attributes, intellect, stature in the community and on and on. Like Samuel in the Old Testament, you remember him, he went looking for a king and he went to the sons of Jesse and he assumed that the tallest, the oldest, the one most trained in warfare, the strongest would certainly be God's candidate for the king of Israel. And God said to him, effectively, Samuel, that's how the world runs its business.
They look on the outside but I, God, look on the inside, on the heart, 1 Samuel 16 verse 7. So if you look at the resume of a shepherd in Titus chapter 1, you don't find anything, frankly, you don't find anything about speaking ability. You don't find anything about leadership skill sets or business accomplishments or physical attributes.
In fact, the list has almost nothing whatsoever to do with what the man has done. It has everything to do with who the man is. Because what's normal on the island of Crete cannot be what's normal in the church. What's considered normal in the culture can't be the standard of normality for the believer. So the elder is effectively going to change the norm by his own character and lifestyle. He's going to model a new pattern and effectively, what he's going to do is turn around and lead a congregation into a new normal.
So here's the new normal. Watch this, beginning of verse 8. The elder pastor bishop, he's writing of these, is to be hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, just, devout and self-controlled. How's that for a list? I mean, can you imagine that being part of a list of questions you're asked when you're interviewing for a job? Can you imagine anybody asking you the question, are you a good person?
Can you give me an illustration of self-control? Are you personally devout? Oh no, the average person being interviewed would say, look, you have no business asking me those kinds of questions.
That's none of your business. Those aren't normal questions. Well, it just so happens to be the business of the church and this is the new normal. And not just for elders either, by the way. In fact, as I've gone through this list, I find that each of these qualifications are encouraged throughout the New Testament for the lives of every maturing believer. Many of these qualifications listed in Titus 1 are given to us in Galatians chapter 5 as the fruit of the Spirit-controlled life. And as the elder just so happens to be progressing, these are progressing men under the influence of the Holy Spirit. They then lead the flock by way of example. So the flock then has this flesh and blood, this living, breathing pattern. They can actually see and hold accountable and watch and follow so that they will know how to live as well under the Spirit's influence. The elder is in many ways nothing more than a living demonstration of a new normal because we all pursue it together, don't we?
Because we are all wanting to submit to the accountability of the Holy Spirit to whom we answer. So in other words, we're not submitting to our culture. We're creating. We're going to create a new culture.
We don't try to fit into our culture. We are determined by the grace of God to redeem our culture and to reform our culture one person at a time by the saving gospel of Christ. And if we don't act like redeemed believers in here, how do we ever hope to redeem anybody out there? If we don't act with reformed thinking in here, how do we ever hope to influence a reformation out there?
Remember this distinction before we dive in. While the congregation may progress along in these characteristics, the elder must progress in these qualities of heart and soul. Now Paul has just given the elders five vices.
We looked at those in our last study together. Five vices to avoid should they rise to the authority and office of elder. Paul now gives seven virtues to embrace for those who will be qualified. The first five were negative and now this set of seven are positive.
And we're not going to get through all of them today so just relax. The first positive qualification is this. You'll notice in verse eight, an elder must be what? Hospitable.
You think that's in the list? Where's that coming from? Well, let me break it down a little bit for you. The word in the New Testament language is made up of two words. One of them is philos. It can be translated or rendered strong affection or even love. The other word is xenos which is the Greek word for stranger. If you would certainly translate this and I think it's fair to say it effectively follows with this definition. It's a love for strangers. Literally translated, stranger loving. Now he's not necessarily saying you are to love people who are strange so we're not setting a new standard for the guys your daughter's allowed to date, okay? So just know that. He's referring to people you don't know.
They're strange to you. They're strangers which is to be unexpected because you think the first thing out of the gate in these seven virtues would not be how a man loves people he doesn't know but how he loves people in here, right? How he loves the flock would certainly be a qualification and it is and you'll find other passages certainly related to that. But here he starts out by saying, oh, by the way, here's the kind of man he has to be.
Does he show concern? Does he model personal care for those he might not know? And I think the implication here is that loving the flock is going to be too easy, effectively too rewarding, maybe a little too self-congratulatory and many men might qualify. They love the church. They never miss the church services. They love the assembly and many would fit that bill but Titus is told to look for men who love and show concern for people when there's no church obligation.
There's no family connection. There are no public affirmations for whatever you might demonstrate where others can see. A lot of this may happen where no one sees. The true test of hospitality that is not what we do for those we like to be around and we usually hang around people who are like us but it is showing concern for those who are not like us and unable to repay us in some way. And by the way, this characteristic is certainly extended to the church at large for the believing body. In fact, the apostle Peter commanded the church, the assembly to show hospitality to one another without complaint, 1 Peter 4 and I, which I think is humorous. Why? Because in that command is the implication that this is not going to be easy even with brothers and sisters.
So do it and don't complain about it. You ought to understand as well I think the culture of Paul's day which gives a little insight to this issue of hospitality. During Paul's day, traveling was especially hazardous if you didn't have anywhere to spend the night and most often people wouldn't travel far enough where they'd need to spend the night somewhere else. Inn's were very expensive and they were notoriously evil. Travelers could very well expect to be beaten and robbed staying in an inn. Plato referred to an innkeeper as a, quote, pirate who held his guests for ransom. Inn's were notorious for their immorality. In fact, they often served as the village bravo.
It would be the last place in the world you, especially as a Christian, would ever want to stay if you were traveling. Because of all these issues and all of these inherent dangers, the world of Paul's day had created over time a system of what they called guests or guest friendships. Over generations, different families would make covenants together and arrangements with each other to give one another accommodations and hospitality when they traveled to one another's region, town or village. Often the members of families became unknown by sight just because of time.
They were unrecognized and so they devised what they called a tally system. They would carry half of a coin or a piece of wood or a piece of metal with an emblem on it and it had been cut in half. Over the years, when one member of the family traveled to a distant city and needed lodging, he carried with him that half of the tally. The host family he visited would have the other half. When those two halves fitted together, the host knew that this was a legitimate member of another family already agreed upon to show hospitality to when they traveled to their area.
So, he got that tally. Come on in. That's why the first characteristic you need to understand here from the Apostle Paul would have been so counterculture, that he's talking about loving outside the assembly. But counterculture because people didn't do that. Paul is saying that the basis for biblical hospitality is spiritual maturity, not family connections, not agreements. It's a love for the stranger in need.
Here is a new, brand new normal. You open your doors for them. By the way, the same Greek word for hospitality is found in our English word, and rightly so, hospice and hospital, for good reason. They knew nothing of this kind of care, certainly voluntary care, free care. Even the Greeks, with their god of medicine, did not offer free care for the sick. If you were wealthy, you might have a physician attending you, but that was about it. A correct understanding of history, western civilization of the first, second, and third century will show that those who came into the temple of the Greek god of healing, Asculapia, they would spend the night in the shrine or in the temple, not for medical treatment because that wasn't offered, even though the rumors abounded that it did. It didn't. They came to sleep in the temple or shrine hoping that the god of healing would appear to them in a dream and reveal to them the treatment they needed to follow to be cured.
It was utterly based on superstition. It was not a hospital. Nobody was there waiting with medicine or some kind of procedure in order to help. Now both the Romans and Greeks had some kind of rather rugged infirmary for their soldiers.
They offered nothing for the general populace at all. What we call today from the early centuries charity hospitals, free hospitals. They became the forerunner for the hospitals we know today, which in today it has nothing to do with charity.
It has to do with insurance, right? But the original foundation of it was a creation of the Christian community. It grew out of the gospel and it became a method of delivering the gospel in return. One historian noted there's simply absolutely no evidence of any medical institution supported by voluntary contributions until we come to the introduction of Christianity and a civilized world based upon Judeo-Christian ethic. Christian hospitals revolutionized the treatment of the poor, the sick, and the dying. The Greeks and the Romans built their statutes, their gods, and their temples, and their coliseums, and their arenas, and their vast system of aqueducts, and even their paved highways. They never built a hospital because the norm of Paul's day summed up by historian Philip Schaff was simply this, and I quote him, the old Roman world was a world without charity.
That was the norm. Paul says Titus it's time to find men who will lead the church into a new normal. Men who will model care for others who can never pay them back.
Let's move on. An elder must model personal conviction. He writes next in line here, they're not only hospitable but notice they are loving what is good. Again Paul uses a compound word that begins with the same word philos for love or strong affection, and agathos which is the word typically translated good. An elder loves strangers and he loves what is good.
He loves good stuff. That's my word, not Paul's, but that helps you understand it, doesn't it? One ancient manuscript used the same word for a man who loved virtue.
That's helpful. Just loves whatever is intrinsically good, which means you're going to love whatever reminds you of God, right? Because as Jesus told that rich young ruler who came to visit there is no one good, same word, but God. In other words, no one is intrinsically good but God the Father, the Son of course, and the Spirit. So if you want to know somebody who is godly, godlike, they will be walking after the character and nature of God which is reflected in goodness. They will love things that God will love.
The Greek form here could be rendered lover of good things. Now it doesn't mean he sequestered himself away from all that is bad, but it does mean he doesn't love what is bad. He has personal convictions based on what he truly loves, and what he loves are those things intrinsically pleasing to God. Paul put it this way to the Philippians in chapter 4 verse 8, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is anything about that that is excellent, if anything is worthy of praising God about, think on those things.
In other words, meditate on those things, dwell on those, accompany those, walk around with those, ruminate on those, surround yourself with those, spend your time and money on those things. Warren Wiersbe wrote in his little commentary this could include good books, good people, good music, good causes that are excellent, that would in no way violate or offend the intrinsic glory and goodness of God. And why is that kind of man so hard to find? Who loves good? Because the world is filled with so many men who love what is bad. Which is the nature of man, right?
What does the world love? Bad stuff. There's that key Greek word again.
Bad activities, bad causes, bad language, bad music, bad thinking, bad habits. That is the current of humanity. In fact, Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 3 that one of the signs of a corrupting, decaying culture is that they will be haters of good.
Same word. They're actually gonna hate what is good. They're gonna get irritated over good. They're gonna love what's sinful. Proverbs describes them several different ways in chapter 2 verse 14. It says the world delights in doing evil, loves it. It rejoices in the perversity of evil.
Later in chapter 10 verse 23, the world revels in doing wickedness. They bask in it as if it were a sport. It's just a sport.
Sin is just another indoor or outdoor sport. It's just another thing. And they're gonna lose the ability to distinguish between what's bad and what's good as they spiral away from the intrinsic goodness of the God whom they've rejected revealed in this book. So the world is more and more openly in love with bad things and bad activities and bad music and bad people and bad language. And then, it's not finished, it takes another step downward in that it turns around and says, this isn't really bad after all. This is actually good.
You guys are just way too uptight. This isn't bad. It's good. They will not only do sinful things, bad things, but they will give hearty approval to those who practice them. Romans chapter 1 verse 30. It's gonna applaud.
You did that? Oh wow, way to go. Paul effectively says here, Titus, go find some men in the churches to serve as elders who are gonna straighten out the definitions. Men who will form personal convictions after the intrinsic nature of God's goodness and then be able to turn around to the flock they lead and say, no, that's actually bad.
And this is actually good. God wants his church to be led by elders who develop and maintain conviction for good things. The same is true for every believer. There are other characteristics for us to see in this passage, but we need to stop here for today.
We'll resume this message next time. You're listening to Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Stephen is himself an elder and the pastor teacher of the Shepherd's Church in Cary, North Carolina. Today's message is called The New Normal, and it comes from our current series from Titus 1 entitled The Shepherd's Mantle. To learn more about this series, visit our website, wisdomonline.org.
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