To Encourage You

Titus 1:10 “For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers. . .”

One of the warnings that Paul gave Titus in his guidance in the appointment of elders (i.e., pastors) in Crete was that these leaders had to have discernment regarding false teachers.  He warned Titus that there were many such people who could rise up in a church and their teaching was to be rebuked.  So, what characterized this teaching?  One was insubordination.  It was a refusal to adhere to the teaching of Scripture either in the way they lived or the things they believed and taught.  They were characterized by teaching and advocating things that are the opposite of what is explicitly commanded in the Bible. 

Another characteristic was that they were “empty talkers.”  In other words, rather than teaching the spiritually nourishing instruction from the Word of God, they would substitute other things, things that are not helpful to Christians because their source is something other than the Truth of God’s Word.  These can be such things as popular ideas and philosophies of the day, self-help lectures void of any biblical truth, or other things that make people feel good about themselves but are deficient with respect to biblical doctrine. 

Then there are those who purposely deceive. Later in Titus it tells us that such teaching is for “shameful gain.” These teachers’ motive is money, and they will twist Scripture in ways to pry money from people for their own selfish benefit. 

Interestingly, Paul tells Titus that even in this first century setting when the Church was in its very early stages, there were “many” false teachers. How much more prevalent such teachers will be in our day and age when Satan has had so much more time to influence them. 

May God help us to have discernment regarding the false teaching that is so prevalent today, and may he help us and our pastors to be those who are “rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15) in the face of so many examples of those who do anything but.