Correction & Discipline in the Church
December 8, 2024 Preacher: Jeff Griffis Series: Titus
Scripture: Titus 3:9–11
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Correction & Discipline in the Church – Titus 3:9–11
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INTRO: If I say, “today we are going to talk about Avoidance and Exclusion in the church,” our first inclination might be to assume that those are bad things that should not happen in the body of Christ. Yet our passage for today in Titus indicates that there are in fact times and situations when avoidance and exclusion in the church are healthy, even necessary, for the good of everyone involved.
In Titus 3:9-11, Paul returns to the problem of the false teachers who plague the churches and Christian households in Crete, which he introduced as a significant reason for Titus’s presence in Crete on his behalf, and why Titus must appoint godly elders (1:5-9) who will sternly rebuke false teachers with sound doctrine, for the protection of others and even for their own good (1:10-16).
This time around Paul will emphasize for Titus (and by extension the other leaders and believers in the churches) how to address such false teaching without being pulled into fruitless discussion and without letting unrepentant factious behavior continue to erode the church (cf. 1:11).
As we unpack the details, here’s the overall thrust we aim to understand and apply today:
For the health and testimony of the church, it is necessary to avoid fruitless debate and to exclude a factious person.
(who remains unrepentant and persists in false teaching)
For both the health and testimony of the church… - Paul discussed at length Christian behavior inside the church (and within Christian households, 2:1-10), grounding that behavior in the gospel (2:11-14). Paul argues that a full grasp of God’s grace to us in Christ Jesus must train us to renounce ungodliness and to live godly lives that promote the good of others around us in the church and in our homes.
He then took aim at Christian behavior with relationship to those outside the church (3:1-2), again providing a gospel foundation and motivation (3:3-7). Paul persuades us that a deep understanding of God’s mercy in saving us should lead us to live mercifully in our behavior toward others still enslaved in sin.
At the end of this gospel thread Paul emphasizes that his teaching is excellent and profitable (that which promotes gospel-based godly living), and that the corresponding good works to which believers should devote themselves are excellent and profitable… for the health and growth of the church, and for those who witness their testimony.
Titus 3:8 ESV
8 The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.
From here Paul returns to the theme of false teachers, contrasting their teaching and conduct with what is excellent and profitable for people.
At verse 9, then, he introduces a contrast to what is profitable by commanding avoidance of what is unprofitable.
Titus 3:9 ESV
9 But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.
A healthy church must avoid fruitless debate when engaging with false teachers.
Again, why am I saying that this largely corresponds to the likes of the false teachers from chapter 1 who need rebuking? When we look at these descriptors of what to avoid, the connection is clear.
There is a list of four things in verse 9 that we are instructed to avoid, because they are unprofitable and worthless. Although “avoid” or “shun” comes at the end of the sentence in Greek, it is indeed the main verb. It means to go around, to stay away from something deliberately, conceived of as walking around something as to avoid it.
You might think of the parable of the Good Samaritan as an example of what this word means, when both the priest and the levite see the man on the road to Jericho robbed and beaten and stripped, and then go far around him on the other side. That is what they should NOT do, but should have compassion like the Samaritan. But in this use of the word, such avoidance is what we ought to do.
Now only the first of the four items listed comes with an adjective, because not all disputes or disagreements or argumentation is automatically foolish. In fact the word here for debate has a bit of a connotation that the disagreement matters; it may be over something important. However, this is qualified then with debate that is foolish, or stupid. Don’t judge me for saying ‘stupid’ Christian kids because it’s an actual translation of this Gk word, which means devoid of wisdom or good sense or sound judgment. It’s just plain foolish.
The other things in the list, which flow from this first one, give us more clarity on what type of disagreements we’re talking about, and why they are foolish.
By referring genealogies (plural), they are not discussing the genealogy of the Christ—the pedigree of Jesus through the lineage of David. No, we’re talking about the study or investigation of ancestry and family history that is more speculative in nature, and is for the purpose of either making the so-called genealogical expert sound erudite, or for the person’s claims to some special status by demonstration of their own pedigree—that they are descended from some important figure. (In connection to the fourth item about the law, and the other false teaching elements earlier in the letter, this genealogy argument is presumably Jewish in nature.)
The third word is again a plural noun, but it kind of describes the demeanor of these controversies more than the content, like numbers 2 and 4. Dissensions refers to strife and contention. It is bitter conflict that is often heated and even violent. It doesn’t stretch our imaginations too much to figure out why debates that get heated and violent, causing strife and contention, are harmful. No matter how objective we claim to be or even seek to be, when things get heated, the argument gets personal and damages relationship. It also leads to people taking sides, which causes factions, and is what the discipline of vv. 10&11 addresses.
But we’re not quite there yet. Another example of these fruitless debates to avoid is described as quarrels about the law. Now certainly Paul has high respect for the law of God given to Moses. The problem is more Jewish traditions based on stories and rules added to the law, which Paul had labeled back in 1:14 as “Jewish myths and the commands of people.” And these are quarrels, disputes, fights, contentious battles of open clash between two or more opposing groups or positions. Like we said about the others, this ultimately leads to factions (groups with people taking sides).
Why are they to be avoided? Well the text says that such arguments should be shunned like the plague that they are, because they are unprofitable and worthless. Paul doubles this up with two synonyms, which was a common rhetorical way to emphasize something.
Unprofitable means to be useless in the sense of being of no advantage or benefit. And worthless is another word for useless or empty or fruitless, devoid of significance, point, or benefit. Futile, vain, empty, fruitless.
Now Paul cannot be saying to never engage with them at all, that we should simply ignore their false teaching as if it isn’t happening. No, he has already been clear that the leadership at least must be engage with them at the level of their false teaching; they must be corrected and rebuked.
The sense of this must then be as follows: When lovingly correcting (rebuking), avoid getting pulled into fruitless debate. Contrary to avoiding the problem, we should engage with what is primary and avoid disputing over worthless matters. [repeat?]
Here’s an example of Paul saying something just like this in a single context in another pastoral epistle:
2 Timothy 2:23–26 ESV
23 Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. 24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.
And this quote from Paul’s 2nd letter to Timothy reminds us of the aim of correction, and the need to stay on task and not get pulled into fruitless debate: “God may perhaps grant them repentance.” That’s the ultimate goal. Or as Paul says it in Titus: “rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in faith.” (1:13)
Again, in our Titus context, it is clear that this instruction is aimed at evading worthless discussion when a person is teaching something false and is selfishly motivated. But can or should the principle of avoiding fruitless debate be applied in discussions amongst fellow believers? Careful discernment and application of other biblical principles from different contexts will come into play, but here are just a couple of additional applications that come to my mind from this text:
Because of the sin that lurks within us, disagreements and debates are always within an inch of developing into something harmful and divisive. As we engage in discussions with one another, especially when we seem to disagree, we should remain on high alert that the debate could become fruitless, not leading anywhere.
Secondly, arguments tend to be about being right. Paul nowhere recommends arguing to argue. Rather, this is about being direct with life-saving correction, and even then avoids fruitless debate. Although it can and often does, engagement with one another does not have to be about airing our opinions or persisting in being right, nor should it.
With verse 9 describing what to avoid in the context of correction, verses 10&11 turn to the possibility that the situation could develop to the point of necessitating exclusion—church discipline. (Church discipline is a term we have developed from the Biblical teaching on this topic of what to do when rebukes go unheeded, when clear warnings don’t lead to repentance.) That is the sense of vv. 10-11 here in Titus 3.
Titus 3:10–11 ESV
10 As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, 11 knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.
If someone in the church persists in being factious, give two clear warnings, then separate from him.
(to protect the other sheep and to promote his own repentance) … Because by persisting in sin such a person has condemned himself.
Whether or not this person is a true believer, we are talking about someone inside the fellowship of the Christian community, who is participating in the life of the church. Otherwise, there would be no need to separate. But the church of Christ is not exclusive or unwelcoming to people who do not yet know Christ, or who look different from us, or who have a harder past or different background, and so on.
The local church does not exclude people for any reasons other than unrepentance of false teaching or unrepentance of known patterns of sin. Although that might seem obvious to some, it’s probably healthy for us to be sure we know what we’re talking about, versus what we’re not talking about.
So what Paul says to Titus for the churches in Crete is that if a person marked by fruitless debate (v. 9) persists in it to the point of being factious…. That phrase “who stirs up division” is one adjective, hairetikos,meaning divisive, sectarian, characterized by being schismatic and forming dissenting parties and groups. It isthe word from which we later developed the word heretic, and heretical, but in these NT uses the core meaning is almost certainly factious (adj.), and faction in its noun form. Then with this sectarianism being associated with false teachings, it’s not hard to follow our later meaning of heretic, heretical, and heresies. (ex. 2 Pet 2:1-2)
Here the point is that the person has become factious, that they are trying to gather people to their erroneous way of thinking. Simply having errors in thinking is not sufficient reason to be booted out of the church community. If that were so, there would be no community. This is about Paul warning Titus that the churches can’t just let it be left alone when someone is promoting something false and thereby making efforts to gather people to his faction, to his false teaching. It’s harmful to the whole body, not to mention the individual himself.
Then it is necessary to warn (or admonish) about the sinfulness of such behavior and that it could lead to exclusion unless he repents. Again, clearly Paul does not intend that this is without effort of persuasion. As Jesus teaches in Matthew 18:15, the goal really is to win or gain your brother back to the glory of God.
Admonishment is a hard thing to do and should not be taken lightly (and never sinfully, for then it isn’t really admonishing but selfishly criticizing). But to warn someone is loving because nouthesia (admonition) is to give a person cautionary advice about the danger of something for their own good.
Now if the first warning should evidently fall on deaf ears, which means the divisive person is persisting, then you should warn him yet again of the danger of this trajectory. Finally, if he persists even still in factious false teaching, then have nothing more to do with him. In other words, exclude him from the fellowship of believers. This is less about punishment and more about warning and protecting everyone, as well as a final effort from the Christian community to encourage the person’s repentance. If they do truly repent, they are to be welcomed back (2 Cor 2:1-11).
Just to be more than clear about what kind of situation and heart condition we are dealing with, in v. 11 Paul also gives reason why this final step of church discipline is necessary and justified.
With the efforts made to lovingly and patiently show this person or group their sin, to continue in it is clear evidence of at least these three descriptors:
-Knowing that they have become warped, twisted, corrupted, perverted… actively deviating from what is right, proper, moral, and good.
-The evidence of this warping is that he “keeps on sinning.” A present active verb here is a better translation than “sinful” simply because this is a verb. Since this person demonstrates that they have become perverted into this pattern of persisting in sin…
-He is self-condemned (autokatakritos), when one’s own words and behaviors declare their worthiness of condemnation. All of this is to say that you are not being too hard on such a person. In fact, this is not your fault at all. You have done everything you can for him, but he has condemned himself and you must do what is for the good of the whole church (both as a protection and warning against the seriousness of unrepentant sin and false teaching) and for the good of Christian testimony in the broader community, even ultimately what is for the good of the person under church discipline. (because even under discipline they can yet choose to truly repent and thereby be restored to fellowship in the community of believers)
If we allow factious false teaching to continue, or even unrepentant patterns of sin (cf. Matthew 18 and 1 Cor 5), then we are not helping but hurting. The difficult but right decision, for everyone, is to obey God and bring an end to the harm they are causing themselves and others around them, at least within the sphere of the local church.
[CONCLUSION] When are avoidance and exclusion the right thing to do in the church?
For the health and testimony of the church, it is necessary to avoid fruitless debate and to exclude a factious person.
-A healthy church must avoid fruitless debate especially when engaging with false teachers.
- Now we should not be quick to label things as heresy simply because someone in the church disagrees with us. Many, even most, of our discussions and disagreements to do not rise to the level of accusing someone of false teaching or of dangerously mishandling God’s word. Even so, we should be discerning to decide when healthy engagement in discussion might cross over into fruitless debate. One clear indicator of this might be assessing, to the best of your ability, whether or not you and the other person are truly open to changing your mind, or whether this is a matter of continuing to air your opinion and being argumentative.
- Likewise, we should be slow to label someone or something as divisive (or factious), which is defined as making efforts to bring people to one’s side against someone else. And yet we can be guilty of doing this as well, even if we are not teaching something false. - Say we’ve had a disagreement with another person, and we tell several of our friends, and pretty soon we have two opposing groups over a personal conflict. Brothers and sisters, this must not be so among us. We should go to one another and be reconciled. And if a first effort to clear things up only gets us part way, then we must do it again until we are truly reconciled. (Or when has that person stopped being a sibling in Christ who is worthy of our pursuit to be in fellowship with us in Christ Jesus? Let us not easily give up on one another and on the unity that we can have in Christ.)
However, as this text shows, there are situations where the problem becomes serious enough where exclusion is the healthiest thing for everyone.
-If someone in the church persists in being factious, give two clear warnings, then separate from him. … Because by persisting in sin such a person has condemned himself. This is to protect the other members, to preserve Christian testimony beyond our circles, and to promote the factious person’s own repentance.
Can something like this happen among us, in a church like ours? Not only does the NT Scripture warn us of the high probability that false teachers will creep in or arise from within, but I can tell you from personal experience that it has happened here.
Nine years ago a man brought his family to the church, and we immediately welcomed them into fellowship with us. They were friendly and enjoyable to be around, and it was evident that the wife and daughters were greatly blessed by the fellowship. However, the husband had some strange and opinionated beliefs that he was posting frequently on social media, and he began to show that he wanted to bring church members into talking with him about these things. I interacted with his posts and him personally to find out that he didn’t believe in the Trinity and the deity of Christ.
We gave him a first warning to stop posting about these things and to stop trying to draw others into letting him air his false teaching, or questioning Biblical teaching in Sunday School and Wed night. His hiatus was brief, and then he was right back at it, only more emboldened, I think. If he had been open to growing in a Biblical understanding, that would have been one thing, but he persisted in his false teaching and factious demeanor. I also did some research and found out that this had been a pattern with a couple of previous churches.
After a second warning with no result, the elders told him that he would not be able to fellowship with our church until he repented of these beliefs and behavior. I truly felt bad for him in his sin, and was super sad for his wife and children, who had obviously lost fellowship over these issues. But do you think I had any doubt as to whether or not the hard thing was the right thing? No, because we are convinced that Scripture has clear instruction for us in this kind of situation.
Rich has his own stories of false teaching in the church. We must be ready to obey God when it happens.
By God’s grace, factious false teaching is not common among us. But some of us living in patterns of sin is less uncommon. Let us be real with one another and not be pretending, hiding our true selves, so that by God’s grace to us, through fellow believers and the nouthesia (warning) of his word, the Lord can help us to see the deceptive harmfulness of our sin, and see God as more desirable.
But that is why we obey God with things as hard as correction and even church discipline—with avoiding fruitless debate and exclusion from fellowship—because we have come to know, through faith in Christ, that God is as good as he promises, and that his way is best.
PRAY
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