This section has two verses
Titus 1:10-11
10 For there are many unruly and vain talkers and
deceivers, specially they of the circumcision:
11 Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole
houses, teaching things which they ought not, for
filthy lucre's sake.
We will begin with the Barclay.
THE FALSE TEACHERS OF CRETE
Titus 1:10–11
[the
verses paraphrased]: For there are many
who are undisciplined, empty talkers, deceivers.
Those of the circumcision are especially so. They
must be muzzled. They are the kind of people who
upset whole households, by teaching things which
should not be taught in order to acquire a shameful
gain.
HERE we have a picture of the false teachers who
were troubling Crete. The worst offenders were
apparently Jews. They tried to persuade the Cretan
converts of two things. They tried to persuade them
that the simple story of Jesus and the cross [stake]
was not sufficient, but that, to be really wise,
they needed all the subtle stories and the long
genealogies and the elaborate allegories of the
Rabbis. Further, they tried to teach them that grace
was not enough, but that, to be really good, they
needed to take upon themselves all the rules and
regulations about foods and washings which were so
characteristic of Judaism. The false teachers were
seeking to persuade people that they needed more
than Christ and more than grace in order to be
saved. They were intellectuals for whom the truth of
God was too simple and too good to be true.
One by one, the characteristics of these false
teachers are described.
They were undisciplined; they were like disloyal
soldiers who refused to obey the word of command.
They refused to accept the creed or the control of
the Church. It is perfectly true that the Church
does not seek to impose a flat uniformity of belief
on people; but there are certain things which
everyone must believe in order to be Christians, the
greatest of which is the all-sufficiency of Christ.
Even in the Church today, discipline has its place.
Note:
Discipline has its place in every aspect of our
lives. See the sermon on discipline:
Zucht
Now back to the commentary and these undisciplined
false teachers being described.
They were empty talkers; the word is mataiologoi,
and the
adjective mataios, meaning vain, empty, profitless,
was the
adjective applied to the ancient worship of Greece
and Rome.
The
main idea was of a worship which produced no
goodness of life. These people in Crete could talk
glibly [thoughtlessly,
superficially, insincerely], but all
their talk was ineffective in bringing anyone a
single step nearer to goodness. The Cynics used to
say that all knowledge which is not profitable for
virtue is pointless. The teacher who simply provides
pupils with a forum for pleasant intellectual and
speculative discussion teaches in vain.
They were deceivers. Instead of leading people to
the truth, they led them away from it.
Their teaching upset whole households. There are two
things to notice there. First, their teaching was
fundamentally upsetting. It is true that truth must
often make people rethink their ideas and that
Christianity does not run away from doubts and
questions but faces them fairly and squarely. But it
is also true that teaching which ends in nothing but
doubts and questionings is bad teaching. In true
teaching, the challenging questioning that so often
disturbs should in the end lead to a new and greater
certainty. Second, they upset households. That is to
say, they had a bad effect on family life. Any
teaching which tends to disrupt the family is false,
for the Christian Church is built on the basis of
the Christian family.
Their teaching was designed for gain. They were more
concerned with what they could get out of the people
when they were teaching than with what they could
put into them. In his commentary, [R. John Parry]
has said that this is indeed the greatest temptation
for professional teachers. When they look on their
teaching simply as a career designed for personal
advancement and profit, they are in a perilous
state. These false teachers are to be muzzled. That
does not imply that they are to be silenced by
violence or by persecution. The Greek (epistomizein)
does mean to muzzle, but it became the normal word
for to silence a person by reason. The way to combat
false teaching is to offer true teaching, and the
only truly unanswerable teaching is the teaching of
a Christian life.
~Barclay Commentary
Now
to the other commentaries beginning with the general
and going to the specific. We will begin with the
Matthew Henry Main.
This commentary covers verses 6-16, so we are
including only the commentary on verse 11.
(2.) Here is the apostle's direction how to deal
with them (Titus 1:11): Their mouths must be
stopped; not by outward force (Titus
had no such power, nor was this the gospel method),
but by confutation [kon-fyoo-tey-shuh
n] [prove
the teaching is false] and conviction,
showing them their error, not giving place to them
even for an hour. In case of obstinacy indeed,
breaking the peace of the church, and corrupting
other churches, censures are to have place, the last
means for recovering the faulty and preventing the
hurt of many. Observe, Faithful ministers must
oppose seducers in good time, that, their folly
being made manifest, they may proceed no further.
(3.) The reasons are given for this.
[1.] From the pernicious effects of their errors:
They subvert whole houses, teaching things which
they ought not (namely,
the necessity of circumcision, and of keeping the
law of Moses, etc.), so subverting the
gospel and the souls of men; not some few only, but
whole families. It was unjustly charged on the
apostles that they turned the world upside down; but
justly on these false teachers that they drew many
from the true faith to their ruin: the mouths of
such should be stopped, especially considering,
[2.] Their base end in what they do: For filthy
lucre's sake, serving a worldly interest under
pretense of religion. Love of money is the root of
all evil. Most fit it is that such should be
resisted, confuted, and put to shame, by sound
doctrine, and reasons from the scriptures. Thus, of
the grounds respecting the bad teachers.
~Matthew Henry Main
Now to the Matthew Henry Concise which we have read
since verse 10 as it covers verses 10-16.
False teachers are described. Faithful ministers
must oppose such in good time, that their folly
being made manifest, they may go no further They had
a base end in what they did; serving a worldly
interest under pretense of religion: for the love of
money is the root of all evil. Such should be
resisted, and put to shame, by sound doctrine from
the Scriptures. Shameful actions, the reproach of
heathens, should be far from Christians; falsehood
and lying, envious craft and cruelty, brutal and
sensual practices, and idleness and sloth, are sins
condemned even by the light of nature. But Christian
meekness is as far from cowardly passing over sin
and error, as from anger and impatience. And though
there may be national differences of character, yet
the heart of man in every age and place is deceitful
and desperately wicked. But the sharpest reproofs
must aim at the good of the reproved; and soundness
in the faith is most desirable and necessary. To
those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is
pure; they abuse, and turn things lawful and good
into sin. Many profess to know God, yet in their
lives deny and reject him. See the miserable state
of hypocrites, such as have a form of godliness, but
are without the power; yet let us not be so ready to
fix this charge on others, as careful that it does
not apply to ourselves.
~Matthew Henry Concise
Now to the Biblical Illustrator.
Danger from false teachers
Herodotus tells of a Scythian river having
marvellous sweetness till a little bitter mingles
with it, and gives it ever after an uncommon
bitterness. So evil counsel, in some emergencies of
the soul, will poison the whole current of its
existence. You may poison a well from which a
neighborhood drinks, and yet be less guilty than to
contaminate the flow of eternal thought. There are
times when the greatest trust which one human being
can repose in another is the confidence of wise
direction. Confiding in the integrity of others, men
sometimes commit their credit, their wives and
children, to their keeping, and are guided by them
through fiery coursers over the land, or by steam
vessels over the seas; but when a man goes with his
soul, and trusts that to what a fellow being may
direct, the trust is as momentous as eternity
itself. Yet this is done, for as by man came death,
so by man comes life. Oh, ye who watch for souls, as
every Christian should, see to it that you ask of
God that which is profitable to direct, before you
point out the way for a deathless mind to travel in.
Example is said to speak louder than words. Whose
mouths must be stopped.
~Biblical Illustrator
Another piece from the Biblical Illustrator:
Faithful teachers must oppose seducers
The duty of every faithful minister is, when
occasion is offered, timely to oppose himself
against seducers, and stop the mouths of false
teachers, wherein also the Church ought to back and
strengthen him. For
1. The example of Christ must be our precedent, who
most bodily and freely vindicated the law from the
corrupt glosses and expositions of the Pharisees,
and that in His first sermon.
2. In regard of the particular members of the
Church, that they may be preserved in soundness from
starting away and forsaking of the truth. And this
is made one end of the precept; the madness of the
false apostles must be made manifest, that they may
prevail no longer.
3. In regard of the false teachers themselves;
fools, saith Solomon, must be answered, lest they be
wise in their own conceit (Proverbs 26:5); neither
shall the labour be wholly lost upon them, for it
shall be a means either to convert them and bring
them to the knowledge of the truth, or else so to
convince them as they shall be made excuseless. And
further, the Church must strengthen every minister’s
hands in this contending for the faith, and so
manifest herself to be the ground and pillar of
truth, which is committed to her trust and safe
keeping, against all gainsayers. This ministerial
duty requireth a great measure of knowledge, and a
man furnished with gifts of variety of reading and
soundness of judgment.
(1) He must be well read and skillful in the
Scriptures, that by them in the first place he may
be able to shut the mouth of the adversary.
(2) To all this knowledge is required a sound
judgment, that he may be able to infer good and
necessary consequence upon the granting of the truth
he standeth for, and on the contrary, the
absurdities and inconveniences which necessarily
follow his adversaries’ false positions.
~Biblical Illustrator
Quoted verse:
Proverbs 26:5
Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be
wise in his own conceit.
Here is a third piece from the Biblical Illustrator
which speaks to just how we stop the mouths of these
false teachers.
The silencing of evil talkers
Whose mouths must be stopped, does not mean that you
are to throw them into an inquisition and gag their
mouths, as was, and is, the practice of the Papacy.
The heathen persecutors adopted the same method of
dealing with the faithful martyrs of the Lord; for,
in order to prevent them speaking of His grace, they
cut out their tongues. The Moslems have the same
bloody principle from their Koran; so that the Pope,
the heathen, the grand Turk, are, on principle,
persecutors. This is neither taught in our text, nor
in any other part of the New Testament. On the
contrary, the saints are persecuted, but they never
persecute; they are to follow their Lord and Master
to the stake, not the example of those who crucified
Him. But their mouths must be stopped in a quite
different manner from gagging; they must be opposed
by reason, faithfulness, and love; their influence
must be destroyed by the faithful preaching of the
gospel; and if they be members of the Church, they
must be silenced by discipline, and if still
refractory [stubborn,
disobedient, hard to manage] cast out of
the communion of the faithful [they
would be disfellowshipped].
~Biblical Illustrator
Now to the specific commentaries.
Going with the John Gill commentary this time, the
verse is in four parts.
1] Whose mouths must be stopped.
2] Who subvert whole houses.
3] Teaching things which they ought not.
4] For filthy lucre's sake.
1] Whose mouths must be stopped.
Whose mouths must be
stopped. - The word properly means, to put a
bit into the mouth of an unruly horse.
~John Wesley Explanatory
Notes
Whose mouths must be stopped.
- Muzzled. The way to stop them is for the churches
to refuse to hear them. All false teachers, or bad
men, should now be stopped from preaching in the
same way. ~People's New
Testament
Whose mouths must be stopped.
- Lit. whom it is necessary to silence. Originally,
to put something into the mouth, as a bit into a
horse's mouth.
~Vincent's Word Studies
Whose mouths must be stopped
- Literally, “whom it is necessary to silence by
stopping the mouth.”
~Robertson's Word Pictures
Whose mouths must be stopped
- literally, muzzled; best done by exposing them as
persons who ‘overturn entire houses,’ i.e. families,
through anarchic doctrine subversive of domestic
authority. ~Popular
commentary
Whose mouths must be stopped
- The word here rendered stopped - ἐπιστομιζειν
epistomizein - occurs nowhere else in the New
Testament. It means, properly, to check, or curb, as
with a bridle; to restrain, or bridle in; and then,
to put to silence. It is, of course, implied here
that this was to be done in a proper way, and in
accordance with the spirit of the gospel. The
apostle gives Timothy no civil power to do it, nor
does he direct him to call in the aid of the civil
arm. All the agency which he specifies as proper for
this, is that of argument and exhortation. These are
the proper means of silencing the advocates of
error; and the history of the church shows that the
ministers of religion can be safely entrusted with
no other; compare Psalm 32:8-9.
~Barnes Notes
Quoted verse:
Psalm 33:8-9
8 Let all the earth fear the LORD: let all the
inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.
9 For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and
it stood fast.
Whose mouths must be stopped
- Unmask them at once; exhibit them to the people;
make manifest their ignorance and hypocrisy; and let
them be confounded before the people whom they are
endeavoring to seduce.
~Adam Clarke
Whose mouths must be stopped
- Or they be silenced, by reasons and arguments
fetched out of the word of God; as were the
Sadducees and Pharisees by Christ, so that they
durst ask him no more questions; and as the Jews at
Damascus were by Saul, who confounded them, proving
in the clearest and strongest manner, that Jesus was
the very Christ. ~ John
Gill
2] Who subvert whole houses.
Subvert whole houses.
- Subvert their faith.
~People's New Testament
Who subvert whole houses
- Whole families; compare Matthew 23:14; 2 Timothy
3:6. That is, they turn them aside from the faith.
~Barnes Notes
Quoted verses:
Matthew 23:14
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for
ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make
long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater
damnation.
2 Timothy 3:6
[see
Lesson]
For of this sort are they which creep into houses,
and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led
away with divers lusts,
Subvert whole houses
- Turn whole Christian families from the faith,
attributing to the broad way what belongs only to
the strait gate; ministering to disorderly passions,
and promising salvation to their proselytes, though
not saved from their sins.
~Adam Clarke
3] Teaching things which they ought not.
Teaching things which they
ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake - For
gain. That is, they inculcate such doctrines as will
make themselves popular, and as will give them
access to the confidence of the people. They make it
their first object to acquire influence as ministers
of religion, and then abuse that in order to obtain
money from the people. This they would doubtless do
under many pretenses; such as that it was needful
for the support of the gospel, or for the relief of
the poor, or perhaps for the assistance of distant
Christians in persecution. Religion is the most
powerful principle that ever governs the mind; and
if a man has the control of that, it is no difficult
thing to induce men to give up their worldly
possessions. In all ages, there have been impostors
who have taken advantage of the powerful principle
of religion to obtain money from their deluded
followers. No people can be too vigilant in regard
to pretended religious teachers; and while it is
undoubtedly their duty to contribute liberally for
the support of the gospel, and the promotion of
every good cause, it is no less their duty to
examine with care every proposed object of
benevolence, and to watch with an eagle eye those
who have the disbursement of the charities of the
church. It is very rare that ministers ought to have
much to do with disposing of the funds given for
benevolent purposes; and when they do, they should
in all cases be associated with their lay brethren.
~Barnes Notes
Teaching things which they
ought not - which were not agreeable to the
perfections of God, to the Scriptures of truth, to
sound doctrine, and which were hurtful and
pernicious to the souls of men: and that only.
~John Gill
4] For filthy lucre's sake.
For filthy lucre's sake.-
For base gain.
~People's New Testament
For filthy lucre's sake
- having no regard to the glory of God, the honour
and interest of Christ, or the good of [firstfruits];
only seeking to gain popular applause and honour
from men, and to gather and increase worldly
substance. Covetousness was a sin which the Cretians
were remarkably guilty of
~John Gill
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