back to indexBerean Community Church: Wednesday Night Bible Study | Titus 1:4-6
Chapters
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7:3 Titus 1:4-9
11:46 Exegesis vs. Eisegesis
27:48 Qualifications of Elders / Overseers
31:16 Breakdown and Overview
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I'm going to give you guys 30 more seconds to wrap it up. 00:01:30.520 |
Let's -- let me pray and then we'll get into a short time 00:01:45.840 |
that you've given us just the opportunity to share and glean. 00:01:50.440 |
And we pray that as we focus on this meaty passage, 00:01:55.700 |
I pray that you would teach us how to see things the way you 00:02:02.440 |
not to base our interpretation on our experience 00:02:14.120 |
Would you use the next 15, 20 minutes just to encourage 00:02:20.840 |
Amen. So when I look at a passage, I usually -- 00:02:29.220 |
first thing I do to prepare to teach is to kind of organize it 00:02:42.000 |
I mean the introduction is the introduction, okay? 00:02:51.380 |
And I've shared last week and in the sermon a couple weeks before 00:02:55.760 |
that the for this reason really is the premise of eternal -- 00:03:04.600 |
So for that reason, Titus is left in Crete, okay? 00:03:09.940 |
And then there are two things that he needs to do. 00:03:16.400 |
And here are the qualifications of church leaders. 00:03:22.860 |
Church leaders kind of broken up into little two snippets 00:03:32.200 |
or next week we're looking at the second part. 00:03:34.220 |
And I'm going to read from verse 5 down, okay? 00:03:37.520 |
For this reason I left you in Crete that you would set 00:03:48.380 |
the husband of one wife, having children who believe, 00:03:55.140 |
For the overseer must be above approach as God's steward. 00:04:03.800 |
But -- and when I put that but in the middle there, 00:04:06.980 |
it switches like my brain a little bit to kind of go, okay, 00:04:11.700 |
Hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, just, 00:04:15.900 |
Holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance 00:04:19.180 |
with the teaching so that he will be able both to exhort 00:04:23.420 |
in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. 00:04:26.080 |
And if you notice, I pulled -- and this is my preference, 00:04:30.700 |
my opinion, my educated assumption is that that so 00:04:34.520 |
that it's not just holding fast the faithful word. 00:04:43.180 |
So that all of these things will help him, one, be offensive 00:04:50.200 |
in teaching what is right, and then also like to be defensive 00:04:55.540 |
when there are accusations made that he can stand up to them. 00:04:59.900 |
So he could lead the way God would have him lead, all right? 00:05:03.860 |
So this whole list of stuff is to enable this -- 00:05:13.500 |
So I visually put that together like that so my mind kind 00:05:18.680 |
of remembers not to get lost in the woods and just kind 00:05:25.920 |
What we looked at today is more private life, all right? 00:05:37.380 |
Now, the thing is, Titus has a very important task here. 00:05:42.780 |
He has to go into Crete where he's not from, presumably, 00:05:47.780 |
and he's got the job of appointing a bunch of elders 00:05:52.420 |
and a bunch of churches in a limited period of time. 00:05:56.160 |
But how is he supposed to know who's men of character? 00:06:07.480 |
And so what he's called to do is appoint people based 00:06:17.120 |
whose private lives match their public presentation. 00:06:22.300 |
So public presentation is easy in the sense of like, 00:06:27.560 |
I can perform in front of you and make myself, 00:06:45.940 |
So it's really difficult to judge someone's private life. 00:06:49.100 |
One way that you can judge someone's private life is their 00:07:04.540 |
You need to set up people who won't get in the way, 00:07:06.900 |
who can teach and defend, and these are the kinds 00:07:14.700 |
to be consistent, and that's something that it's important 00:07:19.180 |
for you guys to kind of remember so that when we get 00:07:22.240 |
into like a verse six, you're like, oh, but children. 00:07:29.720 |
What if he's divorced 40 years ago and now he's remarried? 00:07:33.940 |
Like, how many of you guys had those kinds of questions? 00:07:50.700 |
In order not to get lost in the woods, it's also helpful 00:07:53.540 |
to remember that private and public life need 00:08:03.800 |
Why is this one -- they're presenting different things. 00:08:09.840 |
My animations are -- oh, the animations, okay? 00:08:15.300 |
So remember, the backdrop is there are presumably tribal 00:08:20.040 |
city leaders already in these areas because he's got 00:08:24.400 |
to basically do a pioneering mission work in some sense. 00:08:33.280 |
They profess to know God, but by their deeds deny him. 00:08:49.900 |
So that's the -- when I look at the whole of this, 00:08:52.960 |
these are the things that, like, kind of make the framework 00:09:02.200 |
And I'm not going to go over verse four and five. 00:09:07.600 |
because I'm assuming that's where the interest is, okay? 00:09:20.820 |
And then I'll come up with as many questions as I can. 00:09:27.560 |
And I put extra because this was what's being presented. 00:09:34.360 |
Is this the beginning of a new sentence in the Greek 00:09:35.880 |
or a continuation built on a previous thought? 00:09:37.480 |
And I'm assuming you guys probably got most of these. 00:09:40.920 |
Okay? Is man specific to male or is this general? 00:09:44.200 |
So like a complementarianism, egalitarianism kind of debate. 00:09:52.200 |
or character flaw would still qualify as above approach? 00:09:54.720 |
Is husband of one wife referring simply to monogamy or more 00:10:03.580 |
would that permanently disqualify him from ministry? 00:10:05.720 |
How old should an elder's children be before we can gauge 00:10:10.200 |
What if the elder is either young or without children? 00:10:17.640 |
to be held accountable for the behavior of their children? 00:10:19.560 |
Does having an adult unbelieving child disqualify a person 00:10:23.920 |
Is the accused of dissipation or rebellion more 00:10:28.600 |
Because NASB, if you're reading the NASB, it just seems 00:10:37.140 |
Okay. Is it okay if the child is unbelieving as long 00:10:39.320 |
as he is not morally behaviorally out of control? 00:10:50.240 |
Is there a deeper meaning in the word dissipation 00:10:59.840 |
If you had to -- if you told me to give 10 more, 00:11:06.580 |
Now, I'm going to be talking about three things today, okay? 00:11:24.700 |
at together is what does it mean to be a husband of one wife? 00:11:27.300 |
Okay. And then the third one is about the children. 00:11:34.120 |
where you guys had the most lively discussions. 00:11:36.620 |
And on this note, I wanted to share with you -- 00:11:54.620 |
we're trying to have exegesis, which is the process of drawing 00:11:59.300 |
out the meaning from scripture in accordance with the context 00:12:17.460 |
So we want to get as close to the application 00:12:28.600 |
and we try to take out whatever is in there, okay? 00:12:32.780 |
Exegesis, on the other hand, which is not good, 00:12:38.300 |
it's the process by which the reader imposes or injects his 00:12:52.760 |
I'm going to read the passage through my eyes and the lens -- 00:12:58.000 |
I want to take my cultural goggles and interpret it 00:13:01.220 |
and scrutinize it the way I want to, and that's incorrect. 00:13:04.120 |
So what we want to do through inductive study is land 00:13:12.060 |
Neither like Bible thumping, this is what the Bible says 00:13:17.840 |
to carefully follow it all the way to the T, okay? 00:13:27.680 |
It's not reality, so we can't really put it into practice. 00:13:33.440 |
Like that kind of mentality is also erroneous. 00:13:36.540 |
So legalism and liberalism are two sides of the same coin. 00:13:54.220 |
and they're the same -- they're like the same. 00:13:58.560 |
What we want to do is understand what Paul's intent was 00:14:09.580 |
That's going to be all kinds of exceptions are going to come 00:14:13.760 |
up into our heads, all kinds of examples are going to come up, 00:14:16.540 |
all kinds of just what ifs, but we want to apply it 00:14:21.480 |
as if Paul was here instructing us with this text, 00:14:26.120 |
this is how you're supposed to set up leaders. 00:14:30.560 |
Okay? So exegesis is the interpreter makes the scripture 00:14:35.660 |
Eisegesis is the interpreter makes the scripture say what he 00:14:39.480 |
wants it to say, and we have so much of that going on. 00:14:48.560 |
Like I had a really godly pastor, but he ended 00:14:53.480 |
up getting a divorce from his wife, but he did 00:15:06.440 |
So when we look at verse 6, we're going to kind of go inside 00:15:21.420 |
and then what does verse 1, 4 through 9 have to say 00:15:25.120 |
about elders, and then what does the whole of the epistle 00:15:29.200 |
of Titus have to say indirectly, directly about leaders, 00:15:33.200 |
and then what do 1 and 2, Timothy have to say, 00:15:38.900 |
What does the whole Bible have to say about the kinds 00:15:40.800 |
of men God would delight to have lead his people? 00:15:43.400 |
So before we look at, say, hey, Titus 1, 6 says, 00:15:51.880 |
He teaches well, but his son's not a believer. 00:15:59.940 |
Okay? So we've got to be very careful and precise. 00:16:02.740 |
So I'm going to look at above approach first. 00:16:08.480 |
It literally is a combination of ah, which is not, 00:16:14.740 |
and the enkaleo, which means call into account. 00:16:23.780 |
Without blame, absence of accusation, unimpeachable, 00:16:28.400 |
So John Stott says, they should offer no loophole 00:16:36.960 |
Okay? You're not going to get a perfect person outside 00:16:46.720 |
up to lead a church is someone who is a flawed man, of course. 00:16:52.800 |
But someone where you really can't accuse him 00:17:00.560 |
Okay? So above approach does not mean perfect. 00:17:03.300 |
The word perfect is actually a different word, 00:17:08.200 |
Okay? And that's not the word that Paul uses here. 00:17:14.080 |
there's nothing really to disqualify the guy. 00:17:22.480 |
Okay? So that's the kind of person who is above approach. 00:17:27.580 |
There's really nothing that you can say that says 00:17:47.100 |
maybe some colorful questions and just curiosity here. 00:17:54.160 |
Okay? G'nai is actually, it could be translated woman. 00:18:16.900 |
An unsullied reputation in the whole area of sex and marriage. 00:18:21.940 |
Okay? So you're going to probably have all these 00:18:26.280 |
different exceptions in your head that can come 00:18:31.620 |
The big picture is when you look at this man, 00:18:41.080 |
It doesn't mean, like, they have a perfect marriage. 00:18:42.820 |
But it means he is devoted to his wife in both attitude, 00:18:49.680 |
There is zero doubt that he loves his wife and family 00:18:53.040 |
and is committed to her and is not going to cheat on her. 00:18:58.260 |
Okay? What it doesn't mean is a widower who is remarried. 00:19:03.980 |
So it's like an elder is an unmarried person, 00:19:07.800 |
or if a person's unmarried, oh, he needs a wife. 00:19:12.740 |
Okay? Because if you want to try to apply it overly strictly, 00:19:17.520 |
then you end up with some faulty application.