back to indexBerean Community Church Bible Study 10/20/2021
Chapters
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7:38 Sound Doctrine
13:14 Titus 2:45 Older Women Younger Women
21:46 Titus 2:4 Older Women Younger Women
24:3 How to Be "Temperate" Ephesians 5:15-21 (NASB95)
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Alright, we're going to start in about 20 seconds, so please get yourself situated. 00:00:26.020 |
And then I'll open up our teaching time with prayer. Okay? 20 seconds. 00:00:56.020 |
Father, we entrust the next 20 minutes or so to You in asking You to use this time to further instruct us on how to best respond appropriately to the doctrine of God. 00:01:16.020 |
And so would You grant me clarity of thought, and as I communicate, Lord, that You would communicate through just the discussion of Your Word. 00:01:27.020 |
So help us to listen well and to apply better. I pray these things in Jesus' name. 00:01:35.020 |
So, just if you guys – it's been two weeks, so just a backdrop of what we looked at today. 00:01:43.020 |
I'm going to read chapter 1, verse 10 to 11, and then verse 16. Okay? 00:01:48.020 |
It reads, "For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families." 00:02:01.020 |
So there's a lot of families in chaos. Okay? There are things that are all out of whack. 00:02:07.020 |
So maybe that's the first thing he talks about, the Cretan home. Okay? 00:02:11.020 |
Teaching things that they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain. 00:02:14.020 |
In verse 16, "They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed." 00:02:26.020 |
So here's my question. Then what does a person who knows God look like? Is it measurable? 00:02:34.020 |
Today, you'll say, "Well, you believe your God, I believe my God, you believe God your way, I believe my God my way, don't judge me, I won't judge you." 00:02:46.020 |
And if it is, what does it mean for a believer to be acceptable, obedient, and fit for good deeds? 00:02:55.020 |
That's the backdrop of what we're going to be looking at the next few weeks. 00:03:11.020 |
Okay? Because everyone can confess and profess that they know God. 00:03:15.020 |
So this is the backdrop, and the questions here are, how should we behave as Christians? 00:03:23.020 |
Whether we're an older man, a younger man, an older woman, younger woman, husband, wife, mother, daughter, father, son, bond slave, employee, whatever it is, how do we behave? 00:03:35.020 |
Okay? And why should we behave as Christians? 00:03:39.020 |
And that's a very important question, and that's all over chapter 2. 00:03:47.020 |
It's a good example to the next generation of Christians. 00:03:52.020 |
We behave as Christians so that we faithfully steward the Word of God. 00:03:57.020 |
We behave as Christians so that nonbelievers and scoffers are silenced. 00:04:02.020 |
And we behave as Christians to make the doctrine of God attractive and beautiful to nonbelievers. 00:04:08.020 |
Okay? So those are some reasons that I didn't put a lot on my armpit. 00:04:17.020 |
He titles the whole thing "Evangelistic Impact of a Spiritually Healthy Congregation." 00:04:23.020 |
Okay? So there's evangelism in mind in all of chapter 2. 00:04:27.020 |
So if you got lost in the details of verses 1 through 5, what's temperate mean? 00:04:32.020 |
What is sound in faith, in love, and in perseverance? 00:04:35.020 |
If you get so bogged down, you're going to forget the bigger picture. 00:04:38.020 |
So in order to look at the bigger picture, I organize it this way. 00:04:44.020 |
Okay? These are the things that Titus was to set in order. 00:04:48.020 |
And the things I put on the yellow on the side are all the commands that Paul gives to Titus. 00:04:53.020 |
Speak, urge, show, urge, speak, exhort, reprove, let no one, and then beginning chapter 3, remind. 00:05:03.020 |
Okay? So there's a lot of stuff that Paul is telling Titus to speak. 00:05:09.020 |
And then in the blue, I put the audience, the categories. 00:05:14.020 |
Okay? So older men, older women, young women, young men, Titus yourself, bond slaves. 00:05:22.020 |
And after every "so that," I put it in the green, like "so that." 00:05:32.020 |
The thing that comes before the "so that" is a means, usually. 00:05:36.020 |
And there's a "so that," and then the thing that comes after the "so that" is a goal. 00:05:48.020 |
Brush your teeth regularly. That's the means. 00:05:51.020 |
So that you can have healthy teeth and you can eat properly and that you don't have halitosis. 00:06:03.020 |
The goal is so you can glorify God in your studies, not so you can get a good job, you bunch of Asians. 00:06:11.020 |
So the stuff that comes in the "so that" is the vehicle. 00:06:15.020 |
The stuff that comes after the "so that" is always the purpose. 00:06:19.020 |
So if you look at--and I just put it on here. 00:06:23.020 |
So that little part in the corner, this is all going to be available to you. 00:06:26.020 |
That's why I don't really care what you can see, what you can't see right now. 00:06:31.020 |
Why should we behave as Christians? I put that in the corner. 00:06:34.020 |
That "so that" is coming out of these verses. 00:06:43.020 |
So that they can faithfully steward the Word of God. 00:06:47.020 |
And the word "so that" they will adorn the doctrine of God our Savior to bond slaves. 00:06:59.020 |
You put makeup on a person to make him or her, usually her, look more beautiful. 00:07:05.020 |
The doctrine of God is beautiful in and of itself, 00:07:07.020 |
but the people who say they believe the doctrine of God 00:07:10.020 |
cosmeo this doctrine for the world to see by living beautiful lives. 00:07:20.020 |
I've actually had people say, "Paul is chauvinistic." 00:07:26.020 |
Okay? So we're going to get into verses 4 and 5. 00:07:28.020 |
But I just wanted to show you how I visibly organize a thing 00:07:33.020 |
to help me process through it so I don't get sidetracked. 00:07:44.020 |
that's a very important word in the pastoral epistles. 00:07:47.020 |
Okay? It comes out five times in the pastoral epistles. 00:07:50.020 |
It's basically Paul saying, "The world is like this. 00:07:54.020 |
The false prophets are like this, but you, different." 00:07:58.020 |
Okay? So here is the beginning of that section. 00:08:01.020 |
And the word for sound is similar to their word for hygiene. 00:08:09.020 |
And again, our life needs to be reflective of the teaching that is healthy 00:08:17.020 |
so that we can make the gospel of God more attractive to those who are watching us. 00:08:22.020 |
You know how people say Christians read their Bible to get to know God? 00:08:26.020 |
Non-Christians read Christians to get to know God. 00:08:35.020 |
No, Pastor Mark's laugh is a lot more distinct. 00:08:41.020 |
Some of you guys might have had this question. 00:08:46.020 |
but just even from the scriptural texts, it's about 50 and up. 00:08:51.020 |
So if you're like 35, you're like, "Woo-hoo-hoo! 00:08:57.020 |
There's a likewise that comes with the women, right? 00:09:01.020 |
So this is something that actually should be reflective of everybody in Chapter 2. 00:09:06.020 |
Obviously, the gender distinctions are going to come, 00:09:09.020 |
but young men, even if they're not old yet, should be temperate. 00:09:15.020 |
But these are highlighting things that they should be exemplary in. 00:09:20.020 |
Temperate, there is an alcohol feel in there, 00:09:25.020 |
that you're not, like, inebriated by anything, 00:09:29.020 |
that you're not drunk on anything that will distract you 00:09:32.020 |
because if you're drunk--and it will say something similar to the women-- 00:09:36.020 |
if you're drunk, you're going to be horrible at loving your husband. 00:09:39.020 |
You're going to be horrible as a mother if you're, like, a drunk. 00:09:44.020 |
But at this time when there wasn't much access to entertainment outside of liquor, 00:09:50.020 |
But if this was written to Irvine Christians in 2021, 00:09:56.020 |
So be temperate, meaning be sober, and I'm going to talk about that at the end. 00:10:02.020 |
The thing that I found very interesting is what does it mean to be sound in perseverance? 00:10:07.020 |
I know what sound in love means, and I can kind of imagine sound in faith, 00:10:11.020 |
but sound in perseverance, like healthy in perseverance? 00:10:14.020 |
So I kind of paused, and I was just thinking, "Oh, what does that look like? 00:10:18.020 |
Does it mean, like, basically the older I get, the more I learn to have trusted God 00:10:28.020 |
Also, did you guys know that sound in love, the Greek word for this love is agape, right? 00:10:43.020 |
Here's an instruction to older women to be reverent in behavior. 00:10:47.020 |
The word reverent is used only here in the New Testament. 00:10:51.020 |
It's almost like behave like a priestess at a religious event. 00:10:58.020 |
For an older woman in the church to behave in such a way where when she's walking into a room, 00:11:07.020 |
That's how you're supposed to be as an older woman. 00:11:11.020 |
Not obnoxious, not the biggest cynic, because sometimes older women, 00:11:16.020 |
if they've been jaded by life, can be pretty biting and sarcastic, right? 00:11:21.020 |
But an older woman who's responding appropriately to the sound doctrine of God 00:11:27.020 |
is to almost have this reverential feel about her and not malicious gossip. 00:11:33.020 |
Some of you guys who've looked into the original language know that the word is diabolos. 00:11:38.020 |
One question that I asked when I was preparing this thing is, like, 00:11:41.020 |
"What's the difference between gossip and malicious gossip? 00:11:43.020 |
Isn't all gossip bad?" And then I looked at the original language, "Oh, diabolos." 00:11:47.020 |
I looked some more. 34 times it's used in the New Testament, 00:11:50.020 |
and every time it's used in the masculine, it's talking about the devil. 00:12:07.020 |
But in this culture, and I guess kind of just broadly, 00:12:22.020 |
I'll just say it. Women have a tendency to be more destructive with gossip. 00:12:27.020 |
Men have tendencies to be destructive in every other way, right? 00:12:31.020 |
Okay. I'm, like, sweating, and we're not even at verse 5 yet. 00:12:35.020 |
Don't worry. I'm actually--I'm not that nervous, all right? 00:12:40.020 |
Because if you are these things, if you're an older woman who says, 00:12:43.020 |
"I've been walking with the Lord for 40 years," 00:12:45.020 |
and all you do is you bash everybody around you, 00:12:48.020 |
younger women are going to think that that's an okay thing. 00:12:55.020 |
Titus is never given an instruction to teach the younger women. 00:13:00.020 |
Here, teach the older men. Teach the younger men. 00:13:03.020 |
Teach the bond slaves. Teach the older women. 00:13:05.020 |
And you let older women teach the younger women. 00:13:08.020 |
Okay? And I don't know the reasoning behind it, 00:13:11.020 |
but I just found that very interesting. All right? 00:13:23.020 |
Older women are to live in such a way so that they may encourage 00:13:26.020 |
the young women to love their husbands, to love their children. 00:13:29.020 |
I don't know if you guys know this, but it's the only place in the New Testament 00:13:31.020 |
where women are told to love their husbands. You guys know that? 00:13:37.020 |
"Be submissive to your husband. Be subject to your husband." 00:13:41.020 |
Because you would assume woman's love for her children and her husband, 00:13:46.020 |
it comes a lot more naturally. Men are the ones who are selfish. 00:13:49.020 |
Right? But here, it says women are to love their husbands and love their children, 00:14:00.020 |
If you look at John chapter 21, where Peter is being restored, 00:14:19.020 |
Second time, Jesus goes, "Peter, son of Jonah, do you truly love me?" 00:14:25.020 |
And Peter says, "Yes, Lord, you know I phileo you." 00:14:29.020 |
And then the third time, "Peter, do you phileo me?" 00:14:33.020 |
And Peter says, and that's where he gets hurt. 00:14:36.020 |
He's like, "Lord, you know all things. You know I phileo love you." 00:14:39.020 |
Right? So there is something to do with this agape and phileo love. 00:14:44.020 |
I am still not fully, like, I haven't grasped, "Ooh, this is what the answer is." 00:14:48.020 |
But there is a responsive love that a phileo is to agape. 00:14:57.020 |
So for a man, he is commanded to be sound in agape love. 00:15:04.020 |
I mean, not just for his wife, but just for all people. 00:15:07.020 |
Men are supposed to lead the charge in loving unconditionally. 00:15:11.020 |
Men are supposed to lead the charge in being very encouraging and uplifting and affectionate. 00:15:19.020 |
And the women are the responders when things are all appropriately done. 00:15:24.020 |
So here it says, "Women, phileo your, their children and their husbands." 00:15:31.020 |
Now this workers at home, it wasn't that complicated for me. 00:15:36.020 |
Some churches actually make this legalistic and actually say, 00:15:38.020 |
"All moms who have kids have to be working at home or they are in sin." 00:15:50.020 |
It's like, is the disobedience to this verse worker in the field? 00:15:57.020 |
Or is the disobedience to this verse lazy at home? 00:16:07.020 |
The sin against this command is not like you, the Bible says, don't work outside. 00:16:26.020 |
So is that command for a woman not to be able to pursue her career? 00:16:32.020 |
Because in the context of the whole letter, I would say it's closer to don't be lazy at home. 00:16:46.020 |
Because the assumed thing is women are very industrious in most cultures. 00:16:52.020 |
The hardest working women I've ever met are all in Africa. 00:16:55.020 |
Are they all in sin, all these Christian women? 00:17:01.020 |
Did you guys know the housewife is a very modern concept? 00:17:07.020 |
Because all women throughout most of history also worked in the field. 00:17:11.020 |
So the bigger question for me is, to a young woman, if my daughter were to come up to me and ask me, 00:17:18.020 |
is it okay for me to become a doctor, lawyer, nurse, or whatever have you, 00:17:31.020 |
Karis, if you want to get a job and work outside -- let's say she's a mom. 00:17:41.020 |
If it's for more money so you can live in greater comfort, it's wrong. 00:17:48.020 |
If it's because you feel like you need to validify yourself, you have a chip on your shoulder, 00:17:55.020 |
you need to prove that women can do all things just as good as men, that's wrong. 00:18:04.020 |
If, oh, I am not, like, patient enough, I'm bad with kids, I can't stand kids, 00:18:10.020 |
so it's better if I, like, work away and then bring money, 00:18:14.020 |
and then so I actually have room in my heart to love my kids, I would also say then you have other problems. 00:18:21.020 |
But today's working woman, the motivation, if it's comfort driven, if it's materialistic driven, 00:18:31.020 |
if it's greed driven, if it's insecurity and, like, what do you call that, inferiority complex driven, 00:18:39.020 |
that's wrong, and then you have all kinds of other problems. 00:18:43.020 |
The idea is your priority in God's design is to be a helper for your husband and your children, 00:18:53.020 |
whatever that means objectively in your situation. 00:18:59.020 |
Some women have to work because otherwise they can't make ends meet. 00:19:05.020 |
Some people, even though they don't need to work, they want to work for whatever other reason. 00:19:14.020 |
And you'll say, oh, I want to be a good witness at work. 00:19:17.020 |
I mean, you can say whatever, but if your heart is I need to work because my ambitions and my satisfaction 00:19:27.020 |
takes priority over my family, then I would say there are deeper issues. 00:19:34.020 |
The ultimate application is be faithful wherever you're at. 00:19:38.020 |
And the role that God placed women in, this holy role, is to make the home almost like a sanctuary for the family. 00:19:49.020 |
So the priority has to be the husband and the children, whatever that looks like for your specific context. 00:19:56.020 |
So for me, when I look at this, the disobedience to this is not working in the field. 00:20:01.020 |
The disobedience to this is being lazy at home. 00:20:08.020 |
If you have like -- if you want to, like, pick at me, then do that after. 00:20:14.020 |
If you're a woman and you're working, you're not necessarily -- you're not in sin. 00:20:22.020 |
So worker at home, good managers of the household. 00:20:28.020 |
And this is kind of in going against -- there's lazy widows going from house to house. 00:20:35.020 |
And Paul actually says in 1 Timothy, exclude them from the list of widows so they don't get those benefits. 00:20:45.020 |
So that, exclude them from the list of widows. 00:20:50.020 |
But Cretans are full of lazy gluttons in chapter 1, verse 12. 00:20:55.020 |
So a Christian woman should be the farthest thing from a lazy glutton in this context. 00:21:05.020 |
It would not be legitimate to base on this word either a stay-at-home stereotype for all women or a prohibition of wives being also professional women. 00:21:16.020 |
What is rather affirmed is that if a woman accepts the vocation of marriage and has a husband and children, she will not love -- she will love and not neglect them. 00:21:29.020 |
J.B. Phillips' word "home lovers" sums up well what Paul has in mind. 00:21:34.020 |
What he is opposing is not a wife's pursuit of a profession but the habit of being idle and going about from house to house. 00:21:47.020 |
And ultimately, for older men, younger men, older women, younger women, it's so that the word of God will not be dishonored. 00:22:00.020 |
Do you profess to know God but by your deeds deny him? 00:22:05.020 |
Or do you know God and cosmeo the doctrine you believe in by the way you live your life in every sphere, in every arena of your life, public and private, in the field and at home, men and women? 00:22:20.020 |
So that the word of God will not be dishonored. 00:22:25.020 |
Here are some in the context of Titus 2, 1 through 5 that I discovered. 00:22:34.020 |
Older men being childish, abusive in authority, unfaithful, unloving, and selfish, the word of God is dishonored. 00:22:48.020 |
Older women being bitter, abusive with their words, enslaved to worldly desires, and this is just off the top of my head, slaves to their past. 00:22:59.020 |
I've noticed there's a few bitter women, old women in my life, they can't move on from something that was done 30 years ago to them. 00:23:10.020 |
So that's in some ways also how the word of God is dishonored. 00:23:13.020 |
And for older and younger women, this is a result from the fall in Genesis 3, women wanting to rule over husband, lacking self-control, impure. 00:23:28.020 |
All of those things dishonor the word of God. 00:23:31.020 |
So this isn't just, "Oh, if a woman is working outside the home, that dishonors the word of God." 00:23:40.020 |
So if you profess to know God by your deeds, don't deny him. 00:23:50.020 |
And if you actually look at chapter 2, verse 10, it says we're going to adorn this doctrine of God by the way we behave. 00:24:03.020 |
So one application, I mentioned previously, you cannot work harder at being godly. 00:24:14.020 |
Because you try really hard to be godly, you just become religious. 00:24:19.020 |
Ephesians 5, 15 to 21, "Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time because the days are evil. 00:24:31.020 |
So then, do not be foolish but understand what the will of the Lord is. 00:24:37.020 |
And do not get drunk with wine," or the rest of the other things in this world, "for that is dissipation. 00:24:47.020 |
Grammatical construction of Ephesians 5, the wedding verses. 00:24:52.020 |
The main point of Ephesians 5 is this verse 18. 00:25:01.020 |
"Speaking to one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father. 00:25:10.020 |
And be subject to one another in the fear of Christ." 00:25:14.020 |
That's a symptom of being filled with the Spirit. 00:25:16.020 |
You get filled with the Spirit, you naturally become subject to other people's needs out of a reverence for Christ. 00:25:28.020 |
So Ephesians 5 is not about wives and husbands, and husbands loving the Church, or loving the wife as Christ loved the Church. 00:25:41.020 |
And what opposes you from being filled with the Spirit? 00:25:47.020 |
So the application that you can make is not, "Let me be more godly. I will be dignified." 00:25:53.020 |
"Hmm, that doesn't last long. I will quit my job and raise my children." 00:25:59.020 |
No, that's not the appropriate application either, generally speaking. 00:26:04.020 |
The appropriate application is how you and I live in response to speak the things that are fitting for sound doctrine. 00:26:15.020 |
And whatever things that we can get drunk on, to flee from those things. 00:26:20.020 |
So that the Spirit is just vibrant in our lives. 00:26:26.020 |
And as the Spirit does His work, we become temperate, dignified, sound in faith, in love, in perseverance, sensible, self-controlled. 00:26:36.020 |
Are you guys following that train of thought? 00:26:40.020 |
The goal is not to try harder to be sensible. 00:26:43.020 |
Because some of you guys are not good at it at all. 00:26:46.020 |
The goal is, pursue Christ, fill my life with the Spirit of God. 00:26:54.020 |
Which might even include other people around me singing to me in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. 00:27:01.020 |
I'm not supposed to go up to John and be like, "Christ the Lord is risen today." 00:27:09.020 |
It's the feel of every interaction that I have with my brothers and sisters is to remind them of God's goodness, His sovereignty, His power, His lordship over our life. 00:27:22.020 |
So that the Spirit does His work and that we don't grieve the Spirit as it says in Ephesians chapter 4. 00:27:33.020 |
And then temperance and all of those things will happen. 00:27:36.020 |
But if you feed your heart with whatever pleasures and entertainments and the lust of your flesh, you're going to start drowning that out. 00:27:46.020 |
The next thing you know, you are living a way that is disgusting for the non-Christians around you from following Christ. 00:27:55.020 |
Don't make Christ repulsive by how you live your life. 00:28:08.020 |
So then the things that I would like you guys to kind of close and discuss are, are there elements in your Christian witness that could potentially cause the Word of God to be dishonored? 00:28:17.020 |
Do people at your work know you're a Christian? 00:28:20.020 |
Do they honor Christ more because of your work ethic or do they scoff? 00:28:27.020 |
Even your online presence, do people love Christ more because of your online presence or do they scoff? 00:28:36.020 |
Second, which of the fitting for sound doctrine qualities do you feel you need to grow most in? 00:28:46.020 |
And remember, that is not attainable by effort. 00:28:51.020 |
What enables us to grow in these areas is the Spirit of God. 00:28:54.020 |
So number three, you don't have to answer, I just answered it for you. 00:28:57.020 |
And so next week, it's verses six through ten. 00:29:02.020 |
These are the application questions that perhaps you guys can share with each other in and then we'll call it an evening.