Does truth matter to you? That almost seems like a foolish question because the answer is most likely a resounding YES! When someone lies to us, we are often filled with anger. We feel betrayed, like someone did not feel that my relationship with them was worth sharing what actually happened. When a child lies about a situation that they were in or about something their sibling did, the child deserves punishment. When an adult lies about something in the workplace, if they are caught, they are often fired for what they have done. If we lie about things like our taxes, well, as Jimmie Rodgers sang in 1928, we are probably “in the jailhouse now.” Naturally, this means that truth matters to us.
Unfortunately, when it comes to living a life for Christ, many human beings tend to lean away from what is truth. Titus 1 is in the midst of describing the qualifications of elders, and one of the qualifications that we are going to see Paul put on elders in verse 9 is that the elder is to hold fast to the truth; the elder is to give instruction in sound doctrine, and he is to rebuke those who contradict sound doctrine.
Like any command, there is often a logical reason why a command like this is given, and Paul continues in Titus in verse 10. What we come to find out is that the truth that was being distorted was often from the Jews. The Christians who had come from a Jewish background were holding hostage the Christians who did not have a Jewish background by telling them that they had to live by the way of the law of Moses. They were taking opinions on how to live a faithful life, they were making them fact, and they were teaching them to the Christians.
Paul doesn’t hold back on this. He starts verse 11 by saying “they must be silenced” and says that they are “teaching for shameful gain.” What can be a challenge about this call from Paul (get hype for the rhyme) is not that he was irritated at their lack of rules, but that he was calling them wrong for adding rules to their “Christianity” that made Christianity far more difficult than it needed to be. They were adding rules that should have never been a part of Christianity in any way.
Jesus had statements about this as well. In Matthew 23:1-4, He is going to state that the rules of the Pharisees were BURDENSOME and hard to bear (sound similar to what Paul was referencing from the Jews in the book of Titus?). This is in STARK contrast to Matthew 11:28-30 where Jesus says that HIS yoke is easy.
So, we come back to the question: does truth matter to you? Does the truth of Jesus matter to you more than anything else? I get nervous that we as truth seeking Christians often get caught up in worshiping the Bible instead of the one who wrote it. We are obsessed with words on pages instead of the One who the words are about. We love to tell people what the Bible says and show them the truth in it, but we fail to show people the God who said everything in it. Instead of showing people that yoking with Jesus is the truth that He calls us to, we can catch ourselves tossing verse after verse at them, calling them to follow rules (sound anything like what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 23:1-4?). Jesus would look at us and say, “it’s good you know the words of God, but you are missing the main objective: to abide in me and let that be what guides you.” If truth truly matters to me, the most important thing I can be a part of is choosing to live fully in Jesus (which, by the way, will include following what has been written down for us in scripture).
Let us join together as a church in being truth seekers, full of the love of our Savior! In Matthew 23:3, Jesus indicates that the Pharisees knew the right thing to do, but in reality, “they preach, but they do not practice.” To steal a phrase from Jesus: woe to those of us who are a part of this congregation who would be people who would preach but not practice. Let’s be a church that is all in on seeking Jesus!
Truth matters, and the truth that you and I are called to be a part of is a beautiful life in Jesus Christ. A life fully dedicated to Jesus is the “sound doctrine” that we are to hold fast to (Titus 1). Jesus is the truth!