Saturday, October 26, 2013

Thoughts on Titus 2: Dealing with a troubled church

It is apparent from reading through the book of Titus that Paul is not a big fan of the people in the church at Crete.  He is very blunt in his advice to Titus.  So, how, practically, do you deal with a church full of less than savory characters?  You remind each group what their role is and why.  My impression is that Paul's view of the people at this church isn't that they are simply corrupt, but rather that they have been so poorly influenced by society that they don't know how they are supposed to act.  So Paul goes through each major demographic and tells Titus what areas to focus on.

I think there are a lot of churches today that could use this type of advice.  It isn't that the members of the congregation are inherently evil.  Rather, society has corrupted what they think is appropriate.

A few years ago I was at an inner-city church and having lunch with a young man who did not grow up in the church.  It somehow came out that I was a virgin, and he was stunned and promised to not tell anyone my secret.  My being a virgin wasn't a secret.  I didn't go around pronouncing it on the rooftops, but it's not something I kept hidden either.  But this young man thought there was something wrong with being a virgin.  In his culture, that was the ultimate insult.  He just didn't fully understand that Christians were supposed to abstain from sex before marriage.  It took a while to explain to him what the Bible says on the topic (and I'm still not sure he got it).

It would be an interesting exercise to go from church to church and figure out what instructions Paul would give the leaders on things to focus on with their congregations.  I am sure every church has some areas of cultural blind spots.  Hopefully the leaders won't have the same blind spots.

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