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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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