Lessons #27 and 28
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+ 1. It is best to use this note after you have listened to the lessons because there are +
+ comments given in the actual exposition not in the note. +
+ 2. The Bible abbreviations are as follows: CEV =Contemporary English version, +
+ CEB = Common English Bible, ESV= English Standard Version, +
+ GWT = God’s Word Translation, ISV = International Standard Version, +
+ NAB=New English Bible, NASB= New American Standard Bible, +
+ NEB= New English Bible, NET = New English Translation, +
+ NLT = New Living Translations NJB = New Jerusalem Bible, +
+ NJV = New Jewish Bible, TEV = Today’s English Version. +
+ 3. Notes have not been edited for grammatical errors. +
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Three essentials of soundness in faith (Titus 1:12-16)
12 Even one of their own prophets has said, “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.” 13 This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith 14 and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the commands of those who reject the truth. 15 To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. 16 They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.
Our concern in this passage that we have been considering is with the three essentials of soundness in faith. We have, of course, consider the first two. The first is rebuking or admonishing of a local congregation with respect to vices or traits that are common in the locale in which the local congregation is located. A believer would be sound in faith if he/she avoids these vices or traits. The second essential of soundness in faith is avoidance of any teaching or requirement that is not in keeping with the Christian truth as contained in the Scripture. A Christian who does this will be sound in faith. Having considered the first two of the three essentials of soundness in faith, we come to the consideration of the third that is related to the second.
A third essential of soundness of faith requires freedom from rituals. This is to say that a believer who is to be sound in the faith should not be tangled with rituals commanded in the OT Scripture in the sense of being involved in their observances or teaching others to do so. The word ritual is defined in the Oxford dictionary as “a religious or solemn ceremony involving a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.” However, when we use the word “ritual” we are, according to Dictionary of Bible Themes, referring to the regulations governing Jewish religious life and worship, especially sacrifices, ritual cleanliness and food laws. The ritual sacrifices of the OT Scripture were primarily for specific purposes. They were for atoning of sins, as in Leviticus 5:12–13:
12 He is to bring it to the priest, who shall take a handful of it as a memorial portion and burn it on the altar on top of the offerings made to the Lord by fire. It is a sin offering. 13 In this way the priest will make atonement for him for any of these sins he has committed, and he will be forgiven. The rest of the offering will belong to the priest, as in the case of the grain offering.’”
The ritual sacrifices were for maintaining fellowship between God and His covenant people of Israel, as indicated in Leviticus 7:11–15
11 “‘These are the regulations for the fellowship offering a person may present to the Lord:
12 “‘If he offers it as an expression of thankfulness, then along with this thank offering he is to offer cakes of bread made without yeast and mixed with oil, wafers made without yeast and spread with oil, and cakes of fine flour well-kneaded and mixed with oil. 13 Along with his fellowship offering of thanksgiving he is to present an offering with cakes of bread made with yeast. 14 He is to bring one of each kind as an offering, a contribution to the Lord; it belongs to the priest who sprinkles the blood of the fellowship offerings. 15 The meat of his fellowship offering of thanksgiving must be eaten on the day it is offered; he must leave none of it till morning.
The purposes of the ritual sacrifices have been fulfilled by the death of Christ on the cross so that they are no longer valid for believers in Christ. Of course, there are other rituals of the OT Scripture that involve clean and unclean foods, special days, and circumcision that have also been rendered invalid for Christians so that Christians are not to be involved in rituals as we have them in the OT Scripture. Having said this, we should be careful not to think that a believer is not to be involved in any ritual whatsoever. Believers who are sound in their faith would continually participate in the ritual of Lord’s Supper although similar in purpose to the celebration of the Passover, it remains different from all the rituals in the OT because it has a direct spiritual connotation. By this we mean that the ritual is tied directly to focusing on the Lord Jesus Christ since the command for the ritual demands such spiritual focus in form of remembrance of the Lord, as He stated in Luke 22:19:
And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”
Thus, while the celebration of the Lord’s Supper is a ritual in that it involves bread and grape juice, but its primary focus is on the remembrance of the Lord Jesus, indicating that it is not an ordinary ritual. Hence, a believer is not to be free from its celebration. The other ritual involved in the local church is water baptism. This ritual is not in the same category as the Lord’s Supper in the sense that the purpose is different. Its primary purpose is to convey to the world that a person has been initiated into the community of believers and it is a one-time ritual unlike the repeated celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Even then, we are not to think that when we speak of freedom from rituals that we include it. No! The rituals that were certainly in the mind of Apostle Paul in the passage of Titus 1 that we are considering are those stipulated in the Law, especially those that deal with food.
In any case, we maintain that a third essential of soundness of faith requires freedom from rituals. This third essential of soundness of faith is given in the first sentence of Titus 1:15 To the pure, all things are pure. This sentence enables us to recognize one of the false teachings that Titus and the overseers he was to appoint had to confront in Crete, which concerns the matter of “purity.” Apparently, the Jewish false teachers were confusing moral purity with ritual purity. Therefore, they were teaching that a morally pure person can still become unclean by eating unclean foods or by touching any defiled thing, probably basing their teaching on the misinterpretation or misapplication of the answer supplied to Prophet Haggai in Haggai 2:10–14:
10 On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Haggai: 11 “This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Ask the priests what the law says: 12 If a person carries consecrated meat in the fold of his garment, and that fold touches some bread or stew, some wine, oil or other food, does it become consecrated?’” The priests answered, “No.” 13 Then Haggai said, “If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?” “Yes,” the priests replied, “it becomes defiled.” 14 Then Haggai said, “‘So it is with this people and this nation in my sight,’ declares the LORD. ‘Whatever they do and whatever they offer there is defiled.
Of course, the apostle seemed to have had in mind this passage in his second sentence of contrast that we will get to later. Meanwhile, the apostle was concerned to convey that no food eaten by a believer could render the individual unclean, implying that the false teachers were wrong and so Titus should correct their teaching.
Nonetheless, it is our assertion that the third essential of soundness of faith is given in the first sentence of Titus 1:15 To the pure, all things are pure. The translators of the NIV and majority of our English versions reversed the order of the Greek sentence since the literal Greek reads All things pure to the pure. A few of our English versions follow this order either translating the Greek as Everything is clean to those who are clean as in the CEB or All is pure to those who are pure of the NET. Regardless of which version that one consults, the sentence on a surface reading does not seem to support our assertion that a third essential of soundness of faith requires freedom from rituals. Therefore, we need to establish that this is indeed the case. To do this, requires us answering two questions. The first question is who does the phrase to the pure refer? The second is what is meant in the sentence all things are pure? Both questions involve the word “pure” and the adjective appears a third time in our verse of Titus 1:15 in the sentence nothing is pure of the NIV. Therefore, it is important to examine the Greek word that is translated “pure” in our verse to understand how it is used in each of the three times it appears.
The word “pure” is translated from a Greek word (katharos) that means “pure, clean” but it is used in physical, religious or ritual sense, and in moral sense. The word is used in a physical sense pertaining to being free from dirt, that is, clean, as it is used with respect to cups and dishes in Matthew 23:26:
Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
In a physical sense, it can mean to be free from adulterating matter hence means “pure” as it is used to describe gold in Revelation 21:18:
The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass.
The use of the Greek word may be used as it pertains to being cultically/ceremonially pure, thus means “ritually pure.” It is in this sense that the word is used in the Septuagint of Leviticus 7:19:
“‘Meat that touches anything ceremonially unclean must not be eaten; it must be burned up. As for other meat, anyone ceremonially clean may eat it.
The word “ceremonially” is not in the Hebrew text or in the Septuagint, but it has been inserted in the translation to clarify that the uncleanness involved is ritual or ceremonial in nature. It is in the sense of “ritually pure” that our Greek word although translated “clean” is used in Romans 14:20:
Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble.
We will return to this passage later in support of our assertion that the third essential of soundness of faith requires freedom from rituals. Anyway, our Greek word may pertain to being free from the guilt of sin and so means “pure, guiltless, free from sin.” It is in the sense of “guiltless” that the word is used in Acts 18:6:
But when the Jews opposed Paul and became abusive, he shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am clear of my responsibility. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”
The sentence I am clear of my responsibility is more literally I am clean that here means I am guiltless. In a moral sense, the Greek word may mean “clear” when used with respect to conscience, as it is used in 2 Timothy 1:3:
I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers.
The phrase a clear conscience is literally pure conscience. With respect to “heart” the Greek word may mean “single-minded” or “single-hearted”, as many interpret the word in its use in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:8:
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Although many interpret the phrase the pure in heart as meaning “ single-mindedness,” that is, not to be affected by self but it is our interpretation that the phrase refers to a person that is regenerated. This meaning seems to be what is also intended in the use of our Greek word in Jesus’ declaration to Peter, as recorded in John 13:10–11:
10 Jesus answered, “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.
Our Greek word is translated “clean” in this passage but “clean” in this passage is probably
equivalent to being saved since not every one of the disciples was saved. Judas Iscariot was an unbeliever as we can gather from our Lord’s description of him recorded in John 6:64:
Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him.
When next Jesus described the disciples as “clean” Judas was no longer a member of the group, as implied in John 15:3:
You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.
Anyway, we have noted that the Greek word translated “pure” in Titus 1:15 has a range of meanings so; in what sense is it used in our passage? The word, as we have already stated, is used three times in our passage but they do not have the same sense at least in the first usage. The meaning in each usage is to be determined by considering the context.
The first usage of the Greek word translated “pure” in the phrase to the pure refers to being free from moral guilt or sin. This means that the phrase to the pure refers to those who are believers that live according to truth. In effect, when a person is regenerated that individual is pure in the sense the individual is free from moral guilt or sin but that is not sufficient for a person to be associated with the sentence all things are pure. Therefore, it is important that the pure refers to those who are regenerated that are armed or equipped with truth from God’s word since only those who are equipped with truth from God’s word that would be sound in faith in that they avoid any teaching or requirement that is not in keeping with the Christian truth as contained in the Scripture. We are saying that the phrase to the pure refers to one who is saved and is well taught the word of God in such a way that the individual lives by truth. For one thing, the phrase to the pure may be fully unpacked in the English to read either “in the estimation of the pure” or “for the use of the pure.” In either case, the sentence all things are pure demands that the believer in whose estimation all things are pure or for whose use all things are pure be one that is well taught the word of God in order for the sentence to apply. There is no way for any believer to live free of sin, at least, temporarily without knowing and applying God’s word. Experientially, no believer is ever free from sin in an absolute sense but a believer can be free of sin moment by moment in life. By this we mean, that it is expected for the believer to live free of sin on a moment by moment basis in that the period in which that believer is controlled by the Holy Spirit that person is free from sin. That may change quickly so that the believer sins. However, a believer who is well taught the word of God knows immediately to deal with that sin through its confession to be restored into fellowship with God. Hence, we contend that the phrase to the pure refers to believers who live in accordance with the truth of God’s word. This bring us to answer the second question of what the sentence all things are pure means.
The sentence all things are pure as it reads gives the impression that every and anything is pure to the believer. This cannot possibly be the intended meaning since, for example, “sin” will be included in the phrase all things. This means that we should not take the phrase to imply limitlessness as to what is pure, instead to look within the context to determine what the apostle had in mind in the sentence all things are pure. Before we do, we should also recall the Greek word (katharos) translated “pure” also means “clean”, indicating that an alternative translation of the sentence all things are pure is all things are clean. This alternative translation is useful in interpreting what the apostle meant, especially as it makes it clearer that our Greek word this second time has the meaning of being ritually pure or clean. That aside, the context of this declaration is the apostle’s instruction to Titus and overseers to convey to believers in Crete not to pay attention in the sense of obeying the commands of those who reject truth, as he stated in Titus 1:14:
and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the commands of those who reject the truth.
The commands of those who reject the truth, as we interpreted previously, is concerned with the ceremonial aspects of the Mosaic law that involve circumcision, dietary laws, and celebration of special days. Circumcision is not something that can be spoken of in terms of pure or clean. Likewise, celebration of special days is not something that will be considered clean or pure. Therefore, the only thing left with respect to the ritual aspects of Mosaic Law is the dietary laws. This means that the phrase all things refers to food. We know that the OT Scripture specified to Israel that certain kinds of meat are unclean. This understanding is reflected in Peter’s response to the vision the Lord gave him when he was brought all kinds of meat to eat, according to the record of Acts 10:12–15:
12 It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air. 13 Then a voice told him, “Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.” 14 “Surely not, Lord!” Peter replied. “I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.” 15 The voice spoke to him a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”
Granting that the vision is concerned to convey to Peter to welcome Gentiles, but it is also concerned with dietary laws that distinguish Jews from Gentiles and kept even Jewish Christians from interacting with Gentiles. This being the case, a Jewish Christian who is devoted to the law would consider some foods unclean despite that Jesus has declared all food clean, as per Mark 7:19:
For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”)
Hence, when the apostle states all things are pure, he had in mind the dietary law of the OT. It is for this reason we believe the phrase all things refers to food. This interpretation is supported by what the apostle stated in another a passage we cited previously, that is, Romans 14:20:
Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble.
The sentence All food is clean is more literally all things, indeed, are pure. The Greek phrase so rendered is similar to that used in Titus 1:15. The only difference is the word “indeed” that is inserted between the two Greek words translated “all things” and “pure.” Thus, for all practically purposes, the Greek phrase in both passages is the same. It is true that the word “food” does not appear a second time in Romans 14:20 but the context supports the insertion of the word “food” as found in the NIV since the last phrase of the first sentence of verse 20 is for the sake of food. Furthermore, the preceding context of verse 20 indicates the apostle had in mind the question of clean or unclean food, as he stated in Romans 14:14:
As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean.
The context of Romans 14:20 is concerned with the ceremonial aspect of the Mosaic law which is similar to the context of Titus 1:15 as we have interpreted it. Consequently, since the same Greek phrase is used in both Titus 1:15 and Romans 14:20, we are correct in our interpretation that the phrase all things in Titus 1:15 refers to food.
Acceptance of our interpretation that the phrase all things in Titus 1:15 refers to food, enables us to interpret what the apostle meant in the sentence all things are pure. He means that all food is clean or suitable for the believer to eat. In saying this, we have taken the Greek word translated “pure, clean” to mean suitable or ritually acceptable. The implication of this interpretation is that the believer is no longer bound by the dietary laws of the Mosaic law. The larger point being that the believer is free from the ceremonial requirements of the Mosaic law.
Piecing together our interpretation of the phrase To the pure and the sentence all things are pure, we can now give a summary interpretation to what the apostle meant in the first sentence of Titus 1:15 To the pure, all things are pure. He means that the believer who lives by truth of God’s word knows that he/she is no longer bound by the dietary laws of the OT. This interpretation is supported by the view of Apostle Paul of how he considered any food to be clean to him in the passage we cited previously, that is, Romans 14:14:
As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for him it is unclean.
The apostle’s declaration in Romans 14:14 supports our interpretation that it is the believer who is taught the word of God that will understand that all foods are clean for eating. It is the believer who has been taught God’s word that knows that Christ has made all foods clean for eating. Furthermore, it is such a believer that would know God created all foods for believer’s enjoyment as per the statement of the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul recorded in 1 Timothy 4:3–4:
3 They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. 4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,
The clause by those who believe and who know the truth refers to the believer and not to two different categories of believers but it implies also that believers are the ones who not only know or should know facts regarding creation but also are in a personal relationship with the creator, the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence, we insist that only believers who are taught the word of God would estimate all foods clean or for them all foods are clean. Anyway, the dietary law is one of the components of the ritual aspect of the Mosaic law so its use in Titus 1:15 is to represent the entire ritual of the Mosaic law. This being the case, the sentence To the pure, all things are pure we are considering means that the believer who lives according to the truth should recognize that the individual is no longer bound to the rituals of the Mosaic Law. This interpretation justifies our assertion that that a third essential of soundness of faith requires freedom from rituals. Believers who go about observing the rituals of the OT Scripture, such as burning incense, are those who are not sound in the faith in that they are not taught the word of God or refuses to accept the correct teaching regarding the rituals of the Mosaic law as the false teachers in Crete of the time of Apostle Paul. It is true that the sentence To the pure, all things are pure is concerned with freedom from rituals of the Mosaic Law but the concept stated whereby a believer who knows the truth recognizes that all food is clean has a general application to the operation of the believer who is taught the truth and lives by it. The application is that those who are crooked live in suspicion of others while those who are governed by truth have the tendency of thinking that others are like themselves until they find otherwise.
Our assertion is that soundness in faith requires acceptance of freedom from rituals of the Mosaic Law. That this is the case is evident in the contrast with those who do not accept the truth of God’s word as expounded in the apostolic doctrines regarding the rituals of the Mosaic law. The fact that there is a contrast between those who are sound in the faith and those who are not is introduced with the word but that begins the second sentence of Titus 1:15. The conjunction but indicates that the distinction between those who are sound in faith and those who are not is first a matter of acceptance of the apostolic doctrine regarding the ritual aspects of the Mosaic Law.
That those who are unsound in faith are the individuals who reject the apostolic doctrine with respect to the ceremonial aspects of the Mosaic law is given in the next clause of Titus 1:5 but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. The clause appears to give two descriptions of those who are unsound in the faith, as some have interpreted it. This is possible but it appears to us that the apostle gives one description of those who are unsound in the faith using the clause those who are corrupted but explained what this clause means using the verbal phrase do not believe. By this statement, we imply that the Greek conjunction (kai) translated and should be understood as a marker of explanation in which case it should be translated “that is” leading to translating the Greek expression rendered those who are corrupted and do not believe in the NIV as those who are defiled, that is, do not believe. Of course, we need to justify this interpretation by considering the two key words used in the clause but to those who are corrupted and do not believe.
The first key word is “corrupted” that is translated from a Greek verb (miainō) with a primary sense of “to stain” that gives rise to its being used in two ways in our Scripture. It is used with the meaning “to defile” in the sense of causing something to be ceremonially or ritually impure. Thus, the translators of the Septuagint used our Greek word to translate a Hebrew word (ṭāmēʾ) that means to be ceremonially or ritually unclean or to desecrate, as we find, for example, in defiling of God’s sanctuary through child sacrifice that is forbidden for which God brings punishment, as stated in Leviticus 20:3:
I will set my face against that man and I will cut him off from his people; for by giving his children to Molech, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name.
This sense of being ritually impure of our Greek word is used only once in the NT to describe the unwillingness of the Jews to enter the palace of the Roman governor, Pilate, prior to the celebration of the Passover of the at the time of Jesus’ death since such would render them ceremonially unclean, as recorded in John 18:28:
Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover.
Another usage of our Greek word is in a spiritual or moral sense of causing the purity of someone to be violated by impure behavior so that it has the meaning of “to defile” in a moral sense in Hebrews 12:15:
See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.
In this passage in Hebrews, sin of bitterness is a cause of defilement of the Christian community. It is in the moral sense that our Greek word is used to refer to immoral sex acts that defile the flesh in Jude 8:
In the very same way, these dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority and slander celestial beings.
The translators of the NIV used the word “pollute” to translate our Greek verb here in Jude. Anyway, our Greek word as we have noted means “to defile” either in a ritual sense or moral or spiritual sense. The problem is how to understand it in Titus 1:15 since it appears twice. The second occurrence of the word is explained in the text as we will note later but its first occurrence is difficult to understand in which sense it is used although the interpreters of the NIV gave the word a moral interpretation with the use of the word “corrupt.” This notwithstanding, the sense in which the word is used in its first occurrence is complicated by the fact that the first clause of verse 15 introduced the concept of ritual or ceremonial cleanness because of our interpretation of the phrase all things that we indicated referred to food or dietary laws. Furthermore, the Greek used a perfect tense indicating that the state of defilement is something that occurred in the past but its result continues. It is difficult to determine the cause of the defilement since we have a passive voice that indicates that the defilement is brought about by an unidentified agent. The defilement could be due to sin or failure to observe a ritual. Thus, when our Greek word is used in its first occurrence it is not easy to determine in what sense it is to be interpreted, that is, it is not easy to understand whether those described as defiled is to be understood in a ceremonial sense or in a moral or spiritual sense. It is for this reason that we believe then that the apostle had to explain what he meant in the use of the Greek word that means “to defile” by using another key word that helps to shade light as to how we should understand what is meant by the Greek word that means “to defile.”
The second key word in the clause but to those who are corrupted and do not believe is the expression “do not believe” which is how the translators of the NIV rendered a Greek noun (apistos) that our standard Greek English lexicon of Bauer, Danker, Arndt, and Gingrich listed two categories of meanings of “unbelievable, incredible” and “without faith, unbelieving, disbelieving.” However, the context in which the word is used enables us to understand better the range of meanings of the word. The meaning “unbelievable, incredible” is conveyed in Apostle Paul’s question in his defense before Agrippa as to why it is difficult to accept the concept of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, as per Acts 26:8:
Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?
The understanding of the meaning “unbelieving” is dependent on the context. In some context, the word clearly refers to an unbeliever as in the sense of one who has not trusted in Christ as the context in which Apostle Paul described specific problem in the marriage in which both spouses who were originally unbelievers but one of them eventually became saved in 1 Corinthians 7:14:
For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
In this context, there is no question that our Greek word translated “unbelieving” refers to an unbeliever. But there is at least one passage where understanding the word “unbelieving” as a reference to unbelievers is not appropriate. I am referring to Luke 12:46:
The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.
The meaning of our Greek word (apistos) in this passage of Luke should be “unfaithful” as reflected in some English versions such as the NET that translated the phrase a place with the unbelievers as a place with the unfaithful. The meaning “unfaithful” is the one that bests fits the context since Jesus’ parable is contrasting between a faithful slave and unfaithful slave. You see, the word “faithful” (pistos) is used with the definite article in verse 42 of Luke 12 to describe the manager that was assigned the responsibility mentioned in that verse. But the opposite of “faithful” is “unfaithful” so that the Greek adjective (apistos) used with definite article in the plural in verse 46 is qualifying all unfaithful managers or slaves though not mentioned directly. However, the structure of verse 42 in comparison with verse 46 implies that we supply the word “managers” or “slaves”, justifying the meaning “unfaithful” in verse 46. The point is that the meaning “unbelieving” does not necessarily mean that the one described with it is an unbeliever. In another context, the word “unbelieving” describes someone who does not accept or acknowledge the truth that the person has been told. Hence, our Greek word is used to describe Thomas as one who did not acknowledge or accept the truth of what he was told concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ in John 20:27:
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
The expression Stop doubting and believe is more literally And do not be unbelieving, but believing! Certainly, Thomas was not an unbeliever in the sense of those who have not trusted in Christ but he is instructed not to be unbelieving in the sense of failure to accept the truth he was told. It is the sense of not accepting or acknowledging the truth that our Greek word is used in Titus 1:15 although there are those who take the meaning as simply a reference to unbelievers. Those who take the position that the apostle had in mind unbelievers do so primarily on the ground that the Greek word (apistos) we considered is used predominantly by the apostle in describing unbelievers, as for example, the word is used to indicate believers have nothing in common with unbelievers and so they should not be yoked together with them in 2 Corinthians 6:14:
Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
True, in all the other usages of the Greek word by the apostle, the meaning is “unbelievers” but in each case, the context leaves no doubt that the apostle meant unbelievers but that is not the case in Titus 1:15 where he certainly was concerned with Jewish Christians who were false teachers. Of course, it is possible to take the meaning of our Greek word as “unbelievers” if the apostle intended the sentence nothing is pure to be a general one with specific application to Jewish Christians. While that is possible, it seems that because the apostle had in mind Jewish Christians that were misleading Christians in Crete that it is better to take our Greek word to mean “not accepting or acknowledging the truth”
This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves.
Our interpretation is not to deny that unbelievers are also defiled spiritually because they do not accept the truth of God’s word but that in the context, the focus is on those who have believed in Christ but refused to accept the teaching of the apostles about the relationship of Gentile Christians to the rituals of the Mosaic Law. It is for this reason that they are to be considered as those who are not sound in the faith in contrast to those who are sound in the faith because they accepted the apostolic doctrine regarding the relationship of Gentile Christians to the rituals of the OT.
The apostle goes on to describe those he had in mind in several other ways. He described them as those in a state of moral guilt as in the sentence of Titus 1:15 of the NIV nothing is pure. The apostle was not concerned about ritual purity so that he would not state that those he had in mind were in ritual defilement. Instead, his focus was on the fact that those he had in mind were in spiritual defilement. This he elaborated by providing more facts that help to confirm the spiritual defilement of those the apostle had in mind. He began with their spiritual defilement in the sentence In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted of Titus 1:15. This is the second time our Greek word (miainō) translated “corrupted” in the NIV that we indicated means “to defile” either in a ritual sense or moral or spiritual sense is used. The mention of the “mind” and “conscience” in the sentence indicates that its second usage is in the sense of moral or spiritual defilement. We will continue with this sentence in our next study.
04/14/17