Church on the Choppy Seas: A Deck Awash (Titus 1:10-16)

They were warned to clean up the bay. It was bad enough it was the destination for the majority of the city's sewage. But the floating debris – garbage, really – was unsightly. So they fished out what they could. They made it look prettier. But there was still pollution lurking underneath. It wasn't clean. It wasn't pure. Those waters in the Guanabara Bay, at Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, were contaminated; signs on the beach warned people not to swim in them, not to let the water touch their skin. But when it came time for the sailing competition at the 2016 Summer Olympics, it was where they sailed. So it surprised no one when one Belgian competitor in the Laser Radial women's sailing event woke up with a severe infection the morning after the race. Oh, the officials insisted the water was safe enough. But the evidence said otherwise. Sailing over polluted waters is a challenging thing. You can't afford to let it spray and splash you.

Two thousand years ago, when Paul was advising Titus how to direct the fleet of Cretan churches over the very choppy cultural seas in which they found themselves, well, there was a problem. The waters of Cretan culture were not so clean, not so pure. Contaminated by many things, they carried spiritual viruses. How to sail the ship without getting drenched in the culture's churning corruption?

Sure enough, some teachers had come along and said that, in fact, they had an answer. The problem, they said, was that the churches hadn't done enough. Individual Christians could maybe be saved, but they weren't really part of God's people yet. See, they said, to really be included, you need something more. You need to get on the 'Jesus-plus' program. You need Jesus plus the antidote, Jesus plus the disinfectant, of the Old Testament Law that severs your flesh and fences you in and makes you pure. Paul refers to them as “the circumcision party” (Titus 1:10) – it's probably the same kind of folks he tangled with in Galatia and elsewhere – and they said that, since the real church is Israel, the church needs to be submitted to Israel's historic law. The solution to all these issues was to double down on adopting these guidelines, without which no one could be a real Christian. This was the structure they said the Cretan churches were missing.

And from the sounds of things, they found a ready hearing in some households. But Paul has a problem with that. See, a 'Jesus-plus' program is really a 'minus-Jesus' program, when the math's all worked out. And while the poor believers struggling with the lingering sickness of a 'post-truth' culture are vulnerable to this kind of teaching – while whole families are getting overthrown by it (Titus 1:11) – it's no solution at all. It may seem like a solution, but it's actually just a restatement of the problem, another version of polluted waters splashing onto the deck of the churchly ship! These Judaizing teachers offer only “Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth” (Titus 1:14) – in effect, they're as 'post-truth' as anybody in Crete, and just as subject to that saying, “Cretans are always liars” (Titus 1:12). As it turns out, their insistence on their Law-based 'Jesus-plus' prescription, which is really a 'minus-Jesus' one, has made their hearts impure. And they see impurity in God-given things because their eyes are infected by their own impurity – that's what Paul means when he says, “To the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their minds and their consciences are defiled” (Titus 1:15)!

And that turns out to be the problem with many sorts of false teaching. A few are of the form that a Christian is free to give up genuinely God-mandated things. You think of the 'churchless Christianity' trend – the idea that 'going to church' – actually being part of the community God is saving – is expendable and unimportant. And what that amounts to is diving overboard in the thick of the storm – inevitably, a so-called 'churchless Christian' is in peril of drowning. But there have been other forms of false teaching that do the same things as these that Paul faces here, the Judaizers, the circumcision party. There are plenty of sectarian movements that, at bottom, always go like this: “Okay, but if you want to be a real Christian, if y'all want to be a real church, you absolutely must add this-and-that,” where 'this' and 'that' have nothing to do with the biblical path of faith. Some of them, at some times, can even be good things. But when wisdom is turned into law, it kills faith. And Paul is adamant here: it's not by all the rules and rituals we keep, but by union with Christ through faith, through which God's love is poured into our hearts and souls and through which our minds are reshaped by his wisdom, that we can be pure in his sight – and then, cleaving to Christ, “to the pure, all things are pure” (Titus 1:15).

When Paul wrote to Titus, false teachers abounded. The waters of Cretan culture – and that included the 'myths' imported by those who thought themselves teachers but rejected the truth, who thought themselves doctors but had phony medical degrees – were contaminated, contagious. And it was as if the “choppy waters” of culture on which the churchly ships were sailing were flooding up onto the deck. And the result is a major disturbance of God's peace; it sends the sailors into a frenzy and makes them ill (cf. Titus 1:11). Those who splash water aboard are “insubordinate, empty talkers, and deceivers,” and Paul warns there are plenty of them (Titus 1:10). And while “they profess to know God,” claiming a special connection with him, claiming to be the exemplary image of God's plan, the doctrine and practice springing from their impure hearts undermine that claim – “they deny him by their works” (Titus 1:16).

It was the “circumcision party” then, as well as the cultural accommodationists, no doubt. But through history, plenty of heresies have arisen – false teachings that wash up on deck and risk not only sickening the sailors but sweeping them overboard. When Martin Luther read this letter in the 1500s, two comparisons stood out. One were “the fanatics,” probably people like the Zwickau Prophets who claimed revelation that superseded the Bible – if you want to be a real Christian, they'd say, you'd step out from under Scripture's authority into their new light. The other was the medieval Roman Church. Over two centuries earlier, in 1302, a pope had issued a declaration, Unam Sanctam, that ended, “It is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff,” meaning the pope. It's that familiar form again: “If you want to be a real Christian, if y'all want to be a real church, then you must add obedience to the Pope and to the Magisterium.” Just like the folks Titus was tangling with, it's a 'Jesus-plus' program. And Luther retorted, in his Lectures on Titus, that many things the church authorities were teaching might well be fine wisdom, to which he would voluntarily submit out of love; but the instant you say it's a matter of being saved or damned, the instant you claim it's necessary to be included in God's real people, he has to tear it up. Because no wisdom can be safely turned into law, when God offers us through faith a righteousness apart from the law (Romans 3:21).

That may well seem like history. But the pattern crops up again and again. Some morning, some evening, you may well get a knock at your door. If you open that door, you might find a pair of young Mormon men in white shirts and ties, or well-dressed college-age girls. The Mormons I've known are wonderful people, and there are plenty of things to admire about them. But their message has an unsettlingly familiar shape: “If you want to be a real Christian, you must add these things” – their Mormon priesthoods that claim to offer the only valid baptism, and obedience to their modern-day prophets and apostles, and belief in their three extra collections of scripture besides the Bible, and participation in the rituals of their temples, and eternal temple marriage as the road to exaltation in their God's celestial kingdom. “If you want to be a real full participant in the gospel, if you want to belong to the only real 'true and living church on the face of the earth,' you have to add these things to Jesus,” is what it boils down to. Splish. Splash. Splish. Splash.

Or, when you open the door, you might find one of Jehovah's Witnesses. Again, the ones I've known are very nice people with admirable zeal. But their message has the same shape: “If you want to be a real Christian, you must add these things” – a theology that denies the Trinity, a withdrawal from so-called 'Christendom,' an abstinence from holidays and birthdays and civic life, and an obedience to every command of their Governing Body, which they claim as the faithful steward distributing spiritual food to God's household in the parable Jesus told. It's the same pattern. Paul would say that they see so many things as impure because “their minds and their consciences are defiled” by this teaching (Titus 1:15).

But if you think you can avoid false teaching by keeping the door shut, you've got another thing coming. This pattern abounds in today's church! There are others – for lack of a better word, we'll call them 'new puritans' – who say: “If you want to be a real Christian, you must follow this law: 'Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch'” (Colossians 2:21). You've heard the sort. No playing games, because that's frivolous. No dancing. No modern music, because that's the devil's tunes. No sip of wine over dinner. No tattoos, no different hairstyles, no this, no that. No Bibles other than the King James Version, because hey, if it was good enough for Peter and Paul, it's good enough for me, right? You can find these people in the church today, with one or more of those ideas about what a good Christian must look like. But as soon as you turn it from wisdom to a law that marks a boundary between 'real' Christians and the half-hearted pretenders, we're risking a venture to 'Jesus-plus' waters.

And then there are some in the charismatic movement. There are some Pentecostal or Charismatic groups that take this familiar form: “If you want to be a real Christian, you must add the gift of speaking in tongues to your Christian life. If you don't have that, then you must not be baptized in the Spirit.” Never mind that Paul said not every believer prophesies, not every believer works miracles, not every believer can heal, not every believer will speak in tongues (1 Corinthians 12:29-30). Never mind that Paul made love the standard by which to measure the relative value of each spiritual gift (1 Corinthians 13:1—14:1), which put speaking in tongues lower on that list (1 Corinthians 14:19); and never mind that Paul stressed the fruit of the Spirit more than the gifts of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). Still, some will tell you, if you don't have this or that gift, you aren't a full Christian; some will tell you, if your local church doesn't see this or that gift operative, it's not a real church. Pay them no heed. Accept no 'Jesus-plus' program.

But then there are other false teachers, those one scholar dubbed the 'Happiologists.' Theirs is a message of prosperity; theirs is often a message of health and wealth. But they take milder forms, too, and may do so even in churches that think themselves pure of it. The basic idea takes that familiar form: “If you want to be a real Christian, you must add an upbeat attitude. You must use the power of positive thinking. You must claim God's blessings on your life by speaking them over yourself. You must deny ever being afflicted, perplexed, or struck down (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:8). You must 'name it and claim it.' You must be happy, happy, happy all the day.” I've heard well-meaning Christians – folks who don't listen to the Word of Faith preachers, folks who've never read a Joel Osteen book or picked up a volume by Norman Vincent Peale – say things like that, in regular churches. But notice what's happening: such teachers are pointing at all the normal but darker parts of human experience, like sadness and grief and tribulation, and saying, 'Unclean, unclean.' And Paul would say they see them as unclean because they see through unclean eyes. It's another case of 'Jesus-plus' – in this case, their 'gospel' is 'Jesus plus positivity.' And that meets Paul's definition of false teaching.

Oh, and then there are the politicized heresies. And here we get really uncomfortable. On the one hand, there's what we'll call 'activist Christianity.' In my generation, I have to tell you, this one is pretty common. But it has that familiar form: “If you want to be a real Christian, then you must add my idea of what 'social justice' looks like. If you want to be a real Christian, you must add acceptance of all lifestyle options, or at least whichever ones are acclaimed in the popular culture. If you want to be a real Christian, then you must affirm the choices of others with slogans like 'Love is love!' and 'Equality!' If you want to be a real Christian, then you must crusade against backwards politics, because this is the year 2018, after all. If you don't follow these laws, then you're something less than a real Christian – a loveless Pharisee, maybe, or a hypocritical moralist, or a bigot.” If you haven't heard that one, listen to most Americans my age, and you will soon enough. But it follows that same pattern, doesn't it?

On the other hand – get ready for the discomfort – there's what we'll call 'patriotic Christianity.' And this is the political flip of the one before it. It isn't as common in my generation, but what about yours? It goes like this: “If you want to be a real Christian, if you want to be really included in this church, then you must be American – or, at least, think American is the best kind of nationality to be. You must 'support the troops.' You must say the Pledge of Allegiance with us. You must adore the flag, and spout the right talking points. If you want to be a real Christian, then you must fit my idea of being an American patriot.” And that one, I think, hits home. In one church I've been to, a worship leader once replaced the invocation – a prayer to God – with the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. God took second place that day. If, during that event, a visitor had knelt in protest as some NFL players have done in recent months, let's be honest: Would we really make them feel comfortable? Would we really accept them? Or would some part of us be tempted to think that they're not fully part of us, not fully Christian, not at home in this church, because of it?

One time, a pastor did an experiment. On a Fourth of July Sunday, they had communion, and the pastor wanted to see where their priorities were. So, as an 'accident,' he spilled some of the communion cup onto the American flag. Later, he had a church member storm into his office. Was the church member angry that the pastor had desecrated the holy communion element that to us is the blood of Christ, God in the flesh, by which we are saved? No: he was angry that the pastor had sullied the holy flag... with the blood of Christ. And so the wisdom of seeking the peace and well-being of our land becomes a law added to faith in Jesus – and you know what Paul says about that. I fear that in any generation, we're prone to let the water of the culture – whether it's the permissive and affirming culture of the Sexual Revolution and left-wing politics, or the 'God-and-country' culture and right-wing politics – drench the deck of the church. And it's not clean. Either side of the aisle, even both, may have some wisdom; but turn it into a law, make it de facto 'Jesus-plus,' and it will corrupt.

And then there's maybe the greatest danger. See, several sociologists in the past couple decades have figured out what the most popular religion in America is. It isn't Christianity. It isn't secularism. It isn't Buddhism or Hinduism or Judaism or Islam. It doesn't stand on its own two feet; it grabs onto others, like a parasite. And, in the younger generations especially but even among older ones, it has effectively colonized our churches. The sociologists had to invent a name for it. They called it “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” That's a mouthful. But it goes like this: There is a God who made the world and watches over it; this God wants people to be nice to each other, which is the main point of all religions; the main goal in life is to be happy and feel good about yourself; God doesn't need to be much involved in your life except when you have a problem on the way to that goal; and good people will go to heaven when they die. And this, their studies found, is the dominant religion in the United States. Someone summed it up as “Be good, feel good, live your life.” It turns God into a butler crossed with a therapist. And in its Christianized version, it might sound something like, “If you want to be a real Christian, then you must be authentic to how you feel; you must follow your heart.” That's in our churches in this country, and it explains a lot. The deck is awash.

See, just like Crete, our 'post-truth' culture is vulnerable. We're allergic to the gospel but starved for meaning. Even within the church, we can be jaded, confused, unfocused. We're easily preyed upon by door-knocking false teachers. We're easily troubled by the 'new puritans' and the 'hyper-charismatics.' We're tempted with 'churchless Christianity' or 'Happiology.' We're polarized by 'activist Christianity' and 'patriotic Christianity.' We're colonized by 'Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.' And that's not even to mention the spate of popular books, even best-selling books: The Secret, The Shack, all the heaven tourism books, and more. The problem is that the false teachers, in today as in Paul's day, don't often come wearing badges. The water may not stink to our seared nostrils nor burn to our numbed skin. But we have to be attentive and alert against any suspicion of a 'Jesus-plus,' anything that isn't unpacking the real gospel his apostles really offered.

How does Paul want us to respond? He urges that false teachings “must be silenced” – or, you could probably render it, 'need to be muzzled' (Titus 1:11). They can't be allowed to gain currency in the church. They aren't a matter of indifference. Paul directs Titus to “rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith” (Titus 1:13). The false teachings need to be corrected. Even those who have bought into them, even those who purvey them, have a chance of being won back to the truth. The end goal is for them to be 'sound' – the word actually means 'healthy,' 'hygienic' – in the faith. It's something we all play a part in, though it's especially true of church leaders, who (according to Paul) must “hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught” so as to “give instruction in healthy teaching and also to rebuke those who contradict it” (Titus 1:9).

But the bottom line is this. The seas are choppy. They are in turmoil with the rage of an age that does not honor Christ as Lord. They are filled with junky debris and polluted by sickly teachings. It's one thing for the waters outside the church to be polluted. But it's another thing when they threaten to spray and splash their way up on deck. Because as Olympic competitors found the other year in Brazil, that's a good way to lose your own health – and many sailors have known the risk of getting washed overboard by the crashing waves. We cannot afford to have a deck awash with false teaching, which inevitably compromises our spiritual health if accepted. Do not give in to the 'Jesus-plus' waves. Hold fast to “the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth” (Titus 1:1), correct false teaching where you find it, and help us swab this deck clean, in Jesus' name. Amen.