December 5, 2024

Titus 2.15 (NIV) 

These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you.

Ambiguity about our message produces apathy toward our mission.*

Knowing what to teach can be as easy as cramming information into your brain. Knowing what to do with it is not so simple. Paul gave Titus the material to work with (“the things you should teach”) and then he told him what to do with it in a kind of step-by-step procedure.

First, he says to encourage. At first glance, this doesn’t seem so intimidating. The Gospel is good news, after all. It is a story with a happy ending. But before the happy ending, there is a life to be lived, and encouraging words do not come easily for all of life’s circumstances. Our attempts to be encouraging often include words that don’t really help. “I will pray for you,” and “It’s God’s will,” are some of our favorites. But, if we think of encourage in terms of urging (rather than comforting), we might better understand Paul’s instructions. Urge others to obey; to live righteously; to apply the teaching to their lives.

The next step in our procedure is rebuke - with all authority, no less. We aren’t told to speak as if we have authority. We have authority when we know the material and are filled with and guided by the Holy Spirit. The opportunities to rebuke (reprimand, reprove, reproach, give a talking to) come to each of us as we allow ourselves to be used by the Spirit. We must approach these occasions “decidedly, without ambiguity, without compromise, and without keeping anything back,”* speaking not our own words but God’s.

Finally, don’t let anyone despise you. How do you stop someone from despising you? There is no way to control how people are going to react to us, so what did Paul mean? Without putting words into the Apostle’s mouth, let us just say that we should give no one just cause to despise us.* Preaching the gospel has a natural tendency to stir up conflict but, in the words of another writer, there “is no merit in deliberately antagonizing unbelievers. . . . tact shouldn’t trump boldness; service shouldn’t silence our testimony. The power of the gospel is not in persuading the world we’re cool but in confronting the cross.”*

You will never give testimony about the Lord Jesus without the presence of his Holy Spirit to guide, help, and empower you.*