The Ministry of Confrontation

In the situation at Crete, the peddlers of "theological pornography" were Judaizers who offered a Jesus plus theology, which is always a minus Jesus theology. Add to Christ and you subtract Christ. This is the spiritual mathematics of these masters of deception. Corrupted in their own thinking, they corrupt the thinking of others and "overthrow whole households." Like a fast-spreading cancer they do not infect one but many. This is how effective they can be. Propagators of a "man-centered message" and a "what-I-can-do gospel," they deflect our focus from Christ and His adoration to ourselves and our accomplishments. The beauty and greatness of Jesus is at best ignored and at worst denied. This is why "it is necessary to silence them" (v. 11). They are ruining the unity of the church, its witness in the community, and ultimately the name of "our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ" (2:13).

Paul pulled no punches as he went on the offensive in the ministry of confrontation. These men must be muzzled, stopped, shut up. Confront them with the truth of the gospel. That is our primary weapon. Confront them with the real results of their activity: they ruin whole households. Confront them with their motive for ministry: dishonest gain. These types of persons are nothing less than ministerial mercenaries! They are hired guns, ministers motivated by money. False teachers love money,248 crave money, and talk about money. As 1 Timothy 6:4-5 says, they "imagine that godliness is a way to material gain." This is the theology of a prosperity pastor in Atlanta, Georgia, who says that "you're a fool for Christ so you might as well be a rich fool."21

Of course we ourselves must be careful not to be seduced more subtly by this mind-set. We must ever be on guard against this "entitlement mentality" that expects, solicits, and even manipulates the favor of others. Unfortunately, this happens all too often. In the ministry of confrontation, we must confront the divisive, all the while examining our own hearts lest we develop these same false motives.

We Must Confront Those Who Are Deceived

Titus 1:12-14

Paul's words are strong and to the point. They are also strategic and difficult to refute. The heart of confrontation is seen here: "Rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith" (v. 13). The spiritual danger is acute, and so he must be direct in his exposé of these religious charlatans, these spiritual imposters.

A careful study of any teacher will bring to light his true colors. We simply have to take the time, listen carefully, and weigh what we hear on the scales of God's perfect Word. This alone and this always must be our standard of measurement. Paul calls to the witness stand one of Crete's heroes from the past, one of their own prophets, the sixth-century poet, priest, and prophet Epimenides. His words were not soft or sugarcoated. They were cutting and condemning.

"Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons." Eugene Peterson's paraphrase says they "are liars from the womb, barking dogs, lazy bellies." The inhabitants of Crete were so characterized by lying that "to Cretanize" meant to lie. In our modern context we might say "ministerially speaking!" You cannot believe or trust such teachers. They lie to themselves, and they will lie to you. As the text says, "Cretans are always liars." The phrase "evil beasts" refers to people who live on the sensual plane, controlled by their appetites and passions, their lust and desires. As evil beasts they tear apart249 and rip to shreds without thought, reason, or concern for the welfare of others. They are an idol to themselves. Cretans are also described as "lazy gluttons." They were self-indulgent, overfed, without self-discipline or control. They feed and feast at the expense of others.

To these words, coming from one of their own, Paul simply adds, "This testimony is true." In reading this, do not miss Paul's application—it was not to every Cretan but to these false prophets propagating spiritual perversion both in what they taught and in how they lived. To such false teachers we are called to respond.

Paul's solution to this situation is to the point, but it was also pastoral. There is a wonderful balance in how we engage in the ministry of confrontation. We are to "rebuke them sharply." Addressing the church that had been lax and hesitant to deal with this crisis, Paul is firm in his instructions. As a surgeon cuts away diseased and infectious tissue that threatens the health of the body, we must cut away this toxic teaching.

What is our goal in performing this spiritual surgery? It is pastoral. It is redemptive. It is so that those who are self-deceived and deceiving others may be "sound in the faith." We cut to cure. We operate to liberate those trapped in the quicksand of spiritual bondage and malnutrition. We confront, but we confront in love. We love them enough to point out their error and with the hope of their recovery to spiritual health and vitality.

Paul readily saw the gangrene of "Jewish myths" (fables) and "commands of men" (man-made rules) that turn from the truth. Religious speculations that go either beyond or against Scripture and rules and regulations that add works to grace are man centered rather than Christ centered, are humanistic rather than Christocentric. Paul says we must confront and denounce them for the lies they are.

Those who taught these Jewish myths and man-made rules were appropriately described as those "who reject the truth." Rather than holding firm "the faithful message as taught" (v. 9), they turn away from the truth. Once they knew it, but now they deny it. Once they lived it, now they leave it. This only makes them all the more dangerous.250

We Must Confront Those Who Are Defiled

Titus 1:15-16

Again we are reminded: belief and behavior go together. Sound doctrine and good works are twin companions. False teaching contaminates. It defiles whatever it touches. Just as a single drop of ink can defile and render undrinkable a pure glass of water, false teaching, even a drop, can pervert and destroy the pure gospel of grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. Why must we confront the defiled?

"To the pure, everything is pure" is something of a proverb, a pithy saying, a maxim. It is a test of moral character and echoes the words of Jesus in Mark 7:15-23:

Nothing that goes into a person from outside can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.... Don't you realize that nothing going into a man from the outside can defile him? For it doesn't go into his heart but into the stomach and is eliminated.... What comes out of a person—that defiles him. For from within, out of people's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, promiscuity, stinginess, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a person.

Philip Towner rightly concludes, "Purity that counts comes only through faith in Christ" (1-2 Timothy and Titus, 232).

In contrast to the pure, "to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; in fact, both their mind [how they think] and conscience [their moral judgment] are defiled" (v. 15). Their whole inner self is corrupted. It is no wonder they "reject the truth." Intellectually and morally they are defiled; every aspect of who they are is infected with the disease of sin. Here is a concise description of what we called the doctrine of total depravity.

John MacArthur notes, "When a person is pure in heart and mind, his perspectives on all251 things are pure, and that inner purity produces outer purity" (Titus, 65). Tragically, the opposite is also true. When a person is corrupt and impure in heart and mind, his perspectives on all things are corrupt and impure, and that inner impurity produces outer impurity.

The mind and the conscience are connected to a vital organ in the body: the tongue. How we think will give way to how we speak. Lie to ourselves, and we will lie to others. Lie to ourselves, and we will lie about God.

These false prophets profess to know God, but with their works they deny Him. Trusting in their own works, their own wisdom, their own righteousness, they by their lives deny the God they profess to know. By their man-centered, humanistic message that focuses on what they can do, they make an idol of themselves. In the process they deny the truth of Scripture, question the sinfulness and inability of man to save himself, cheapen the cross, slight the Holy Spirit, and construct their own false system of salvation.

Bringing to light and exposing the real underlying belief system of such persons, Paul concluded with a ringing trio of condemnation and judgment. They were "detestable," a term that reflects God's attitude toward idolatry. They were "disobedient," rebellious, insubordinate—their way and agenda took precedence over God's. They were "disqualified," unfit, worthless, rejected for any good work. They were fakes, counterfeits, not the real and genuine article after all. Put to the test, they failed.

Conclusion

Charles Spurgeon gives a fitting conclusion to the ultimate aim of the ministry of confrontation. He writes,

[P]rovided we are obliged to come to the conclusion that our minds are not pure, we need not end there, for there are means by which they may be made so! Glory be to God, if my mind and conscience are defiled, they need not always be so. There is cleansing. I cannot effect it for myself, nor can any outward forms do it.... But God has set forth Christ to be a Savior—and He shall save His people from their sins—from their sinfulness, too, and whoever believes in Christ Jesus, that is, trusts in Him, there is already in him the beginning of purity! God the Holy Spirit will give him more and more252 of the likeness of Christ, for he that believes shall be saved from sin, from indwelling sin, from all sin, from the power as well as from the guilt of it! Faith will cleanse him, applying to him the precious blood and the water which flows from the side of Christ! Faith will, by the Holy Spirit's power, become a cleansing as well as a saving Grace! God grant it to us, and may we all be among the pure, unto whom all things shall be pure. ("A Searching Test," in Metropolitan Tabernacle, 62:351-52)

The ministry of confrontation is not easy, but it is essential. When the integrity of the gospel is at stake, we cannot run and hide. We must stand and fight. Armed with truth, motivated by love, and clothed with a pure life, we can engage the enemy and rescue the captive, observing both the exhortation and the warning in Jude: "Save others by snatching them from the fire; have mercy on others but with fear, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh" (Jude 23). Truth matters. Truth is important. Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32).

Reflect and Discuss

Creflo Dollar, quoted in John Blake, "The Riches of God," Atlanta Journal/Constitution, August 23, 1997.