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Grace Appeared to Train Us (Titus 2:11-12) · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reform Thinking. We are doing a special deep dive
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today and well, I want you to imagine trying to keep a pure
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white suit perfectly clean while working a 12 hour shift in a
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city sewer. Oh man, yeah, that is quite the
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visual and it is great to be here, by the way.
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Glad to have you. But yeah, think about that white
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suit. That is essentially what the
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Apostle Paul was asking a young pastor named Titus to do in the
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1st century for sure. You know, if you are listening
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to this right now, looking around at the current cultural
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landscape, living a holy life in such a toxic, highly secularized
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environment can feel like an entirely impossible task.
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Yeah, it really. Does often feels like you're
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trying to hold back the ocean with a broom, But today our
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mission is to look closely at a theological examination of Titus
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chapter 2, specifically verses 11 and 12.
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Right, which are massive verses. They are.
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We are going to understand how saving grace functions.
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And spoiler alert, it does not function as a passive ticket to
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heaven. It acts as an active, strict
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instructor in a believer's daily life.
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Yeah, it is a very aggressive solution to the moral decay
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surrounding us. Which is why I have our resident
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expert here to help unpack the historical and theological
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weight of these ancient texts. We have a lot of ground to
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cover. We do.
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And to give you a brief tease of where we are heading today, the
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central thesis we will uncover is that the grace that rescues
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our wretched center is the precise same grace that demands
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the execution of their worldly passions.
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Oh wow. Yeah, it is not two different
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things. It is one divine force doing 2
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very distinct actions. I love that framing execution of
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worldly passions that sets the stakes right away it.
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Definitely does. So to grasp the gravity of
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Paul's words to Titus, we first need to establish the desperate
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reality of the culture they were addressing.
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Because, I mean, it drastically mirrors our own.
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Yeah, it is almost terrifying how similar it is.
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Looking at the sources, the modern statistics are
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staggering. Like the Barney Group recently
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reported that a stunningly low 4% of American adults hold a
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biblical worldview. Yeah, just 4%. 4% And then
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Covenant Eyes reveals that over 50% of Christian men are
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actively entangled in the bondage of pornography.
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And you know, that number is growing among women as well.
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Right, it is everywhere. Worldly passions are not just
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knocking on the church doors, they are sitting right there in
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the pews. The statistics are a devastating
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reality check for sure, because when we see numbers like 4%
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holding a biblical worldview, we are acknowledging that the
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church is an extreme minority. Yeah, we are operating in
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hostile territory. Exactly, and this modern moral
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crisis connects directly to the situation in 1st century Crete.
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Paul wrote this pastoral letter to his trusted Apostolic
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delegate Titus. Who was stationed on the island
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of Crete, right? Yeah, and Crete was not like a
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quiet, picturesque retirement community.
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It was a massive maritime hub in the Mediterranean Sea.
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So lots of traffic. Constant traffic.
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It drew sailors, merchants, wealthy traders, vagabonds from
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every single corner of the Greco Roman Empire.
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And you know, with all that Sutter wealth and transient
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population came an influx of absolute moral corruption.
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I read in the notes that their reputation was so notorious.
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The Greeks actually a specific verb for their behavior.
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Yes, the verb is cretizing. Yeah, which translates literally
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to cretinize. Wait, so they literally made the
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island's name an insult? They did.
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And what did it mean to cretinize?
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It meant to lie, to deceive, to act like a cretin.
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The entire culture was synonymous with deceit and
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unbridled hedonism. That is wild.
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Paul himself quotes one of their own revered prophets, a man
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named Epimenides, who said Cretans are always liars, evil
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beasts, lazy gluttons. And Paul validates that, doesn't
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he? He does.
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He quotes that in chapter 1 and says this testimony is true.
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So this was a society steeped in Pagan idolatry, governed by
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deceit, and entirely given over to the appetites of the flesh.
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They gloried in their shame. That brings that white suit
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analogy to life. It really does.
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Because thinking about those believers in creed surrounded by
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filth, I mean, the atmosphere is toxic, the cultural air you
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breathe is polluted, and yet you are commanded to remain
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unspotted. How on earth does Titus manage
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that? Well, that analogy of the white
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suit in a sewer captures the sheer difficulty of the task
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perfectly. And we have to recognize the
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massive pressure Titus faced because he was actually fighting
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A2 front. War 2 Front War.
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On the one side, as we just discussed, he had the carnal
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indulgence of the native Cretan culture right, the hedonism.
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But on the other side, inside the church, he faced the threat
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of what Paul calls the circumcision party.
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The Judaizers. Precisely.
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These were Judaizers pushing a rigid works based legalism.
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They were mixing Jewish myths with the gospel, subverting
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entire households for shameful financial gain.
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So Titus has hedonism on his left and legalism on his right.
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Right. He needed a theological weapon
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that could simultaneously crush both of those massive errors.
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OK, let's unpack this because that theological weapon is what
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Paul hands him in verse 11. It is, Paul writes.
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For the grace of God has appeared.
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I'm going to look closely at that specific phrase.
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It sounds so familiar to anyone who grew up in the church.
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But what is actually happening in the original language?
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So the Greek word translated as has appeared is epiphany.
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It is an incredibly muscular word, epiphany, right?
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In the ancient Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the
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Old Testament. This exact root word is used in
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Psalm 80, verse 3. The psalmist is crying out in
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desperation. Restore us, O God, let your face
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shine, that we may be saved. Oh wow, so the word for shine is
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that rude? Yes, so Paul is declaring that
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the ancient, desperate cry of Israel has finally been
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answered. The face of God has shown upon a
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Dark World. So it is not like a gradual
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sunrise is a sudden burst of light.
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Precisely, and in Greco Roman extra biblical literature, an
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epiphania was the technical term used to describe the sudden
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rescuing intervention of a deity.
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Like an epiphany, exactly where we get the word picture a
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disastrous military battle, the soldiers are surrounded, the
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line is breaking, all hope is entirely lost.
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Then suddenly a deity into the battle and rescues the perishing
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army. That is the imagery.
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God's grace was not discovered by human reflection.
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Nobody sat under a tree and philosophized their way into
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grace. No, absolutely not.
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It violently suddenly invaded human history in the
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Incarnation, the perfect life, the substitutionary death and
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the triumphant resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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Man, that reframes the entire concept of grace.
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It is not an abstract cosmic mood.
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It is a historical rescue mission.
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It is an invasion, right? Having established that this
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grace has violently invaded a dark sewer like world, we need
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to look at who this grace is actually for and specifically
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how it operates once it makes contact with a human life.
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Yeah, and this is where we have to be highly rigorous with the
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text. Verse 11 says that this grace
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brings salvation for all people. I want to push back on that
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phrasing for a second. Sure, when the text says for all
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people, a lot of modern readers might jump straight to
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universalism. Like, does this mean every
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single person on earth is saved regardless of whether they
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repent or believe? Because that is a very popular
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narrative right now. It is a popular narrative, but
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it is an entirely false one that violates the literary context of
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the passage. We always have to read the text
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in its immediate surroundings. Great context is everything.
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Exactly in the 1st 10 verses of chapter 2, Paul lists very
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specific demographics within the local congregation.
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He gives commands to older men, to older women, to younger
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women, to younger men, and to slaves or bond servants.
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So he is hitting every category. He is.
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Therefore, when Paul says salvation is for all people in
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verse 11, he means all classes of people without distinction,
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not all people without exception.
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OK, so it shatters demographic. The saving grace of God is not
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restricted to wealthy, free, educated men.
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It reaches down to the lowest rungs of Cretan society.
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It reaches the slaves, the young, the old.
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Yes. The gospel creates a community
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across all societal and ethnic lines.
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It proclaims the universal scope of the gospel's reach, showing
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that no class of person is outside the boundaries of God's
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saving action. But it does not overthrow the
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biblical doctrine that salvation requires faith and repentance.
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That distinction is crucial. Now here is where we get into
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the real action of the text. Because grace does not just
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save, it does something else. Verse 12 says it is training us.
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I'm fascinated by this. The Greek word there is
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paeduosa. Paeduosa, right?
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This is the route from which we get the English word pedagogy.
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In ancient Greek culture, the pay duos was not a soft, gentle
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tutor who just offered suggestions.
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Oh really? No, he was a strict
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disciplinarian. He was responsible for the total
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moral and physical upbringing of a child.
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This instructor would often use a physical rod for corporal
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punishment to correct. Folly.
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Wait, hold on. You're saying Grace has a rod?
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Essentially, yes. Because the modern church
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usually pitches grace as this warm, unconditional hug, Saying
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grace disciplines feels like an oxymoron.
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How does that actually work? Well, it feels contradictory to
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modern sensibilities, but it is absolutely necessary.
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This concept of the strict instructor contrasts heavily
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with two massive modern errors that our sources bring to mind.
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OK, what are those errors? 1st, the sources point out the
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Roman Catholic Sacramento system, arguing that it demands
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human merit and ecclesiastical mediation.
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It turns grace into something you earn or maintain through
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works. Right, the legalism side.
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Exactly, but on the exact opposite side of the spectrum.
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The sources critique modern seeker sensitive liberal
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theology. They argue this movement
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flattens grace into mere tolerance for sin, teaching a
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vile antinomianism. Which means against the law.
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Right. Yes, against the law, according
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to this critique. They tell people that since God
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is gracious, your ongoing unrepentant sin is totally fine.
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They turn the grace of God into a license for immorality.
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It seems like cheap grace coddles us in our corruption.
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It packs us on the head while we sit in the filth.
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That is exactly what it does. But biblical grace, this divine
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pedagogue, wages a holy war against our remaining flesh.
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It pulls us out of the sewer and then strictly trains us to never
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go back in. That is a perfect summary, the
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text says. Grace is training us.
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The precise same grace that appeared bringing salvation in
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verse 11 is the precise same grace that is actively,
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continuously educating and disciplining us in verse 12.
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So they are tied together. You cannot separate them.
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The syntax of the text forbids the idea of a carnal Christian
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who accepts Christ as a rescuer, but entirely rejects him as a
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strict instructor. So what does this all mean?
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If Grace is the strict instructor, what is the actual
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curriculum like? What are the specific lessons we
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are being for 1st to learn in this school of grace?
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Well, the curriculum is broken down into two mandates, a
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negative mandate and a positive mandate.
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OK, let us look at the negative mandate first.
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So the text says we are trained to renounce ungodliness and
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worldly passions. The Greek word for announcing is
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an A orist middle participle arnosa minoy.
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Arnosa Minoy. Right.
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This indicates A decisive, punctilular repudiation.
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It is a violent, definitive no. Let's translate that out of
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seminary speak. What does that mean for me at
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2:00 PM on a Tuesday? So it is not a gentle weaning
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process. It is a sharp severing.
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Yes, in the original language, this isn't a slow, gentle
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weaning off your bad habits. It's grammatically structured as
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a sharp, sudden snapping of a branch.
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Wow. It's a violent, decisive no.
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Believers are trained to look at 2 specific things and
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categorically reject them. And.
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What are those two things? 1st is a Sabian, which
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translates to ungodliness or a lack of reverence toward God.
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OK, so a vertical rejection. Yeah, this is the root disorder
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of human life. It is living as if God does not
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matter, even if you keep up a religious appearance.
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You can look spiritual but be entirely ungodly.
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Exactly. The second target is cosmicas
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epithemias, which are worldly passions.
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These are the desires driven by the fallen world system.
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Like what? Well, it includes gross
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sensuality, like the statistics regarding pornography we
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mentioned earlier, but it also includes respectable idols.
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Respectable idols. Yeah, you know the craving for
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reputation, money, ease, control, novelty and the
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approval of men. Grace teaches the believer to
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say a definitive no where. The old fallen nature once
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eagerly said yes. I have to ask a critical
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question here. When you start talking about a
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strict list of rules, saying a violent no to desires, and
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focusing heavily on behavioral commands, doesn't this risk
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becoming a bloodless moralism? That is a very fair question.
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Like how do we prevent this from just being a conservative
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behavior modification program? Well, that is the danger if you
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severed the text from its literary anchor.
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We avoid bloodless moralism by looking at the grammatical hinge
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of the entire passage, which is at the very start of verse 11.
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There is a tiny coordinating conjunction for.
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In Greek it is the word gar. Gar.
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Just a tiny word. Yeah, but this word is the
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engine of the entire argument. In verses one through 10, Paul
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gave strict commands to to the older men, younger women, and
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slaves. Right, behave like this.
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Do that. But those commands are only
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possible because of the theological reality.
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In verses 11 through 14, doctrine dictates duty.
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You cannot have the moral conduct without the saving
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Christ. So the behavior is the fruit,
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not the root. Precisely.
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If you isolate the commands, you get crushing legalism.
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If you isolate the grace, you get lawless antinomianism.
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Paul binds them together with that word for justification
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being declared righteous before God and sanctification being
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made actually holy in your daily life cannot be severed.
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The grace that justifies is the grace that sanctifies that.
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Makes total sense. Grace doesn't just teach
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believers what to reject, it dictates specifically how
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they're to live in the vacuum left behind by thin.
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Yes, exactly. It's like.
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Downloading a massive operating system update on your phone.
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Grace doesn't just clear out the malware the negative mandate.
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It installs a completely new user interface that changes how
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you interact with everything. That is a great way to put it.
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Because you cannot just empty a House of bad habits and leave it
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empty when you have to fill it with something else.
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So let's look at the positive mandate.
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You mentioned the negative mandate was a decisive no.
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What is the positive mandate? Well, I.
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See, in the text there's a specific triad of adverbs that
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define the exact nature of this radically changed life.
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Can you break those down for us? Absolutely.
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The pedagogy of grace fills the believer with righteousness.
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The positive mandate is governed by the command to live.
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And Paul provides 3 highly specific adverbs that show us
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comprehensive Christian holiness.
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OK, what is the first one? The first adverb is sophronous,
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which translates to self controlled or sober minded.
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Sophronous. Right.
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This addresses the inward life. It is the internal discipline
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over your desires, your emotions, your judgment, and
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your appetites. Oh man.
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In our modern context, this heavily applies to our screens,
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our constant need for entertainment and our emotional
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outbursts. Oh for sure, Grace trains us to
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bring our internal faculties under the strict authority of
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truth. That hits close to home.
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So the first adverb is inward. What is the 2nd?
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The second adverb is D kice, which translates to upright or
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justly. OK, so if the first word was
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inward, the second word is outward.
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Yes, it addresses our conduct toward our neighbors.
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It means dealing honestly in your business, keeping your
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promises and refuses using to exploit others.
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And the sources have something to say about this right now.
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They are very clear in how they contrast this.
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They argue that this biblical uprightness aggressively pushes
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back against modern secular philosophies.
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Like what kind of philosophies? Well, for instance, the authors
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contend that frameworks like critical race theory or modern
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social justice movements are rooted in Marxist philosophy
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rather than biblical truth. And you know, whether you agree
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with that assessment or not, the core theological argument here
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is that biblical brightness is defined by God's law, not by
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sociological theories. That is a critical distinction
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the sources are making, especially today when the
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dictionary definition of justice is constantly being rewritten by
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the culture. So we have inward self-control,
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outward uprightness. What is the third adverb?
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The third is Eusbus, which translates to godly or
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reverently. So upward.
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Yes, this is the upward vertical direction.
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It describes our direct devotion and reverence toward the Lord.
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It dictates our worship, our prayer life, our intake of
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Scripture, and our core fear of God.
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So we have an inward, outward, and upward transformation.
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It covers every possible angle of human existence.
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It is entirely comprehensive. You cannot reduce the Christian
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life to just one of these dimensions.
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Right, because you might have someone who is publicly
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respectable, you know, outwardly upright, but they are inwardly
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enslaved to lust. Or they might be socially kind,
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but they possess 0 vertical reverence toward God.
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The divine pedagogue trains the whole person for whole life
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obedience. And there is an ultimate goal to
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all of these behaviors. Looking back at the earlier
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verses in the chapter, Paul says the goal is so that the Word of
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God will not be reviled and so that believers will adorn the
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doctrine of God our Savior. I love that phrasing.
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Adorn the doctrine. It is a stunning visual, isn't
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it? The lives of the Saints are
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meant to be the visible garments that dress the invisible gospel.
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Wow, yes. This connects directly to the
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workplace in the home. When a 1st century slave refused
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to steal from his Pagan master, or when an older woman refused
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to gossip and get drunk, their radical behavior became a
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billboard for the gospel. It forced the Pagan culture to
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ask what on earth has happened to these people?
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The church's strength lies in its radical distinctiveness, not
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in mimicking the culture. If the church just looks like a
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sanitized version of the local Country Club or a rock concert
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with dim lights and smoke machines, why would the world
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care? Spot on.
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The pragmatists of our day argue that to reach the World, we must
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look and sound like the world. We soften the hard edges of
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truth. We refuse to mention sin or
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repentance. All to be relevant.
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But Titus chapter 2 teaches the total opposite.
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It really does. If your church looks and
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entertains just like the Pagan world, you have abandoned the
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pedagogy of grace. Outsiders might accuse
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Christians of many things, but our holy conduct is meant to put
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opponents to shame. The Doctor of God, our Savior,
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must be adorned by lives, trained by grace.
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Here's where it gets really interesting because we have
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talked a lot about the mechanism of grace, the rules of grace,
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the adverbs of grace. But grace is not just an
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abstract concept. It is not a fluid substance
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poured out of a pitcher. Grace is personified.
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Yes, and to preach this text without focusing on the person
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of Jesus Christ would be a massive failure.
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Grace has appeared in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
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He is the incarnation of grace. He.
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Is the apostle John wrote that the Word became flesh and dwelt
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among us, full of grace and truth.
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The sources highlight that Christ lived the perfect life of
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active obedience that sinners entirely failed to live.
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He possessed the inward self-control, the outward
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uprightness, and the upward godliness perfectly.
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He fulfilled the law where we broke it.
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He feared his father perfectly, he loved his neighbor purely,
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and he rejected the devil's temptations decisively.
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So he accomplished the entire triad of those adverbs.
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Yes, completely. His act of obedience supplies
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the righteousness by which believers are justified, and His
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life reveals the exact pattern to which grace now conforms us.
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The text also points to the specific offices Christ holds.
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As we synthesize the demands of this text, we shift the focus
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away from her own human effort and place it entirely on the
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Savior. Can you break down how Christ
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functions as prophet, priest and king in this context?
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Oh, the connection is glorious. Let us look at His office as
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priest first. Verse 14, which is inseparable
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from our main text, says that He gave Himself for us to redeem us
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from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for
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His own possession. So he purchases his people.
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Right as our great High Priest, he brought salvation.
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He offered himself as the perfect blood bought sacrifice
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to satisfy divine justice. God does not educate sinners by
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ignoring their guilt. He educates those whom Christ
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has purchased. The cross is the absolute
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foundation of the school of Grace.
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It is so the priest pays the tuition for the school, so to
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speak. What about his role as prophet?
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As prophet, he is the divine pedagogue we have been
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discussing. Christ teaches his people
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through His Word. So not through mystical
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feelings. No, he does not lead his church
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by new mystical revelations that compete with Scripture, nor by
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vague inward impressions. He has given a sufficient
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authoritative gospel gospel, and through that word the Prophet
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instructs, corrects, and disciplines his people.
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And finally as King. As King, he demands absolute
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allegiance. The present age remains hostile,
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but Christ already reigns. He is ruling now.
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Yes, His grace invades enemy territory, which is the fallen
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world, transfer sinners into His Kingdom and teaches them to live
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as loyal subjects. Wow.
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When you renounce A worldly passion, that is an act of
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allegiance to the King. To say no to sin is to boldly
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confess that Jesus, not the world, is Lord.
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Want to point out a phrase you just mentioned and it is right
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there in verse 12 in the present age.
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Yeah, Antonio Naiken. This bounds the application of
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the text to our current reality. We're living between two massive
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events. We are living in an
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eschatological tension. We live between the first
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Advent, which was the historical appearance of saving grace we
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see in verse 11, and the second Advent.
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Which verse 13 calls the Blessed Hope.
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Right. The appearing of the glory of
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our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.
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The first appearing brought grace.
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The future appearing brings consummated glory.
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So we are not trying to build a utopian paradise on Earth right
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now, but we're also not retreating into monasteries to
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hide. Correct.
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The Christian endures the strict discipline of grace right now in
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the dirt and the grind of this present evil age precisely
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because they are actively waiting for the sky to split.
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We are pilgrims, trained by grace, anticipating glory.
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Yes, and this frame protects us from despair when the culture
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gets darker, and it protects us from triumphalism, thinking we
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can fix the world through social schemes.
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Because the struggle against sin will not last forever.
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No, it won't. The Christ who redeemed us from
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the penalty of sin is currently breaking the strength of sin
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within us, and He is coming back to remove us from the very
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presence of sin entirely. That is an incredibly clarifying
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perspective. It reorients the whole Christian
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life. We endure the training because
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we know the King is returning. Absolutely.
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To summarize the core lesson for you, the listener, biblical
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grace is not a permissive excuse for spiritual laziness.
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It does not look the other way when you indulge the flesh.
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But it is also not a works based treadmill where you try to earn
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God's favor through exhausting neuralism.
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It is the divine instructor that violently rescues you, strictly
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corrects you, and relentlessly conforms you to the image of
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Jesus Christ. The grace that saves is the
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precise same grace that sanctifies.
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If you claim to know the grace of God, but you are highly
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comfortable sitting in your worldly passions, you are a
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stranger to the true grace of the Bible.
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I want to leave you with a final, unexamined idea drawn
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from the margins of this text. It is something to chew on long
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after we wrap up. Look at the context Paul chose
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for this massive cosmos altering theology of grace.
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Yeah, it is fascinating. He anchors it directly into the
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most mundane, unglamorous aspects of daily life.
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He applies his towering theology to how older men act, how
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younger women manage a home, how employees treat their bosses.
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So practical. He does not apply it to massive
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political campaigns or spectacular miracles.
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He applies it to the quiet, everyday moments.
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If you are listening to this on your commute right now, think
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about your workplace. You probably have an incredibly
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difficult boss. Most people do.
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According to this test, dealing with that boss without losing
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your temper isn't just HR compliance, it's the curriculum
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of grace. Consider this what if the
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ordinary unglamorous duties of your household in your daily
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workplace are actually the primary sacred classroom where
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the grace of God is waiting to train you today?