Holiness In A Healthy Church (1)

INSPIRED and led by the Spirit, Paul, the apostle was intensely practical in all his epistles. Indeed, all inspired writers in the New Testament were consistently practical, establishing foundational doctrines in all the epistles and then making proper application to the lives of their hearers. That has been God’s purpose in revealing the truth to His people.

God does not merely fill our minds and heads with the knowledge of divine truth, His desire is to make our hearts accept, love and obey His Word.

From the time of the Old Testament, this has been His plan and purpose. He demanded obedience from all people to whom He had revealed Himself. Immediately after revealing His will, He demanded obedience. When He gave redeemed Israel His law – the divine rule of living – He immediately asked, not for the memorisation of the Word, but for commitment to obedience, faithfulness and loyalty. Whenever there was disobedience, the mere knowledge of His Word was not rewarded; rather, their disobedience was rebuked and punished.

God’s word has always been applied to all people – members and ministers, parents and children, husbands and wives, masters and servants, employees and employers, priests and princes, men and women, old and young. Christ, in His earthly ministry, as Saviour and Lord, as Shephered and Teacher, also re-established this pattern. He revealed divine truth and immediately challenged the people to obey, emphasising the eternal consequence of disobedience. And He also applied the revealed truth to each and everyone. The epistle to Titus reminds all ministers that we are not mere teachers of religious knowledge, preparing our listeners for academic examination and certificate. We are preachers, prophets, teachers of divine truth, calling all our hearers to break away from sin, self and Satan, come to God through faith in Christ, and then live by the revealed truth, in readiness for eternal fellowship with God, Whose nature and habitation is holy.

The messages and teachings of Titus were to have practical application to “the aged men” (verse 2), “the aged women” (verse 3), “young women” (verse 4), “young men” (verse 6), “servants”, that is, employees (verse 9), “all men” and every “man” (verse 11 and 15). All who claim to be “ours”, who profess that “they have believed in God” (Titus 3:14,8), must be taught and systematically guided towards maturity. The aged are those who have advanced in age, who have experienced disappointment and disillusion in life and who find it difficult to accept change. As a creature of habit, the older people grow, the more difficult it becomes to see anything in a new way, to desire richer experiences in Christ, to focus on new goals and purpose for living, to break from the past and reach forth for new challenges. The older believers are in Christ, the more they think that they have known all there is to know and have done everything that can be done in the best way possible. Tired and weary, most “aged men” desire to be free from new challenges.

A few aged men have young hearts and eagle’s strength. At the age of 83, after having travelled some 250,000 miles on horseback, preached more than 40,000 sermons and authored some 200 books and pamphlets, John Wesley was still reading, writing, preaching and working for more than 15 hours a day. After his 86th birthday, he was still able to preach twice a day. The older we grow, the nearer we get to the end of life, the closer we are to the brink of eternity, and the more receptive we should be to divine truth and revelation. The older we become, the more we should discard earthly knowledge and pursuit and give attention to spiritual knowledge to prepare us for our eternal home.

Further Reading (King James Version): Titus 2:1-6; 1 Timothy 4:6,15,16; Psalm 92:12-14; Hebrews 5:14; Romans 13:11-14; 1 Peter 4:7; 1 Timothy 3:8-11; 1 Corinthians 9:25-27; Romans 4:20,21; Colossians 3:12-14; 1 Corinthians 13:1-7; Luke 21:17-19; 1 Timothy 3:11; 2:9-15; 1 Peter 3:4-6; Luke 1:5,6,38-56; Proverbs 31:10-31; 1 Thessalonians 2:7-10; 1 Timothy 5:5,10; 2 Timothy 1:5; 1 Timothy 5:9-14; Ephesians 5:22-33; Proverbs 22:6; Psalm 119:9-11; Proverbs 1:4,5; 1 John 2:13-17; Philippians 2:2-5; Colossians 1:28,29; Ephesians 4:11-16; 1 Thessalonians 5:6-24.