Titus 1:16 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Titus 1:16

Comments

‘They profess that they know God; but in works’ – in what they do – ‘they deny him.’ Then there are these crushing terms: ‘being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate’, unapproved, unfit. ‘They profess that they know God’ – there is the clue. Many of them, most of them, don't really know him, because if you look at their works, they deny him. Of course it is also disobedient. ‘And unto every good work reprobate’, unfit, rejected. God won’t use them for any good works, true salvation, true conversion. They are not converted themselves. How can the disobedient bring people to obedience to God? Now all that is a negative, and all that is a warning. What are we protecting is the gospel, the worship of God, the word of God, love for Christ. We are protecting the possibility that people may come to him as he is, by repentance, and love him, and serve him, and yield their lives to him, and make sacrifices for him. That is what we are protecting: love and obedience to Christ. So in this first chapter of Titus, the apostle warns us how we may need to stand for the faith.

Application

‘I know God’, they say. ‘I have been converted, and then they take Baal music, worldly music, music in the style that the world has invented for the drugs culture, the disobedience culture, and they pollute reverent worship with all that sensual stuff and heavy rhythm, and so on. Their works show they don't know God at all. They have no idea that they have to be reverent. Love him, yes; love him, but also fear him, and be subordinate and obedient to him. That isn't in their heads. They profess that they know him, but in works they deny him. What they are doing gives the game away. Paul says, ‘being abominable’, that is, being a detestable thing to God They are almost like those who put up an idol, a heathen idol in the church, and call upon people to worship it. That would be an abomination, a detestable thing to God, and they have brought the world into the church wholesale.

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Titus 1:16 Commentary and Bible Study