Titus 2:1-10 & the Teaching Ministry of the Church

This past Sunday, we looked at Titus 2:1-10 – a passage rich with personal challenge and application. However, in this post I would like to make a few observations about the implications of this passage for the teaching ministries of the church.

First, our teaching ministries must be firmly rooted in sound doctrine. We must not become slack or compromise on this point. For we cannot build strong Christian lives upon a shaky foundation. And sound doctrine is that foundation. So whether it’s men’s or women’s ministries, our Life Groups / small groups, or our Sunday school curriculum for our children, we must insist upon the fact that is it thoroughly biblical, robustly theological, and doctrinally sound. There’s plenty of superficial, not very substantive teaching material out there. We don’t need more of it. We need more sound doctrine coursing through our teaching curricula. So the first question we should be asking of curriculum or studies we might use would be: Is it firmly rooted in sound doctrine? And don’t just assume that because you found it at a Christian bookstore, or another church is using it to good effect, or its written by a well-known author, that its firmly rooted in sound doctrine.

Second, our teaching ministries must prioritize life-change. Paul said to Timothy that the goal of his instruction was love (1 Tim. 1:5); so too should it be the goal of all our instruction as well. We cannot be content with filling our heads with more and more and more knowledge. Knowledge is critical and foundational – don’t misunderstand me! Knowledge is just not sufficient in itself; it must lead to life-change. And so we must work hard to find out what “fits” with biblical teaching, and then teach it. Furthermore, we must do this from cradle to grave: from young to old. This is as important for our students as it is for our seniors; this is as critical for our kids as it is for our college-aged.

Third, our teaching ministries must creatively enable intergenerational, life-on-life interactions. The classroom is a necessary part of what it means to teach; but the classroom is rather limited. We need to think carefully and creatively about how it is that we can rub shoulders with one another on a more consistent basis so that the kind of modeling and mentoring happens. This is one of the primary reasons why our Life Groups at Calvary Memorial Church are not demographic or life-stage specific, but instead are multi-generational. So that this kind of life-on-life, cross-generational mentoring can happen on a more regular basis. We need to continue to think creatively about how to make that happen more and more and in other areas of the life and ministry of this church.

Fourth, and finally, our teaching ministries must be wholly reliant upon the grace of God. It is critical that we not forget this! It is all too tempting to come away from Sunday’s sermon with marching orders and try to man-handle the teaching ministry of the church. We must remember that it is the grace of God that trains us on the art of living Christianly in the world (2:11-12). It is reliance upon what God has done, not what we must do; it is resting in his provision for us, not the provisions we must make for ourselves; it is looking to his Holy Spirit for empowerment, not to ourselves for the necessary motivation to do what needs to be done. Unless we look to the grace of God and promote the grace of God in all our teaching, we may well end up in the predicament the Pharisees in Jesus’ day found themselves in: they were great teachers and holy, well-disciplined bunch, but they were miles and miles from the Kingdom of God because they didn’t understand the grace of God.