Rebels, Blabbermouths & Con Artists

“For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers, and deceivers, especially this of the circumcision party” (v10).

There’s trouble. Right here in River City. Okay, not so much River City, but Crete. Let’s back up just a bit to see what’s going on. Jesus’ incredible invitation for people everywhere to be a part of God’s kingdom is turning the Mediterranean island upside down. He has followers in every city. The Apostle Paul has moved on to his next divine assignment, but has left his go-guy behind and given him a three-point plan. First, Titus is to find spiritually mature leaders for every church (Titus 1:5). Second, he’s to shut up and shut down a pesky posse of false teachers (Titus 1:10-11). Third, he is establish a sustainable system of telling believers what it means to be followers of Jesus (Titus 2:1-10). 

Two out of the three of Big T’s assignments are positive. But one is dealing with a problem. That’s because there is indeed trouble in paradise. Believe it or not, there’s opposition to the amazing message of Jesus. And it’s coming from folks you think would be playing for the same team. “For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers, and deceivers, especially of the circumcision party” (v10). Rebels. Blabbermouths. Con artists. The worst part is that they should know better. They know Scripture. They know the promises of God. Or as the Message paraphrases this verse, “For there are a lot of rebels out there, full of loose, confusing, deceiving talk. Those who were brought up religious and ought to know better are the worst” (v10 The Message). This is an inside job. Sometimes the greatest opposition to Jesus’ Gospel are actually INSIDE the church!

Paul posts a wanted poster of the bad guys for Titus. He gives a description of who be on the look out for. First of all, they are “insubordinate” (v10). The original Greek term (anupotaktos) means rebellious, disobedient, outside of one’s control, not under orders, uncontrolled, and unruly. A few verses back, the apostle uses this same word when listing the qualities to look for in church leaders. An elders’ kids shouldn’t be “open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination (Gr. anupotaktos)” (Titus 1:6). But Titus is dealing with rebellious adults. These are folks who hang out in local churches. They  claim to one of us. There’s just one tiny problem. Nobody’s going to tell them what to do. Not a pastor. Not an elder. Not God. They are rebels. Rebels without a clue.

Before you get all holier-than-thou about these disobedient dudes, we need to realize that none of us want to be told what to do. We’re all rebels. You. Me. Us. Them. At least we were rebels before Jesus came to our rescue. Despite my one-man revolution against God’s kingdom, Jesus saved me and brought me into His family. He has shown me that His commandments aren’t a spiritual straightjacket but the expression of a loving heavenly Dad who wants His best for His child. Jesus is my Lord because He is in charge of my life. But there’s still part of me that bristles at being told what to do. I still am not crazy about submitting to authority. Over and over in the Bible, we’re reminded that we are to live in willing submission to every authority God places in our lives (Rom 13:1-7; Heb 13:17; 1Pet 2:13-25; Eph 5:21-6:9).

Paul tells Titus that another way of recognizing these rebels is that they talk too much. They are “empty talkers (Gr. mataiologos)” (v10). This compound noun literally means “empty (mataio-) word (-logos).” This is somebody who engages in useless chatter and is a foolish babbler. It makes me think of those annoying dudes in the dugout of a baseball game. “Hey, battah, battah, battah, SWING, battah!!” Despite talking all the time, they actually have absolutely nothing to say. Listen closely and you’ll notice that their words are devoid of any truth or value. Blah, blah, blah. They are biblical blabbermouths. Don’t miss the second part of their name. Logos is the Apostle John’s nickname for His Savior Jesus. “In the beginning was the Word (Gr. logos), and the Word (Gr. logos) was with God, and the Word (Gr. logos) was God” (Jn 1:1). Jesus is the physical and literal expression of God’s truth. What He says has power. What He says has force. What He says is truth. These blabbermouths are just the opposite of Jesus. Blah, blah, blah.

This hits just a little too close to home for me. I talk WAY too much! On one hand, I am a verbal processor. I think out loud. That’s not the bad part. The sinful side of being a motormouth is that I’m constantly trying to win everyone’s approval. I want people to like me so I am continually filling every moment of dead air with words. God makes it perfectly clear that less is more when it comes to talking (Prov 10:19; 13:3; 14:23; 17:28; 18:2; 21:23; 29:20; Ps 141:3; Ecc 5:2, 7; James 1:19; 3:6). And those are just a handful of the passages where God’s Word tells me to stuff a sock in my big yapper. Instead my words must build folks up not tear them down (Eph 4:29). 

These Cretan false teachers are rebels and blabbermouths, but that’s not all. They have an end game. There’s a method to their madness. That’s because they are “deceivers” (v10). Paul uses a term (Gr. phrenapates) that describes somebody who intentionally misleads. It literally means “mind (or soul) deceivers.” They aren’t trying to pull some sort of visual slight of hand. They aren’t playing three-card Monte. This is somebody causes people to longer believe what is true. These knuckleheads will use every trick in the book to cause you and me to doubt our faith. This was going on long before Titus got to work on Crete. Jeremiah dealt deceivers (Jer 14:14). And they are clearly still around today. 

Probably the most frustrating and dangerous aspect of these false teachers is that the danger is actually coming from folks close to us. Just like one of those slasher movies where the call is coming from inside the house (cue the shrieking female victim!). Paul tells Titus that these rebellious, blabbering con artists are actually members of the “circumcision party” (v10). We need a little history lesson to understand what’s going on here. God instituted circumcision to the Jewish people through Abraham as a reminder of His covenant promise to bless the world through them (Gen 17:11). That led to a view that saw the world as either insiders or outsiders. 

For the centuries that followed, there was tremendous racial and religious prejudice between Jews and the non-Jewish Gentiles. Jews rightly saw themselves as God’s chosen people. But they wrongly looked down as Gentiles with a real “sucks to be you” arrogance. That all changes when Jesus shows up and extends His invitation into God’s kingdom to the entire world. When God starts saving outsiders, Jewish Christians couldn’t figure out what to do (Acts 10:45; 11:2). That led to a HUGE meeting on the Gentile controversy back at the home office in Jerusalem. On one side you have folks in the circumcision party that demanded that Gentiles need to become Jews before they can follow Jesus (Acts 15:1, 5). On the other side, you have guys like Peter and Paul. They argued that it’s God’s decision about who gets in (Acts 15:4, 7-12). In the end, church leaders agreed that this is God’s call (always seems like a good idea to agree with the sovereign Lord of the universe, don’t you think?). 

Apparently the circumcision party wasn’t going down without a fight. They were up to their old tricks among Cretan Christians. That’s what makes this particularly hard to swallow. These are folks you think should know better. They know God’s Word. They’re not attacking from the outside. This is an inside job. False teachers are still up to their old tricks here in the 21st century. The modern version of the circumcisers are those religious cops who are constantly trying to tell others what they should and should not do in order to be sure of their salvation. Don’t let the bullies intimidate you into their legalistic rule keeping. We need to remember that we can’t save ourselves. That’s God’s job. He saves us through His Son. Jesus lived the perfect life that we’ve failed to live. He died the death for our sin that we should have died. He rose to new life that we don’t deserve.  

This is a great reminder that the Gospel doesn’t operate in a vacuum. We don’t live in the controlled environment of a lab. We live in the real world. And in the real world, there is opposition. And the most dangerous opposition is coming from inside the church. Look out for the rebels. Watch out for blabbermouths. Don’t fall victim to the con artists. Be careful because this is an inside job.