When someone is acting foolishly, have you ever heard anyone say, “Act your age, not your shoe size?”  Of course, this popular slogan would not be much of a rebuke for a nine-year-old!  That might be why I remember that when I was a boy, we used to say, “Act your age, not your IQ.”  Now that’s a pretty insulting thing to say to a nine-year-old!

While it is important to act your age at any age, it’s even more important for a Christian to act in such a way that is becoming to the truth of God’s Word, as Paul told Timothy to remind older men, saying,

“Speak thou the things which become sound doctrine: That the aged men be sober… temperate…” (Titus 2:1,2).

If aged Christian men want to live in such a way that is becoming to sound doctrine, they must be sober.  The only thing sadder than a drunk is an old drunk.  Many years ago I used to minister at the Chicago Gospel Mission.  I can remember putting my arm around old drunks while speaking to them about the Lord, and thinking how hard it must be to overcome an addiction that would have been more easily conquered earlier in life.  What a testimony to the wisdom of Solomon’s admonition, “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth” (Eccl. 12:1).

But the word “sober” has another meaning in Scripture.  Paul wrote the Romans,

“I say… to every man… not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly” (Rom. 12:3).

Do you see how that verse defines the word “sober” as not thinking too highly of yourself?

If you’re wondering why Paul would have to say this to aged men, it is because some of them are like King Nebuchadnezzar, who got to the end of his life and said,

“Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power…?” (Daniel 4:30).

Similarly, some aged men look back at their lives and think, “Wasn’t I something?  Look at all that I accomplished in my life!”  But that’s not thinking soberly. It’s thinking more highly of yourself than you ought.  And that’s certainly not a fitting way for an aged Christian man to think.

Paul also says that aged men should be “temperate,” a word that means moderate.  It is related to the word temper, of course, a word that we always associate with anger.  But anger is what happens when you lose your temper.  Your temper is the calm, moderate way in which we are all supposed to look at things without losing our temper.

Why would aged men need to be told to be temperate?  Well, not all aged men can look back at their lives and think highly of themselves because of what they accomplished.  Some look back and get angry that they didn’t accomplish more in their lives.  If you know any angry old men, that might be why.  But Paul says that aged men should be temperate instead.

That’s because if you’re an aged Christian man, you’ve accomplished more in life than you think.  In speaking of the Judgment Seat of Christ where your Christian life will be judged, Paul wrote,

“…judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come… then shall every man have praise of God” (I Corinthians 4:5).

When the Lord comes, all believers will have praise of God when their lives are reviewed.  So in the meantime, don’t be looking back at your life and judging yourself to be a failure, and getting angry about what you think you didn’t accomplish in life.  According to that verse, you have accomplished a praiseworthy amount of things in the eyes of God, no matter what age you might be.  You have His Word on it!

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.

Two Minutes with the Bible is now available on Alexa devices. Full instructions here.

I’m sure you’ve heard of absent-minded professors, men who are so engrossed in their deep thoughts that they tend to lose track of the little things we must all keep in mind in order to get along in life.  Well, in Paul’s letter to Titus, the apostle warned the young man about some false teachers, saying,

“…even their mind… is defiled.  They profess that they know God; but in works they deny Him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate” (Titus 1:15,16).

From the context, we know that these defiled-minded professors were the “vain talkers… of the circumcision” (Tit. 1:10) who were “teaching things which they ought not” (v. 11).  I think Paul called them “defiled” because these unsaved Jews were trying to teach the grace believers in Crete’s churches that they would be defiled if they ate meats prohibited by the law of Moses, for that’s what the law said of such people (Lev. 11:43).

But it doesn’t say that about those of us who are not under the law, but under grace (Rom. 6:15 cf. I Tim. 4:1-5).  Paul just finished saying of us, “unto the pure all things are pure” (v. 15), speaking of the foods we eat (cf. Rom. 14:20).  So Paul turned the tables on those defiled-minded professors, and said that it was “their mind” that was actually “defiled” for thinking that way, not the people who ate those meats!

When Paul said that these defiled-minded professors were “abominable,” he is again turning the tables on those legalizers.  You see, “abominable” is another word the law used of those who ate unclean meats (Lev. 11:41-43).  So in calling the legalizers “abominable,” Paul is assuring the grace believers in Crete’s churches that they weren’t abominable, their accusers were. 

In calling these false teachers “disobedient,” I believe Paul was again responding to the charges that these defiled-minded professors were levying against the saints.  When the grace believers in Crete’s churches insisted that they could eat meats that were banned by the law, they were probably accused of having cast the law behind their backs, for that’s the very definition of the word “disobedient” under the law (cf. Neh. 9:26).  But in rushing to the defense of the Cretian believers, Paul points out that the Law teachers were the ones who were really “disobedient,” as were all unsaved Jews (Rom. 10:21) who had not “obeyed the gospel” (Rom. 10:16).

Finally, Paul calls these legalizers “reprobate” (Tit. 1:16).  That’s a word that the dictionary defines as abandoned, and that’s how the word is used in Scripture as well.  In speaking of the Gentiles who lived before Abraham, God said that He had to give them up and give them over to “a reprobate mind” (Rom. 1:24,26,28).  That’s pretty much the definition of abandonment, and that’s why Paul called those ancient Gentiles reprobate.

But the unsaved Jews in Paul’s day had become just as reprobate! When Paul says that they were reprobate “unto every good work,” that meant they were totally incapable of doing anything that pleased God.  No wonder the apostle Paul, in speaking of both Jews and Gentiles, wrote:

“God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all” (Romans 11:32).

Today, unsaved Jews are just as defiled-minded as unsaved Gentiles, but God is willing to have mercy on them all.  All He asks is that they believe the only reason they’re worthy of Heaven is that Christ paid for their sins on the cross of Calvary and rose again.  If you’re not saved, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.

Two Minutes with the Bible is now available on Alexa devices. Full instructions here.

“Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled” (Titus 1:15).

The “pure” here are people whom God has saved by His grace (Eph. 2:8,9), “purifying their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:9).  In Crete, where Titus was stationed (Tit. 1:5), some “vain talkers…of the circumcision” (1:10) were telling the purified believers in Crete’s churches that they would be “defiled” if they ate meats prohibited by the law of Moses (Lev. 11:43).  But “we are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom. 6:15), and under grace “the kingdom of God is not meat and drink” so “all things indeed are pure” for purified believers (Rom. 14:17,20)—just as Paul told Titus (Tit. 1:15).

But “unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure,” not even the meats that Moses approved under the law!  If you’re wondering why everything an unbeliever eats is impure, it is because everything he does is impure.  You see, everything an unbeliever does is sin.  When a believer plows his field, he is being obedient to God’s command to work for a living, but “the plowing of the wicked, is sin” (Pr. 21:4).  The “wonderful works” that unsaved men do are considered “iniquity” in God’s eyes (Mt. 7:22,23), for all of their righteousnesses “are as filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6).  “Even their mind and conscience is defiled” (Tit. 1:15), for “the thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the LORD” (Pr. 15:26), because “their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity” (Isa. 59:7).

The bad news is, if your mind is defiled, you’re not going to be able to trust your conscience, despite how unsaved people encourage one another to “let your conscience be your guide.”  Paul knew by experience that the conscience of unsaved men “is defiled” (Tit. 1:15), for before he was saved, he brutally executed God’s people “in all good conscience before God” (Acts 23:1).  His defiled mind was telling him that they were wrong and he was right, so his defiled conscience didn’t bother him a bit!

The good news is, there is a cure for the impure!  As impure as men are in the sight of God, “our Saviour Jesus Christ… gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people” (Titus 2:13,14).   “Jesus Christ…loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood” (Revelation 1:5).  The Corinthians were a very sinful group of people, but Paul could even write to them and say, “ye are washed…ye are sanctified…ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus” (I Cor. 6:11).

How does an impure sinner access this cleansing blood of Christ?  Well, it is certainly “not by works of righteousness which we have done” (Titus 3:5).  Every purified sinner knows that it was “according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration” (Titus 3:5).  The word “regeneration” means the giving of “newness of life” (Romans 6:4).

If you don’t care much for your present life, why not let God give you a new life?  One that will begin the moment you believe that “Christ died for our sins…and…rose again” (I Corinthians 15:3,4)—everlasting life that will never see an end.

To the Reader:

Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:

"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."

To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.

Two Minutes with the Bible is now available on Alexa devices. Full instructions here.