“If Solomon was given such great wisdom, why wasn’t he able to use it in his own affairs?”

Solomon is well known for the wisdom he demonstrated when two women both claimed to be the mother of a baby boy. His suggestion that the baby be divided in half with a sword to satisfy both parties revealed which woman was the loving mother and which was a selfish imposter (1 Kings 3:16-28). In addition, the wisdom he displayed in the Book of Proverbs is part of the reason that the books of Job through Ecclesiastes are known as the “wisdom literature” in the Bible. The Queen of Sheba found his wisdom positively breathtaking (1 Kings 10:4,5).

But in his own personal life, Solomon displayed a striking lack of wisdom when he married “outlandish” pagan women who caused him to sin (1 Kings 11:1-8; Neh. 13:26). In addition, his decision to unwisely tax the people of Israel too heavily planted seeds of discontent in the northern ten tribes, seeds that eventually led them to secede and form their own nation (1 Kings 12). Plus, how unwise do you have to be to choose to have a thousand mothers-in-law? (I can say that because I have a terrific mother-in-law!)

But while Solomon’s wisdom is legendary, God would have had to interfere with his free will to cause him to implement his wisdom and use it to govern his affairs. And if God were to force a man in Israel to walk in wisdom, how could He justly reward him with “ten cities” to rule in the kingdom of heaven on earth (Luke 19:17), while only giving “five cities” to a man He didn’t force to walk in wisdom (v. 19)?

An old saying says, “Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.” Similarly, God’s right to impose His will ends where man’s will begins, something that He decreed to be so in the original creation. You see, He Himself has free will, and He made man in His own image (Gen. 1:27). And while man fell afterwards, we know that he still retains the image of God, for the reason murder is still a capital offense is that “in the image of God made He man” (Gen. 9:6).

What a lesson for us! It’s not how wise you are about the Bible that matters, it’s whether you are walking in wisdom that counts with God. Remember, it is our apostle Paul who wrote,

“Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, DO: and the God of peace shall be with you” (Phil. 4:9).

“Which name of the Lord do we have to call on to be saved?”

“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13).

The Lord had many names, but Paul is quoting Joel 2:32 here, where the name “Lord” means Jehovah. In Romans 10:13, the name we “call” on today (1 Cor. 1:2) is “Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Calling on the Lord’s name means different things in Scripture. After God stopped speaking to men directly, as He did with Adam and Cain, “then began men to call upon the name of the Lord” (Gen. 4:26). That means calling on His name can mean to pray (Zech. 13:9) and ask God for things (1 Kings 18:24,36,37; Psa. 116:4). Or it can just mean to know Him (Psa. 79:6; Jer. 10:25).

But in Joel 2:32, we know that it means to believe the gospel, for Joel predicted that whoever called on the LORD would be saved. But when Peter quoted Joel (Acts 2:21), he went on to say that whoever would repent and be baptized would be saved (Acts 2:38). Paul likewise makes clear that calling on the Lord’s name (Rom. 10:13) means to believe the gospel (v. 11), only today the gospel is “the word of faith” that Paul preached (10:8):

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom. 10:9).

“Atheists say that God is a thug and is not moral at all… what about the story of the bear mauling kids to death just because they called someone bald? Ricky, why is such material recorded in the Word of God?”

“… Elisha… went up… and… there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said… Go up, thou bald head… And he… cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them” (2 Kings 2:22-24).

God’s covenant with Israel said that He’d curse them if they didn’t obey Him, with the intensity of the curses increasing if they persisted in their disobedience (Lev. 26:14-21). So we know that God’s people in Elisha’s day must have ignored His initial curses if He allowed wild beasts to rob them of their children (v. 22).

“Little children” go to be with the Lord when they die, so the bereaved parents of these little ones were the biggest losers. But if losing their children caused them to begin to obey God’s law, it may have led to their eternal salvation. And God is always more interested in our eternal destiny than He is in allowing us to lead a trouble-free existence in this life.

“Pastor Stam wrote that ‘the earth will never be destroyed,’ that it will be made new instead (Rev. 21:1). What do you say about 2 Peter 3:10,11?”

“…the earth…shall be burned up…all these things shall be dissolved…” (2 Pet. 3:10,11).

Paul uses that same word “dissolved” to describe the dissolution of our physical bodies when we die, saying, “if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God…eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor. 5:1). When our bodies die, they dissolve. Ecclesiastes 12:7 says, “then shall the dust return to the earth.”

Yet in speaking about the day of his resurrection (Job 19:25), Job wrote, “in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another” (Job 19:26,27). That means that the physical bodies we have now are the same ones we’ll have for all eternity, even though the Bible says they are “dissolved” at death. Our bodies will be made new, but Job says they will be the same flesh.

We know that our experience as members of the Body of Christ will be the same as Job’s, for our apostle tells us that at the Rapture the Lord will “change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body” (Phil. 3:21). And in speaking of His  glorious resurrection body, the Lord echoed Job’s words when He said, “Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I myself” (Luke 24:39). He told them to handle His hands and feet because His new body still bore the wounds His old flesh incurred (John 20:27).

Of course, the glory of our new resurrection bodies will greatly exceed the glory of the body we plant in the ground. It will exceed it in glory as much as a six foot stalk of corn exceeds the kernel of corn that farmers plant in the ground (1 Cor. 15:35-38). But it will still be the body that is dissolved in the ground, just as the corn stalk is still that same kernel of corn. That’s the point of Paul’s comparison.

So when Peter uses that same word to say that the world will be “dissolved,” I have to think that the same thing applies to the earth. It will be a new earth, a much more glorious earth, but it will still be the same earth.

Someone else responded to Pastor Stam’s article to point out that John saw a vision in which the first earth was “passed away” (Rev. 21:1). But in that same Two Minutes devotional, Pastor Stam went on to cite verse 5, saying, “He didn’t say ‘I make all new things,’ but ‘I make all things new.’ There is a difference.”

“If the 12 didn’t know the Lord had to die (Luke 18:31-34), why did they ask for the sign of His coming (Matt. 24:3)?”

The Lord had often told them that He would have to die (Matt. 16:21; 17:22,23; 26:2), but evidently it was hard for them to believe that someone who could calm a storm and raise the dead could Himself die.

It is tempting to say that they eventually figured it out, but hours before His death Peter tried to prevent Him from even being arrested (John 18:10). Even after His resurrection, some of the disciples indicated they still didn’t know He had to die when they lamented that His death had dashed their hopes that He was their Christ (Luke 24:13-21).

So I believe that while they didn’t know He had to die, they at least knew He had to go away. He had often spoken of leaving them (Matt. 23:39; John 14:2,3,28; 16:7), although they weren’t sure what He meant by that either (John 16:16-18). He had compared Himself to “a man taking a far journey” (Mark 13:34-37), so when they found it hard to believe He could die, they perhaps chose to believe He would just be going on a trip. But even the 12 who were closest to Him didn’t know where He was going (John 14:5).

But while they didn’t know where He was going, they knew He would come again, for He had mentioned His coming often (Matt. 10:23; 16:27,28; 24:27,30,37,39,44; 25:13,31). This prompted them to ask Him, “What shall be the sign of Thy coming?” (Matt. 24:3).

“One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are…evil beasts…” (Titus 1:12).

When that Cretian prophet said that the Cretians are “evil beasts,” he was saying that they were men who “despise government…brute beasts” who “speak evil of dignities” (II Pet. 2:10-12), men who “despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities…as brute beasts” (Jude 1:8-10).  A wild beast refuses to let a man impose his will on him, so men who won’t let civil rulers impose their will on them are called beasts.

When Paul added,

“This witness is true.  Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith” (v. 13),

he was asserting that it is impossible to resist “the powers that be” in government (Rom.13:1,2) and still be considered sound in the faith.

We see further evidence that this was a problem in Crete when Paul later told Titus,

“Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates… to speak evil of no man” (Titus 3:1,2).

Christians who speak evil of magistrates and other men in government are so plentiful these days that they could be called “Legion,” for they “are many” (Mark 5:9).  But the Apostle Paul immediately regretted it when he learned that he had unwittingly spoken evil of the leader of his nation (Acts 23:1-5).

We sometimes hear Christians object that it is not speaking evil of dignities in government if the criticisms we level against them are true.  However, everything Paul said about his leader was true.  God will smite him someday because he was a “whited wall” (Acts 23:3), a hypocrite who feigned to judge Paul according to the law, but commanded him to be smitten contrary to the law.  Yet we know that Paul considered the true words he had spoken against his leader to be evil words, for he went on to admit that he had violated the interdispensational principle of, “Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people” (v. 5).

This is reminiscent of Christians today who say we don’t have to obey our leaders in government because they often act contrary to the constitution of the United States, the law of our land.  But Paul regretted speaking evil of the leader of his nation even though he had commanded Paul to be smitten contrary to the law of their land, the law of Moses.

The bottom line is, there is simply no justification or excuse of any kind for the shameful way that God’s people often speak of the civil leaders whom Paul calls “God’s ministers” (Rom. 13:6),

“Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord” (II Pet. 2:11).

Over the years, you may have had to struggle mightily to be sound in the faith as you came to realize what Paul taught about difficult and sensitive subjects such as water baptism, speaking in tongues, and healing.  But if your heart yearns to be truly sound in every aspect of the faith, if you long to be Pauline in all matters of faith and practice, I would invite you to consider following Paul as he followed Christ in this critical area of the faith as well (I Cor. 11:1).

After all, the power that Pilate had to crucify the Lord was certainly an evil power, yet the Lord said that it was given to him “from above” (John 19:10,11).  Learning not to speak evil of the often evil power of civil leaders is an unfathomably difficult path to tread at times for some, but it is the path trodden by the Apostle Paul and his Christ.  And it is my earnest plea that it is the path you will choose as well.

As far as we know, the well-known expression found in our title wasn’t around in Bible days.  But it certainly would have been an apt description of the inhabitants of Crete, where Paul had left Titus to minister (Tit. 1:5).  Even one of their favorite sons had to admit this was true!

“One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, the Cretians are always liars…” (Titus 1:12).

But before we talk about this prophet’s assessment of his countrymen, I want to point out that Paul’s words here prove that there is nothing wrong with quoting unsaved men if what they say is true—and what this unbeliever said was true, as Paul hastened to add (v. 13).  I say this because sometimes we here at Berean Bible Society are taken to task if we quote a non-dispensational pastor or teacher in our Two Minutes devotionals, or in our Berean Searchlight magazine.  We know that the Apostle Paul would not have had a problem with this, however, for he quoted an unsaved man—and not just once (cf. Acts 17:28).

Now the reason Paul quoted this Cretian is that he had just finished warning Titus about “vain talkers…of the circumcision…who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not” (Tit. 1:10,11).  Since the Jews of the circumcision loved the Law of Moses, these “vain talkers” were probably teaching the Law, just like the men who had “turned aside unto vain jangling; desiring to be teachers of the law” (I Tim. 1:6,7).  And they were probably saying something like, “The Cretians are always liars, and everybody knows that the only way to deal with a liar is by putting him under the Law that forbids lying (Lev.19:11).”

But the members of the Body of Christ found in the churches of Crete weren’t under the law, they were under grace (Rom. 6:15).  To put them under the Law would be to put them under the curse of the law (Gal. 3:10), something that would subvert their very souls (Acts 15:24).  Yet the vain talkers of the circumcision in Crete had been so active in this that Paul said that they had subervted “whole houses” (Tit. 1:11).

But you don’t have to put a sinner under the curse of the Law to help him overcome lying!  Grace teaches us to reject lying, and all other forms of ungodliness (Tit. 2:11,12).  The apostle of grace said that we should be “putting away lying” (Eph. 4:25).  And when he added, “for we are members one of another” (Eph. 4:25), he was providing us with tremendous incentive not to lie.  I mean, think it through.  If we are “members one of another,” and we lie to one another, we’re actually lying to ourselves.  And bad things happen when a body lies to itself.

When you are in pain, there are drugs you can take that will make your body lie to your brain about the pain you are feeling.  But those lies can cause the body a lot of damage when the warning signal of pain is silenced.  There are also drugs that will make a body lie to itself about being tired, but those drugs can also damage your health.  There are still other drugs that will make your stomach lie to your brain about being hungry.  But some of those drugs are so dangerous that they had to be taken off the market.

The point is, when you lie to another member of the Body of Christ, you can do a lot of damage to that Body as well.  How much hurt could be avoided in the local church if every one of us were to heed Paul’s admonition to “speak every man truth with his neighbour” (Eph. 4:25).  And with powerful incentive like knowing that we are members one of another, there’s no need to put a sinner under the curse of the Law to get him to stop lying.

“…there are many…vain talkers…of the circumcision: whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake” (Titus 1:10,11).

When Paul warned Titus about vain talkers of the circumcision “who subvert whole houses” with their teaching, that word subvert means to turn something upside down.  The prefix “sub” should make you think of the ships that travel under water, and the suffix vert refers to something vertical.  So subvert means to turn something vertical upside down.

Now that’s an interesting thing for Paul to say about these unsaved Jews, for that was a charge that they were leveling at him.  They were saying that Paul and his helpers had “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:5,6).  Paul wasn’t turning the world in general upside down, of course, for the world in general was taking little note of him.  But when some other unsaved Jews called Paul “a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world” (Acts 24:5), it shows that the only world they cared about was the world of the Jews.  That was the world that Paul’s new message of grace was turning upside down!

Now here I should point out that saved Jews accepted Paul’s new ministry of grace among the Gentiles (Acts 15:19-29; Gal. 2:9).  But unsaved Jews didn’t want their world turned upside down, and they weren’t going to take it lying down!  They fought back by teaching the Law, subverting those Gentiles who are not under the Law (Rom. 6:15), and trying to take the world that Paul had turned upside down with his message of grace and turning it upside down again back to the Law. God calls that subversion.

Does that remind you of what happened when some Jews first taught the Law to Gentiles?  The leaders at the Jerusalem council heard about it and wrote a letter to those new Gentile converts, saying,

“…we have heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, saying, ye must… keep the law: to whom we gave no such commandment” (Acts 15:24).

The saved leaders of the Hebrew church said, as it were, “We didn’t authorize those Jews to teach the Law to you new Gentile converts.”  And they said the same thing Paul says here in our text, that teaching the Law to Gentiles was “subverting” them—subverting their very “souls.”  Beloved, it turns the soul of a Gentile upside down to put him under the Law, for he’s bound to wonder why the Law doesn’t work in his life!

For instance, he is going to wonder why God isn’t blessing him with good health when he obeys God, as God did for the Jews under the Law (Ex. 15:26).  He is going to wonder why God isn’t blessing him with wealth when he pays his tithes, as God did for the Jews under the law (Mal. 3:10).  It is sad to think of how the souls of men are still being turned upside down, all because men are still teaching the Law to this day.

When Paul adds that they were teaching the Law “for filthy lucre’s sake,” that means they knew better than to teach the Law, but didn’t care because it was profitable.  Men do some pretty despicable things for money.  Human traffickers prostitute women—and even children—for money.  Evil men scam elderly people out of their life savings for money.  But there is nothing lower on the face of the planet than religious men who know the truth and teach error for filthy lucre’s sake.  So if your pastor is teaching grace, why not encourage him to continue in the message he received from Paul (2 Tim. 3:14)?

In listing the qualifications of a pastor (Tit. 1:6-8), Paul told Titus a pastor must always be “holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught” (v. 9), adding,

“For there are many… vain talkers…” (Titus 1:10).

What do you think those “vain talkers” were saying?  Well, since Paul warned Timothy about men who “turned aside unto vain jangling; desiring to be teachers of the law” (I Tim. 1:6,7), it’s likely the “vain talkers” Paul warned Titus about were also teaching the Law.

This is especially likely since these “vain talkers” were “specially…of the circumcision.”  The Jews of the circumcision loved the Law of Moses (John 9:28,29), and understandably so.  After all, the Law was once the word that spiritual leaders in Israel were expected to hold fast!  But part of the “faithful word” Paul teaches us to hold fast was the precious truth that “we are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom. 6:15).

How important is it to recognize this dispensational change?  Paul insists that teaching the law to people under grace is “vain.”  I wonder if he was thinking of how Samuel used that word to warn God’s people about idolatry, saying,

“…turn ye not aside… after vain things, which cannot profit nor deliver…” (I Sam. 12:21).

We know these “vain things” were idols, for God often associates idolatry with such “vanities” (Jer. 10:14,15; 16:19,20).  This suggests that Paul called the teaching of the Law “vain” because they of the circumcision made an idol out of it.  Of course!  Any time God’s people refuse to let go of something that is no longer a part of His program, it becomes an idol.  Remember, Hezekiah had to destroy the brazen serpent Moses lifted up when God’s people later began to worship it (II Ki. 18:4).

But did you notice how Samuel defined the word “vain” as something that cannot profit or deliver?  That was certainly true of idols in ancient Israel, but it is also true of the Law in the dispensation of grace.  You see, that word “deliver” is another word for save, as we see when we compare how Paul quoted the prophet Joel (Joel 2:32 cf. Rom. 10:13).

And that’s another reason Paul called the teaching of the Law “vain.”  In the dispensation of grace, the Law can’t profit or deliver or save anyone now that its time is past, any more than the brazen serpent could once its time was past.

Granted, the Law used to be able to save.  That’s why the David declared, “The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul” (Ps. 19:7).  And that’s why he added, “I hate vain thoughts: but Thy law do I love” (Ps. 119:113).  Obviously the Law wasn’t vain when it was part of God’s program!  It wasn’t unprofitable back then because it could deliver and save men’s souls, when people like Zacharias and Elizabeth obeyed it blamelessly (Luke 1:6).  But now people are saved by receiving Christ by the grace of God (Eph. 2:8), and Paul tells us to walk in the same grace that saved us (Col. 2:6).

Do you see how crucial it is to always study God’s word by “rightly dividing” it (II Tim. 2:15)?  Unless you recognize the division between God’s plan for Israel in time past and His plan for people living today, you can’t even be sure of the plan of salvation, nor “how ye ought to walk and to please God” once you are saved (I Thes. 4:1).  In time past, God’s people walked in the Law (Ex. 16:4), but no longer!

This is why Paul told Titus that a pastor must always be found “holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught,” for the “word” Paul taught was “the word of His grace” (Acts 20:32)!  May all of God’s pastors and all of God’s people hold it fast!