When Dr. James Leo Garrett Jr. passed away on February 5, 2020, Dr. Malcolm Yarnell proposed to Dr. Ed Stetzer that I write a tribute piece for a Christianity Today blog (since Malcolm had written a tribute for The Gospel Coalition, if I recall). I did so and the tribute was posted. Somehow I did not screenshot and save the actual CT post and, in time, that post cycled out and is no longer at CT. I did manage to find the posted article on another site that linked to it at the time (the link no longer works). I wanted to post that here since  it contains the original article in its entirety and since I did not post it at the time. The article is below.

Titus 1

⁹ He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. ¹⁰ For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. ¹¹ They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. ¹² One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” ¹³ This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, ¹⁴ not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth. ¹⁵ To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. ¹⁶ They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

Some years back, a video was posted online that was simultaneously awkward and fascinating and moving. It set off a very interesting conversation among viewers concerning the rightness or wrongness of what happened. In the video, a self-proclaimed prophetess had set up her tent in an American city and was holding nightly meetings. One pastor realized that a number of his congregants were going to hear this lady speak. Some, he said, were going to evangelize but others were seemingly listening to her and possibly coming under her influence. The pastor said that her presence was divisive and, most importantly, that she was teaching false doctrine. So, the pastor went to the tent to hear her himself.

In the midst of her teaching, the pastor went forward and asked to speak. He proceeded to call the woman a false prophet and to confront her for her false teaching. He was not rude or belligerent, unless you consider the whole thing rude! But he seemed to be trying his best to state the truth in a way that was clear and bold without being overly combative.

It was, to use the word again, fascinating! In truth, having seen the video, I support the pastor’s actions. At the very least it must be acknowledged that Paul felt it was the responsibility of an elder to protect the flock from false teaching and to confront false teachers. This pastor did just that.

Titus 1:9–16 presents us with a biblical foundation for an elder’s watch care over what is taught to the church. It seems that false teachers were disrupting the life of the church on the island of Crete. Paul gives Titus instructions on how to respond.

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1 Thessalonians 4

⁹ Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, ¹⁰ for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, ¹¹ and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, ¹² so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

Some years back Chuck Swindoll quoted Alfred Joyce Kilmer to this effect:

Whenever I walk through Asia,

Along the harbor blue,

I go by a great big church house

With its people strong and true.

I suppose I’ve passed it a hundred times,

But today I stopped for a minute

And looked at that church—

That tragic church,

The church with no love for me in it.[1]

There is a story behind that, and I wonder what it is, why it is that Kilmer felt that this particular church had no love for him in it. It is indeed, to use his word, “tragic.” Yet, it happens, does it not? Too much.

In 1 Thessalonians 4:9–12, Paul is going to paint a picture of a loving church, a good church, a healthy church. He is going to call upon the Thessalonian believers to be what they must be for the church to be the church that Jesus envisioned.

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1 Thessalonians 4

¹ Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. ² For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. ³ For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; ⁴ that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, ⁵ not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; ⁶ that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. ⁷ For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. ⁸ Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.

I took a picture earlier this year standing in the ruins of the ancient city of Corinth. The picture is of a large hill in the distance, or a small mountain. In truth, it looks like a massive rock. Atop that hill was where the temple of Aphrodite stood two thousand years ago. The Corinth of that time was very much a pagan city. Immorality was rife.

I knew before we arrived at Corinth that, in Paul’s day, there was a temple atop that hill and that in that temple were temple prostitutes. I was unaware, until arriving there, of just how far away and high up that temple would have been!

Our tour guide told us two fascinating things about this. First, she told us that the temple prostitutes would come down twice a day to try to entice the people of Corinth and so, ultimately, to bring more money into the temple under the guise of allegedly sacred carnality. Second, she shared with us that the prostitutes who would come down would sometimes wear special sandals, on the bottoms of which was the Greek word which, translated, means, “Follow me.” So as these prostitutes walked, their feet would stamp the words “Follow me” into the ground for all possibly-interested people to see and obey.

A model of the sandals described.

Paul is writing to the Thessalonian Christians in our text today, yet this was still Greece and the shocking behavior of Corinth was repeated in many ways throughout the pagan world.

It is hard for us to imagine just how openly brazen the immorality of the ancient world was…but, then again, it is not, is it? H.A. Ironside wrote in 1946:

We might say, “Well, we live in a civilized land where men have learned the difference between clean and unclean living; we do not need such an exhortation as this.” But a little acquaintance with conditions in and out of the professing church will emphasize the importance of the admonition given here. There is always the temptation to lower the Christian standard in regard to things that are immoral and unclean. We need to be constantly reminded of the importance of living pure lives.[1]

Paul turns in chapter 4 of 1 Thessalonians to an encouragement and to a warning. He encourages the Thessalonian believers to look and act more and more like Jesus. And he warns them not to follow in the way of immorality.

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1 Thessalonians 3

¹ Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone, ² and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith, ³ that no one be moved by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we are destined for this. ⁴ For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass, and just as you know. ⁵ For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain. ⁶ But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you— ⁷ for this reason, brothers, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith. ⁸ For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord. ⁹ For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God, ¹⁰ as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith? ¹¹ Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you, ¹² and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, ¹³ so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

Some years ago I read a fascinating and troubling interview with John Derbyshire, at that time at National Review. Derbyshire was talking about his own lack of faith and reported this anecdote form his own family.

I have the depressing example, in my own family, of an uncle who lost his faith at the very end of life. He’d been a staunch Methodist…Fred was, in fact, the only close relative of mine to be religious in a busy, dedicated way helping with church functions, lay reading, that sort of thing…Then in his late 70s he got esophagal cancer, and spent several months dying slowly. It’s an awful way to go: slow starvation and slow choking, simultaneously. At some point he lost his lifelong faith, and died an atheist, railing at the folly of religion…Anyway, the example of Uncle Fred has been lurking there in the back of my mind ever since. You hear a lot about deathbed conversions, but not much about deathbed apostasies. Well, let me tell you, it happens.[1]

“Deathbed apostasy.” Derbyshire is right: You do not hear a lot about that. But it does happen.

In many ways, life seems to assault our faith. Some stand strong like unmoved citadels. Some collapse. But many are in the middle: They continue to believe, but their faith is buffeted and in need of strengthening.

The young Thessalonian church was suffering. They were undergoing persecution. And Paul (who himself had had to flee Thessalonica earlier) was worried. Would the church there hold on to their faith in Jesus? Would the devil use their sufferings to tempt them to abandon the faith? Or would they stand firm?

As it turns out, these are the same questions that confront us today.

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Titus 1

⁵ This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you— ⁶ if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. ⁷ For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, ⁸ but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. ⁹ He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

It was recently revealed that yet another high-profile pastor has fallen. This pastor is in his 70s. He is a conservative stalwart, theologically, and is active on the speaking circuit. One or two of the books in my library have his name on the cover. I have heard him speak more than once at conferences. The “other woman,” as they say, is in her 20s. The issue of “power dynamics” has been raised, not without reason. The entire situation is utterly tragic.

As this scandal unfolded, many began to wonder about the strange silence surrounding it, particularly from the church he pastored. Why had they not brought church discipline against him? Why were the elders of the church not addressing this public scandal in a sufficient way?

Then it became clear: Apparently this man—well-known and heretofore well-respected as a pastor—was not actually the pastor of the church he appeared to pastor. He was not the undershepherd of the church, though seemingly everybody thought he was. He was not even a member of the church. As it turns out, he allegedly had an agreement with the church that he would be paid to preach on Sunday mornings. That is it. One insider said that he would drive up, preach, then drive away.

One wonders: Was this arrangement so that the man in question could sidestep the clear biblical requirements for an elder? In other words, by not technically being an elder (but, instead, a weekly speaker), could he perhaps be exempted from the high standards of the office? To which I think we should say that one ought not play games with the church and, more importantly, with God. God sees the heart and God knows our characters…and God is never fooled by technicalities. In fact, this man presented himself as a shepherd and, as a proclaimer of the word, he has a responsibility to make sure that his life matches his profession.

There was a time earlier in my life when I used to hear this mantra during a particular presidential campaign: “Character counts!” Indeed, it does! Which is why Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, gives the qualifications for elders in the church.

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1 Thessalonians 2:13–20

¹³ And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. ¹⁴ For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, ¹⁵ who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind ¹⁶ by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last! ¹⁷ But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face, ¹⁸ because we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, again and again—but Satan hindered us. ¹⁹ For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? ²⁰ For you are our glory and joy.

In 1952, Flannery O’Connor published her controversial and fascinating novel, Wise Blood. It is a story of a man named Hazel Motes who returns from World War II as an atheist and begins to actively preach his atheism around town. In the process, he encounters a charlatan preacher named Hoover Shoats who realizes he can make some money from Hazel Motes’ atheistic preaching. So, Hoover Shoats changes his name to Onnie Jay Holy and announces the arrival of a new church. He then proclaims the atheist preacher Hazel Motes (who wants nothing to do with Onnie Jay Holy) a prophet!

Onnie J. Holy decides to name his church “The Holy Church of Christ Without Christ” and charges everybody $1 to become a member! He then proclaims that there are three reasons why folks can pay that dollar and trust in The Holy Church of Christ Without Christ.

First:

“In the first place, friends, you can rely on it that it’s nothing foreign connected with it. You don’t have to believe nothing you don’t understand and approve of. If you don’t understand it, it ain’t true, and that’s all there is to it. No jokers in the deck, friends.”

Second:

“Now, friends,” Onnie Jay said, “I want to tell you a second reason why you can absolutely trust this church—it’s based on the Bible. Yes sir! It’s based on your own personal interpitation of the Bible friends. You can sit at home and interpit your own Bible however you feel in your heart it ought to be interpited. That’s right,” he said, “just the way Jesus would have done it. Gee, I wisht I had my gittarr here,” he complained.

And third:

“This church is up-to-date! When your in this church you can know that there’s nothing or nobody ahead of you, nobody knows nothing you don’t know, all the cards are on the table, friends, and that’s a fack!”[1]

In other words, Onnie Jay Holy’s Church of Christ Without Christ:

1. Makes your own understanding of God all that matters and therefore removes all mystery and all possibility of growth.
2. Makes the Bible say whatever you personally want it to say and nobody can tell you that you are wrong in any interpretation.
3. Makes all people’s opinions absolutely equal and so nobody can say that they know more than anybody else.

Well! That might sound crazy to you…or it might sound familiar! In point of fact, when Flannery O’Connor wrote Wise Blood she was hoping to critique some of the kinds of Christianity she was encountering in her own day. O’Connor was a Christian and, because she was, she had little tolerance for the kind of nonsense she depicted in Onnie Jay Holy’s Church of Christ Without Christ.

But if that is what a church without Christ looks like, what does a church with Christ look like? To answer that, we can turn to 1 Thessalonians 2:13–20. The Thessalonian believers had Jesus in their midst. What, then, did they look like?

To get at this I would like to offer you three key words, three Greek words that highlight the difference that Jesus makes in a church. This is what happens when a church gives itself to Jesus!

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Titus 1

⁵ This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you

^7a–c For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach…

I remember as a kid when I first learned to do the “Here’s the church” game with my hands. Remember? [Fingers interlocked, pointing down] “Here’s the church…” [Index fingers pointed upward] “…Here’s the steeple…” [Thumbs opened outward] “…Open the door…” [Hands flipped over, fingers wiggling upright] “…and see all the people!”

That is a fun little memory from my childhood. I bet many of you remember it as well.

Whatever you think of the theology of it, it is indeed a theological and ecclesiological assertion! That is, it does claim to say something about what a church is. But it is pretty limited, is it not? For instance, it says nothing about the organization of the church. Of course, how could it, really?

It is interesting to see how the organization and structure of the church seems to develop throughout the New Testament and in the history of the early church. The lack of exhaustive details likely contributed to the wide range of views represented in denominations today. Yet, the New Testament does paint a picture of the internal organization of the church: of how its leadership is structured.

Titus 1 is an important chapter in this regard, specifically verses 5 and 7. You might not think that these two verses would lead to such depths of discussion and debate among Christians, but, indeed, they play their part.

Why are these two verses important? Specifically, they are important for what they say in verse 5 about “elders” and, in verse 7, about “steward[s].” Let us consider these two verses and let us place them alongside other verses in the New Testament that speak of the right ordering of the church.

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Titus 1

¹ Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, ² in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began ³ and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior; ⁴ To Titus, my true child in a common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

I have in my hands a yellow, hardbound book published in 1975 and entitled Notes, Quotes, and Anecdotes. In and of itself, the book is unremarkable. It is a fairly typical collection of stories and quotes that preachers and public speakers can turn to for illustrative material.

I do not actually use the book. And yet, the book is one of my most prized possessions. Why? Because on the first page of the book there is a handwritten letter to me from a now-deceased minister who I revere. He was a Baptist pastor. He was my Grandfather. He gave me this book after I shared with him that God had called me into the ministry. He wrote the following in it (typed here as he wrote it):

To a special Grandson

Wyman Lewis Richardson

some one special to the family and especially to God

May he always put Jesus

first place and all the

rest will Come in place

always remember Wyman

God Loved you & Loves you

More than his own Life

St. John 3:16

See you in Heaven Wyman

All because of Jesus

Grandaddy Richardson

This is more of an inscription than an epistle, but there are similarities, I would argue. An older minister writes a younger minister to remind him of the gospel and call on him to focus on Jesus. I know what this little note means to me. It is priceless.

So, too, is Paul’s letter to Titus. In the book of Titus, the older minister, the Apostle Paul, writes to a younger minister. He reminds him of the gospel and calls on him to focus. And we are privileged to be able to consider this amazing letter today.

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