Teaching What is in Accord with Sound Doctrine

I was reading in Titus this morning, and came to this statement in Chapter 2: “You must teach what is accord with sound doctrine.” If you’ve followed some of the things I’ve posted here, you’ll see that I’m at a place in my spiritual life where I feel the need to de-emphasize the details of doctrine and focus more on the Christian “faith story” as it is lived out in the Church. I hope you’ll also see that I don’t disparage the importance of doctrine; it’s more a matter of emphasis. It’s interesting, though, to see how Titus 2 both reinforces and challenges some of my recent thoughts about doctrine.

The injunction to “teach what is in accord with sound doctrine” follows a rebuke of a sect within the early Church that was insisting that non-Jewish Christian converts be circumcised. (See Titus 1:10-16.) Paul’s concern is to refute this false teaching and provide instruction to Titus about what should be taught instead.

The word translated “doctrine” in Titus 2:1 is the Greek “didaskalia,” meaning “teaching” (our word “didactic” draws from the same root). Often, when we hear the word “doctrine,” we think of some kind of formal propositions in the doctrinal statement of a local church or denomination. The term, however, is much broader, as the remainder of the book of Titus illustrates.

In fact, Titus 2 and 3 (the book only has three chapters), which outline the “doctrine” Titus is to teach, is entirely about how the believers are to relate to each other and to the outside world. There is one quasi-“confessional” statement in the book (chapter 3, verses 4-7), and even as to that statement, Paul instructs Titus “to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good.” Following that exhortation, Paul further warns Titus to “avoid foolish controversies and geneologies about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless.” In other words, Titus is not to become enmeshed in the hermeneutical dispute that led to the “circumcision group’s” false teaching.

It’s interesting to me how Paul’s comments to Titus about “doctrine” never concern hermetic idea systems extracted from scripture. Paul doesn’t tell Titus “you are to teach double predestination, the substitutionary theory of the atonement, and inerrancy.” Instead, Paul’s concerns are all about how we are to live. Arguments about many of the particulars are “unprofitable and useless.”

On the other hand, Paul gives instructions about how we should live in direct response to false teaching that was having consequences in the life of the Church. Ideas do have consequences. “Doctrine” does matter because it affects how we live. But there is a sense of proportion and priorities about doctrine that shines through in Titus. Some things are central and directly affect the way in which we relate to each other, like the effort by that early Christian sect to exclude from fellowship those Gentile converts who hadn’t been circumcised. In other things, there is room for differences without “unprofitable and useless” arguments. All of us who like to discuss theology and debate our respective systems and doctrinal positions would do well to take Paul’s instructions in Titus to heart.