Sound Doctrine; Sound Words (Titus 2:7-8) Phil Johnson

By Phil Johnson
Executive Director of Grace to You




This morning I want to look at two verses in Titus 2—verses 7-8.
This is an admonition from Paul to Titus, his friend, partner,
protege, and true son in the faith. Titus is one of the unsung heroes
of the early church—a young pastor whose faithful support and
constant behind-the-scenes labor made him extremely precious to Paul.
Paul writes to Titus with these instructions (Titus
2:7-8): "Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good
works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech
that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame,
having nothing evil to say about us."




I chose that text, frankly, because I'm deeply concerned about the
tendency of so many pastors lately to employ profanity, crude and
obscene words, vile subject matter, carnal topics, graphic sexual
imagery, erotic language, and filthy jokes. Most of you, I know, are
aware of the trend I'm talking about. I'm tempted to call it the
pornification of the pulpit. The justification usually given is that
coarse language and sexual themes are the tools of contextualization.
It's a way to make us sound more relevant. Lots of voices in the
church are insistent that this is absolutely essential if we want to
reach certain segments of our culture.




The apostle Paul said otherwise, and that's what I want to look at
in this hour.




When I was considering what subjects might be important for a
group of pastors and church leaders as large and diverse as this, I
couldn't get away from this issue. The New York Times Magazine
recently did a feature article on Mark Driscoll in which this was a
major theme. "Who Would Jesus Smack Down?" was the title of
the article. Here's the lead sentence: "Mark Driscoll's sermons
are mostly too racy to post on [an] evangelical Christian 'family
friendly' . . . Web site."




So this is a subject almost everyone (including the New York
Times) is already talking nonstop about. And yet it seems to me
that people in the evangelical world are not thinking very
biblically about it. What language and what kind of subject matter
are suitable for the pulpit in a worship service? What gifts and what
virtues qualify a man to be a pastor? And what should stand out most
prominently when someone analyzes our style of ministry? What would
YOU want the New York Times to focus on if they did an
article analyzing your style?