A United, Strong Church: Protect Unity, Serve Your People

Introduction

We're reaching the end of Paul's letter to Titus. Remember: Paul wants to plant a church on Crete. He left Titus there, his true child in the common faith (Titus 1:4), to set in order everything needed so that this church would shine with the good news of Jesus Christ.

Since the beginning of the letter, several pieces have fallen into place: a God who doesn't lie and whose word endures (Titus 1:1-4), authentic leaders, serious and faithful to the word (Titus 1:5-9), a people shaped by grace rather than by their own strength, and a genuine light shining into the world.

Today, Paul wraps up his letter. And closing words are often the most important. You want to make sure the recipient has grasped the essential. The whole letter is carried by grace (Titus 2:11-14; Titus 3:4-7). This grace is what must govern and shape your attitude: Christ bore, in your place, the just condemnation you deserved, so that you could live free from sin and zealous for good works.

On this foundation, Paul draws our attention to two closing challenges. The challenge of the church's unity around the gospel. And the challenge of caring for the ministry of the gospel. Toward a united, strong church: by protecting the unity of the network (v. 9-11), and by caring for the ministry of the gospel (v. 12-15).

Article outline

1. Protect the unity of the network (Titus 3:9-11)

It hardly needs proving that a united group, a united family, a united nation is unshakable, whatever storm it faces. With the World Cup in the news, it's worth noting: a football team's success rests on one word, the collective. Every player has a role: strikers, midfielders, defenders, goalkeeper. Eleven against eleven. All serving one another. No single star gets all the attention. They attack together, they defend together. And if you don't grasp that, you won't last long on the team.

That's an imperfect picture of what Paul wants to tell us in verses 8-11. Read it with me:

"This saying is faithful, and concerning these things I desire that you affirm confidently, so that those who have believed God may be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to men; but shun foolish questionings, genealogies, strife, and disputes about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain. Avoid a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a one is perverted, and sins, being self-condemned." (Titus 3:8-11)

Four things that don't help the church

What's at stake here is unity. Remember God's project in Titus 2:14: to make for himself a people for his own possession, not two. Christ gave his life on the cross for a single people. The main challenge, then, is guarding that unity.

Paul draws a line between what's helpful and what's not in verse 9. The word is clear: unprofitable. No added value, no benefit for the gospel. Four things are unprofitable:

• foolish questionings,
• genealogies,
• strife,
• disputes about the law.

Unprofitable means: it wastes time, it doesn't build up, it doesn't serve the gospel. The common thread running through these four postures is a total absence of grace. They don't pass grace on to your neighbor, your brother, your sister. Instead, they serve your ego, your human nature, far removed from compassion and love for the other person.

What this looks like today

What do these four things look like in practice? Big theological debates you might stir up to convince someone else, or worse, to condemn them when they don't share your convictions. I'm not saying you shouldn't have solid theological foundations. Far from it. But when the core of your Christian life rests on endless debates rather than on the grace of Jesus lived out around you, you've missed the point.

It also looks like the way you'd want to run your church's activities: the size of the council, the order of the service, a shorter or longer service, more upbeat songs or older hymns. All these small things matter, sure, but they aren't so fundamentally important that you should get lost in them and try to condemn someone else because they don't share your vision.

That's not profitable for the church. It's our selfish nature at work. We want to treat church as a service we're consuming. We want it to serve us. And sometimes we hold up our past experience as the standard: "In my old church, we started at 9. Why don't we start at 9 here? We did it this way, we did it that way... Why don't we do it this way here?" This creates cliques, endless grumbling, harmful to the healthy life of the church for which, remember, Jesus gave his life. These situations weaken the gospel network. Its light and its witness are diminished.

The lesson of Acts 6

One scene stands out to me when I read Acts 6. The church keeps growing and growing. At one point, divisions arise over a practical matter: widows are being overlooked in the daily distribution. This becomes a real concern for the leaders. What does the church do? It chooses people full of the Spirit and wisdom to handle these tasks, and the apostles continue to devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. That's their reason for being.

The leaders didn't ignore the problem. They dealt with it seriously, without ever neglecting the church's primary mission. That's the balance. Avoid endless theological debates about the trinity, Calvinism, and whatever else you'd like to add, where the point is to prove absolutely that "the true church has to be like this, like that, and if you don't get it, you're not a real Christian." That has nothing to do with the grace of God, or with the fact that Jesus died on the cross for your neighbor. Help the elders, the church leaders, avoid these debates for the good of the church, for its unity, so they stay focused on what makes us one with each other around Jesus.

The firm response to the one who divides (v. 10-11)

That's the passive side of a leader's responsibility: avoiding and steering clear. But in verse 10, Paul calls for a more active, firmer responsibility, one no less marked by grace. It concerns how you respond to the member who causes divisions. A kingdom divided cannot stand, Jesus said in another context (Matthew 12:25). It's serious when division takes root. A divided people is fragile; it cannot last.

If that had been true of God's people, the gospel would never have reached us, more than 2,000 years after this letter was written. If it reaches us today, it's because the gospel network stayed united around the same message of grace and love. That message has traveled through ages, territories, and conflicts, and it continues to build us up today. That's why a person who causes divisions isn't just attacking a local church network: they're attacking God's eternal plan for humanity.

Paul calls Titus to be uncompromising on this point. But he's careful to first spell out the attitude to have: "Let no man despise you" (Titus 2:15) and "I desire that you affirm confidently" (Titus 3:8). Because handling division in a church is never easy for a leader. You tend to fall into one of two extremes: either avoidance, so as not to appear weak toward one side or the other, or heavy-handed authoritarianism.

That's not the path Paul lays out for Titus. It's an authority marked by grace. You correct the person after a first and then a second warning. The first goal is always to save the person, the sinner, the church, never to condemn. But if the person keeps trying to divide over matters other than the gospel itself, then the network must be protected. That firm decision to part ways must be made, for the sake of the gospel.

A united church is an unshakable church. And that's every member's responsibility. Brother, sister, you need to help your leaders do their job well: point out the blind spots they can't see, call them to their responsibility, help them exercise their authority with grace.

2. Care for the ministry of the gospel (Titus 3:12-15)

The second aspect. Read it again:

"When I send Artemas to you, or Tychicus, be diligent to come to me to Nicopolis, for I have determined to winter there. Send Zenas, the lawyer, and Apollos on their journey speedily, that nothing may be lacking for them. Let our people also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that they may not be unfruitful. All who are with me greet you. Greet those who love us in faith. Grace be with you all. Amen." (Titus 3:12-15)

The church is people

Did you notice the crowd of names mentioned in these four verses? Artemas, Tychicus, Zenas, Apollos, "our people," "all who are with me," "those who love us in faith." The first idea to hold onto is that the church, the people God is building for himself, is made up of people.

God's church isn't a system, it isn't a machine, it isn't a building, it isn't virtual. It's people like you and me. If you say you're a member of a church, then you belong to a community of people who know each other, who know the gospel and live it out through regular interaction. Real, not virtual. People who do good works that benefit the whole network, because they help each other excel in witness and in proclaiming the word. The gospel network is made up of people who bear fruit: goodness, joy, peace.

Ensuring spiritual continuity

Artemas and Tychicus, two faithful servants of Paul, are called to keep the church on Crete going while Titus travels to meet Paul in Nicopolis. This is a reminder of the right posture to take: caring spiritually for the church whenever it needs it. And it's a reminder too that the church has resources, people, to provide spiritually for God's people.

Providing for the practical needs of the ministry

Another aspect: the need to provide for the material needs of those who carry full-time ministry responsibility. Paul mentions Zenas the lawyer, and Apollos, whom we know from Acts 18:24: a Jew born in Alexandria, an eloquent man, well versed in the Scriptures. These people who lead the church spiritually need the network's material support, so they can stay focused on shepherding God's people.

The "good works" Paul mentions here include those that involve your possessions, your money, what you make available to bless and support the proclamation of the word. Excel in good works, Paul says, and bear fruit. If you've been touched by the God who doesn't lie, how does that show up in your finances? What do you do with what he's given you, as possessions, as money? To what extent do you use these things for the spread of the gospel? What do you do with your time, your energy, the energy he gives you?

The brotherly greeting

One last aspect: the brotherly greeting. It simply feels good to hear news from one another. People who sometimes don't know each other in person, but who share a strong bond: the bond of the gospel. Here we see the picture of a significant network, serving one another.

This plays out very concretely. When a partner church needs brothers and sisters to help with childcare over a weekend, you go. When there's a need to serve, you jump in without asking questions. Because you know you're serving the Lord's church. It feels good to be part of a network of people united around the same values, the values of the gospel: serving one another, checking in on one another, not isolated but united for the light of the gospel to shine in the world.

3. How did the gospel reach you?

Let me ask you again: how did the gospel reach us today? Because the church network stayed united and strong. Because men and women read this letter and put it into practice. That's a powerful call to you today, not just to take Paul's words seriously, but to apply them, to live them out.

For the church to be united and strong, it needs authentic leaders and authentic brothers and sisters.

4. A whole faith: at church, at home, at work

One more thing. This letter was written in the context of how a church functions, but above all it speaks to your heart. It wasn't written so you could live a compartmentalized life: "At church, I'll apply it, I'll bear fruit; and outside, I'll be someone else."

No. You must be the same person at church, in the world, in your family, with your coworkers. The same man, the same woman, shaped by the gospel, touched by God's grace, called to shine the same way within the church network and to overflow into the world. We need to be whole. We need one transformed heart, useful not only to bless the church, but also to bless the world.

To be authentic, your heart must be shaped by God's grace, which puts you at the service of others and of the world, for the light of the good news of hope in Jesus to shine. This will show in how you handle conflict at church. In how you handle divisions, grumbling, at church, but also in your family, at work. When you hear gossip, what do you do with it? When you see cliques that don't serve the unity of your group, how will you handle it with grace? It will also show in your relationship with money, your possessions, the way you use your time.

As you gaze on Jesus's work on the cross for you, let him grow in you fruit worthy of repentance: rejecting sin, rejecting your nature that's prone to do wrong, prone to judge. Fruit worthy of hope: peace, unity, joy, love. For a strong, radiant church.

Key takeaways

• Grace is the engine of unity. What should govern and shape your attitude isn't your ego, your past convictions, or your history: it's what Christ did on the cross for you.
• Four unhelpful postures weaken the church: foolish questionings, genealogies, strife, disputes about the law. The common thread? A total absence of grace.
• An authority marked by grace. With someone who divides: two warnings. The goal: to save, not to condemn. But if the person persists, the network must be protected.
• The church is people. Not a system, not a building, not a virtual space. A real people who know each other, serve each other, check in on each other, and bear fruit together.
• Be whole. The same person at church, at home, at work. No compartmentalized life. Grace transforms you everywhere, to bless the church and bless the world.

Personal application

• Is there a debate or discussion in your church right now where you're digging in more out of ego than love for the gospel? What can you let go of this week to serve the unity of the body?
• When you treat church as a service you're consuming ("in my old church, we did it better"), what does that reveal about your heart? What demand can you set down, what expectation can you hand over to Christ?
• How are you concretely helping your church's leaders this week? Prayer, a helping hand, encouragement, pointing out a blind spot with grace: pick one concrete step.
• What are you doing with your money, your time, your energy for the light of the gospel to shine in your church and beyond? Do your finances show that you've been touched by the God who doesn't lie?
• Are you the same person at church and at home, with your coworkers, in your conversations when no one's watching? Where do you need grace to unify your heart?

Verses cited

• Titus 3:8-11 (WEB) - Avoid vain debates, avoid the one who causes divisions.
• Titus 3:12-15 (WEB) - Care for the servants of the gospel and excel in good works.
• Titus 1:4 (WEB) - Titus, a true child in the common faith.
• Titus 1:5-9 (WEB) - Authentic leaders.
• Titus 2:11-14 (WEB) - The grace that appeared to make a people for himself.
• Titus 3:4-7 (WEB) - The kindness and love of God shown in Jesus Christ.
• Acts 6 (WEB) - The apostles delegate the serving of tables to stay devoted to prayer and the word.
• Acts 18:24 (WEB) - Apollos, an eloquent man, well versed in the Scriptures.
• Matthew 12:25 (WEB) - Every kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.

FAQ

What does "avoid foolish questionings, genealogies, strife" (Titus 3:9) mean today?

These are the endless debates, theological, organizational, cultural, where the goal is to convince or condemn someone rather than to pass grace on to them. Debates about the trinity, Calvinism, or about how a service should run, the size of the council, the time the service starts. Worth raising sometimes, yes, but never to the point of creating cliques, grumbling, divisions that weaken the church. The common thread running through these four postures is the absence of grace.

Do you really need to part ways with someone who causes divisions?

Yes, but only after a first and then a second warning (v. 10). The order of these steps matters. The first goal is never condemnation: it's restoring the person and protecting the church. If the person keeps dividing over matters other than the gospel itself, then the network must be protected so the shared mission isn't weakened. It's an authority marked by grace, worlds away from both avoidance and heavy-handedness.

How do you concretely care for the ministry of the gospel?

In three ways Paul points to. First, by materially supporting those who carry full-time ministry (v. 13): their travel, their pressing needs, their daily bread. Second, by ensuring spiritual continuity: Artemas and Tychicus step in for Titus when he leaves to join Paul (v. 12). Finally, by cultivating brotherly greeting and mutual service (v. 15), calls, checking in, lending a hand, invitations. Your material and relational contribution is real ministry.