Avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and useless.
Titus 3:9
Out of a deep love and care for the church, Paul tells Titus and those in the church to avoid four specific things: foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law.
Why does Paul do this? He points out that they are unprofitable and useless. Put another way, they are a drain on good and godly resources and do not aid believers in productive kingdom work. Let’s consider the four topics in order.
First: foolish disputes. What can be categorized as a foolish dispute? Paul gives the same command in 2 Timothy 2:23, “But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife.” One of the ways you can determine the benefit of a conversation is if it leads to strife. If a dispute doesn’t edify and only causes strife, then it’s safe to say it’s a foolish dispute. It is unprofitable. The Proverbs tell us not to answer a fool according to his folly. Why? It’s unprofitable.
Even with unbelievers, we mustn’t engage in “unprofitable and useless” conversation that produces strife. There ought to be a check on our sensibilities which notices when strife begins, and so we pump the brakes. The temptation to strive with other believers is an ever-present reality, and one can feel quite justified in doing so because, of course, that person is always right. They wouldn’t be fighting if they weren’t, right?
In many respects, social media fuels this temptation significantly. In an effort to keep their customer from leaving the platform, algorithms are engineered to encourage engagement. The Internet of Beefs is an increasingly potent reality.
Further, social media is an avenue that runs between the virtual and real world. Posts made into the internet ether mean little, and yet what you share can have real-world consequences. What’s lacking is the human face-to-face element which is exacerbated by numerous highly active anonymous accounts. The increase of interaction through online avenues removes the much-needed regulating factor of face-to-face contact from the equation. It’s a recipe for foolish disputes and must be avoided. We must exercise self-government and resist the temptation to be drawn in.
Paul also mentions genealogies. This word means exactly what it sounds like. It’s a reference to bloodlines and family history. Paul does not mean for us to never speak about what we might learn from our AncestryDNA results or that we shouldn’t brag about grandma’s potato salad recipe.
In Paul’s day, both Jewish and Roman communities placed significant value on your lineage. Jews looked to their tribe and the patriarchs for their valuation within their community. For example, Paul’s regard for what he has in Christ over against his Benjamite lineage would have no rhetorical weight if genealogy didn’t mean anything.
Many in the Roman Empire bolstered their political and societal influence by finding ways to connect their lineage to the founders of Rome. While not technically a requirement, it provided societal clout to build on.1 Roman and Jewish families alike would have been tempted to give serious weight to what kind of family they were born into, or what tribe they were from.
Karl Marx, author of The Communist Manifesto, said that a revolution between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat is what must happen if a utopian classless society can emerge. One of the best ways to cause a revolution is to encourage rivalries based on seemingly irreconcilable difference. Divide the masses and they will become skeptical of each other. Many political controversies accentuate rivalries according to ethnic genealogy, and Christians must understand the danger to the church when these are heightened. No one is immune to blind spots.
Christians can keep themselves from this trap by remembering that baptism has given us a new genealogy. Abraham is now our Father (Romans 4:11; Galatians 3:7), and the great cloud of witnesses our lineage (Hebrews 11).
This is what being regenerated means. It means to be born-again, to be brought from one family into another, from one generation to another. While it doesn’t erase earthly realities, it supersedes them and resurrects them. Because of this adoption, Christians are no longer doomed to repeat the sins of their Fathers (1 Peter 1:18–21).
Next, Paul says to avoid contentions. Paul knows that we are to fight the good fight, but that fighting is not to be characterized by picking fights that stir up dissension. When contentions arise, we should remember that Jesus taught us to count the cost. Wisdom asks, “what is at stake in this contentious moment? What is gained or lost if I keep going with this? Is there anything eternal at stake if I simply let this go?” If contention is the fuel, Paul says, kill the engine. It is unprofitable and useless.
Finally, Paul says we must avoid strivings about the law. In Paul’s day, the NT church was in the middle of adjusting to New Covenant realities. For many Jewish Christians, leaving OT thinking behind was difficult.
Even today, Christians frequently struggle with OT thinking. Christians often gravitate towards and embrace practices that mark themselves out from the rest of the assembly and give the impression that they are closer to God.
One of the reasons God established the Old Testament sacrificial system was so that He could dwell among a sinful people. All the sacrifices and ceremonies were observed so that God could draw near. Sin separates man from God, and God didn’t like that. Those kinds of practices have all been fulfilled as God could not have drawn any nearer to mankind than when He became a man.
We cease from striving about the law because in Christ we have obtained eternal redemption through His blood. Nothing we could do could ever bring us any nearer to God. The striving has ceased. Being baptized into Christ brings us as close to God as we could ever be.
But two of these are not like the others.
Contentions and foolish disputes don’t find any support in Scripture, but what about genealogies and strivings about the law? At first glance, it might seem that Paul is simply running contrary to his Jewish upbringing. The Old Testament spends a significant amount of time highlighting tribal distinctions and genealogies. The High Priesthood itself flowed from the genealogy of Aaron. Striving to keep the law seemed to be the order of the day. How else was God’s presence going to dwell with Israel? If they did not strive to keep the law, God promised to curse them.
What Paul was highlighting is that if these things aren’t avoided, then the Church isn’t embracing the New World realities ushered in by the inaugurated rule of Christ. The New World is what it is because Jesus created a whole new humanity, a whole new genealogy. He is the new High Priest and we remain in Old World thinking if we neglect to primarily see ourselves within the family tree of faith.
In the world of the New Covenant, the blood of the atonement supercedes the blood of kin. Everyone has an ancestry they should be grateful for. Being born is a gift of God. Being a child of Abraham by blood means little. Being a child of Abraham by faith means everything. Paul asserts with Apostlic authority that these things must be avoided, and he has the change from Old to New in mind. Paul’s exhortations only make sense in the inaugurated New Covenant in Christ.
May the Spirit keep us from following the paths of the Old World and continue to transform us into the new humanity being created in Christ.
Grant Van Brimmer is a teaching elder at Trinity Reformed Church in Newnan, GA.
- See Livy, The History of Rome Book 1. ↩︎