What’s My Line?

What’s My Line?

Titus 2:1 NKJV

But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine: 

   Remember that old TV show?  What’s My Line was a panel show that ran on TV for about 17 years.  A panel of celebrities had to ask questions to a guest to try to guess what their occupation was.  The questions could only be answered by yes or no answers, so it was sometimes difficult to pin down the guest’s occupation.  The best guests were the ones who didn’t look anything like what you’d think they should look like.  Some wimpy looking guy with skinny arms might be a bull rider or a woman might be an oil-rig roughneck. 

   Paul tells Titus about some pastors and teachers who would have been good on What’s My Line; they professed to be faithful Christians but they lived lives contrary to Christian teachings.

Titus 1:16 They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.

   I can imagine the panelists trying to guess what these people did.  They indulged in things Paul called “abominable,” they were not faithful to the Bible, “disobedient,” and they were not qualified to be pastors and teachers, “disqualified for every good work.” 

   But at the start of chapter 2, Paul gives Titus the advice that Shakespeare would make famous about 1500 years later when he wrote his great work, Hamlet.  Polonius advices his son, Laertes,

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.   

   Simple advice but it makes a powerful impact on your life and the lives of those around you.  And Paul makes it personal to Titus; who he calls his son in the faith.  He starts out this short but powerful piece of advice with, “But as for you.”  Titus couldn’t be a better Christian for his congregation’s sake.  He, like you and I, have to live as well as we can for ourselves.  Those first four words narrow this down to what I can control.  I can work at what I am, and I need to focus on that. 

   The second part is what I’m supposed to do about others.  I need to tell them the truth so they will know what God expects of them.  “Speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine.” This tells me what to do around others.  Too often we measure our lives by our church or by our pastor.  We need to measure ourselves by what others see every day.  When I’m waiting in a long line at the store and the cashier is practicing for “Slowest Cashier of the Year,” what do others see?  When I’m working and everything is falling apart and going wrong, what do they see?  When my kids do something wrong, what do they see?  When the car slides off the road and the wheels bury themselves in the mud or snow, what do others see? 

   The idea behind this phrase has to do with right living, not just right thinking.  One translation says, “Speak up for the right living that goes along with true Christianity.” 

   Sorry, but we can’t get away from this subject.  The Bible says a lot about how we should live.  Saying that we believe its truth but then ignore how it tells us to live our lives is the very definition of hypocrisy.  We don’t always like it, but we always need to hear how God expects us to live. 

Stephen Cram                    January 9, 2011                      Colossians 2:8