What does it mean that all Cretans are liars?

Life has to express itself in action. This is why there is this third remark. Paul had sent Titus to Crete to ordain elders in every city. Now in Titus 1:12 we find that the Cretans, although heathens, had a kind of prophet of their own who evidently got stirred up about something and got a bit candid and told the Cretan people a thing or two about themselves, saying “the Cretans are always liars, evil beasts (or ‘wild animals’), slow bellies (or ‘lazy gluttons’)” (Tit.1:12). This was not very complimentary to the Cretans, but one of their own said it. They could not stick to the truth, they rampaged about and injured one another like wild beasts and did not want to work but wanted to eat a lot. I have heard a few things like this today. A man who should have been working on the road was sitting smoking a cigarette, and when a colleague challenged him he said, ‘Only fools and horses work’, but he was only showing himself to be a lazy glutton. That was the character of the Cretans.

Now we are Christians, and things run in the Cretan way in this land. When we pick up the papers we read every day of who has been attacked on the street, who has been robbed, we take it for granted these days - the evil wild beasts are about, along with the liars and lazy gluttons. What about Christians? It should put us on our mettle. What does Paul say? He says, ‘Now look here, Titus, you are living in this extraordinary island where the people have these bad features. So it is a faithful saying’, he does not say worthy of all acceptation because he is now thinking of Titus in the midst of people who could not possibly accept it, but he says, ‘these things I will that thou affirm constantly. You say to people, Have you believed in God? There is only one way you can do that and that is through our Lord Jesus Christ. Have you believed in God? Keep on at it, it is faithful and constantly affirm it. If you have truly believed on God, if you are a believer be careful to maintain good works. Let your godliness, your proper Christian character come into display in your actions. Be careful to maintain good works’.

The Cretans had a bad reputation nationally, as appears from one of themselves who had said, "The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons." (The quotation is from Epimenides, a poet of the sixth century B.C. His sayings were quoted as oracles, which may account for his being called a 'prophet.') They were to be rebuked sharply that they might be sound in the faith. To the pure all things are pure, but nothing is pure to the defiled and unbelieving, the mind and conscience being defiled.

Evils are not everywhere the same; certain times and places have a character peculiar to themselves. The Cretans had an evil repute beyond most, and this not merely with strangers, who might regard them with scanty affection, but even among their own countrymen, usually apt to be somewhat prone to indulgence of faults. So "One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, 'Cretans [are] always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies' (i.e., gorged gluttons). This testimony is true: for which cause rebuke them sharply, that they may be healthful in the faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men turning away as they do from the truth" (vers. 12-14).

The apostle here quotes an ethic poet, Epimenides of Crete, in order the more to enforce the confessed dangers of those concerned. It is not to be supposed that he endorses him, this Gentile author, as a prophet of God. It was needful therefore to add, "This testimony is true." But it does show how grace condescends to use whatever is true, though the source might be impure. In the same spirit the apostle cited a celebrated comedian, the more impressively to convict the Corinthians: "Evil communications corrupt good manners." And if a heathen, not particularly circumspect over himself or in his plays, gave utterance to a sentiment so applicable to the danger at Corinth, it was the more severe a reproof from such a mouth to the careless saints there. Their levity deceived them; even Menander reproved them. So here one of themselves, a prophet of their own, as a heathen moralist, gave a true witness to the unreliable character, the mischievous activity, and the lazy self-indulgence of Cretans as such.

Natural character, which is all the unbeliever has, may be nothing for the life of faith. The Spirit of God works all that is good through Christ presented to the soul, as an object of faith, and spring of love, and giver of joy. But it is an important matter for the enemy, who skilfully acts upon the old man, if unjudged, to the Lord's dishonour. Where there is unwatchfulness, a fall ensues. Therefore the evil nature affords constant danger. When Christ is really leaned on and looked to, the Holy Spirit gives entire superiority over evil. Here it is a question of those who are walking after the flesh: hence the humbling testimony is applied in all its force. Titus did well to bear it in mind; nor could a Cretan well complain of the apostle's severity, where an eminent countryman of theirs had long since owned their racial character. "For which cause rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound (or, healthy) in the faith."

These verses are not a mere repetition of what we have in 1 Timothy 3. Conditions in Crete differed from those at Ephesus. There were similar dangers from "unruly and vain talkers and deceivers" in both places, but the natural characteristics of the Cretian race were peculiarly bad, so much so that some prophet of their own, some heathen seer, had been moved to denounce them in strong terms as "always liars, evil wild beasts, lazy gluttons." Such was the old nature of the converted Cretians, and such it remained in them when converted; and alas! it was manifesting itself and hence Titus in verse 13 is instructed to administer to them a sharp rebuke.

Paul quotes a Cretan prophet as indicating what was true characteristically of the people of Crete, a condition so prevalent that it could have too much influence even over those who were saved. "Liars, evil wild beasts, lazy gluttons" may dominate much of society, but the Christian is not to be like them, and sharp rebuke was necessary in order to awaken souls out of such things, and establish them soundly in the faith.

Perhaps in no place could the ruined state of man be more conspicuous than in Crete. Liars sometimes tell the truth, and this is the case, for once at least, with Epimenides (himself a Cretan), when he described his fellow-countrymen as being liars, evil beasts, and slow-bellies.

"What bad material!" man would say, and indeed it is too true. The law could do nothing with it; and this is one of the chief reasons why the apostle speaks so severely in this epistle of those who were attempting to judaize. But what the law could not do, through the utter badness of the material, grace has accomplished, setting aside the flesh for ever.

The thought of what the Cretans were by nature lies as a dark background to this epistle. Paul quoted with approval the very uncomplimentary saying of one of their own prophets, "Cretans are always liars, evil wild beasts, lazy gluttons" (New Trans.). But in the third chapter Paul speaks not of the Cretans alone, but of himself and all of us. "We ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another." This being the case, thorough moral cleansing is our deep necessity.

The circumstances in Crete were of special exigency, and we see in them how, wherever the soul is not fully with God, the natural character necessarily comes up. One of their own, a prophet of themselves, had characterized the Cretans as "always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies" (or, "slothful gluttons"). This did not hinder the grace of God in its work amongst them; for, as we know, it is the glory of God's grace that it can avail for the chief of sinners; but it showed the character in which the evil, if it were suffered to come out, would display itself. Thus, among the Cretans there were many vain speakers and deceivers, the circumcision having specially this character, through the constant opposition which we have found legality was always manifesting to the truth of God, and the plausible cover of previous revelation under which it sheltered itself. It was imperative that the mouths of such should be stopped, as those who subverted whole houses, teaching things which ought not to be, and always with that character which is so naturally and necessarily displayed among those who are not satisfied with that which alone can satisfy. The corruption which is in the world is through lust, and at the bottom of all this plausible perversion of that which had been given of God there was a spirit coveting that which it counted gain. There was need, therefore, of sharp reproof in these cases — above all, that they might be sound in the faith, the very spring of godliness, as we have seen the epistle declares it. Judaism, astray from the purpose of God with regard to it, was only resulting in fables and commandments of men turning from the truth. The liberty that existed in Christ was denied by it. Rules for outward conduct had supplanted that purity of heart which alone made all things pure, while to the defiled and unbelieving there was really no line of separation at all; to them nothing was pure, even the mind and conscience being defiled. With all this there was the profession of the knowledge of God, while in works they denied Him. We see how the knowledge of God should necessarily result in works accordant — how it will, in fact, necessarily do this, or it is not true knowledge.

(Titus 1:10-11). In contrast to those who hold fast the truth revealed in the "faithful word," that leads to godliness, there were men, in those early days, who were "vain talkers," teaching error, and thus deceiving their hearers, and leading to ungodliness among the people of God by subverting whole houses. Such were actuated by the low motive of base gain. These false teachers were especially found amongst the Jews who opposed the truth by seeking to lead Christians back to a religion of outward forms and ceremonies in temple worship, that appeals to the flesh. When here, the Lord exposed the leaders of a corrupted Judaism, as being hypocrites who honoured God with their lips, but with a heart far from Him and who had turned the House of God into a den of thieves. The flesh does not alter, and thus christian assemblies are faced with the danger of linking with a profession of Christianity the outward forms of the circumcision, which ends in using a religious profession as a means of gain.

(Titus 1:12-14). We further learn that in seeking to maintain order and godliness in the assemblies of God's people, we have to take into account the different characteristics of people formed by their particular circumstances and nationalities, which may lead to the flesh showing itself in special evils. The circumstances of the Cretians made them particularly liable to deceitfulness, laziness and gluttony — characteristics to which one of their own prophets had drawn attention. Such manifestations of the flesh, so contrary to godliness, called for severe rebuke, in order that they might be "sound in the faith," and thus preserved from Jewish fables, and the commandments of men that would turn from the truth.

What made this to be the more urgently needful, even for these Gentile minds, among the Cretans as well as elsewhere, was the Jewish element, the constant fruitful cause of trouble, and in two ways that we might not reasonably expect to see united. "There are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: whose mouths must be stopped." Not that I mean necessarily Jews, when speaking of the Jewish element. Alas! the evil of Judaism infects Gentiles; the spirit of tradition pervades some, legalism imbues others very largely. These are the persons who give especial trouble, "whose mouths," we are told, "must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake." To this end is used the testimony of one of their own prophets. This witness, says the apostle, is true. One of themselves, not wanting in patriotism, had conscience enough to confess that "Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies." Therefore Titus was to rebuke them sharply. What sin and folly to brand care for their souls as lack of charity or love of domination! Let us remember the whole case for our own profit and guidance.

Although men have, alas! common qualities of evil, and, no matter where they are found, the same corrupt nature, the Spirit of God takes national character into account, and more particularly in practical service. This requires wisdom, and also experience, where our lot may be cast. So in connection with the overseers of whom he had been speaking. Elders are a local charge. They are not like teachers and preachers, many of whom went about visiting various lands and widely scattered towns in their wide circuit among the nations. Elders as such were necessarily limited in that function to the quarters in which they lived, though they might have gifts which would carry them elsewhere. For them it was of the utmost importance to bear in mind the particular tendencies of those among whom they lived and laboured. The apostle here acts and speaks on this himself. He refers to the sentiment uttered by one of their own poets; for a poet is often truer than a philosopher, and a religious zealot can never be trusted. Your boasted "thinker" loses himself for the most part in dreamy speculations of the closet. A poet may be frivolous indeed, but after all he lets out the real character; it may be in his own person, but at any rate he ordinarily expresses the feeling of the age and place in which he lives, if not the heart in its depths. And this was what one of their own poets, whom the apostle cites, tells about his countrymen. Here Paul was not writing to the church. It might be a matter of doubt whether to speak out so bluntly to themselves; but there could be no question of its importance as information for the fellow-servant to bear in mind in their midst.