Most sermons fail the Berean test by accident. The preacher inherits a framework, reads the text through it, and delivers something that is sincere but incomplete. The gaps are the product of formation, not design.
This sermon is different. Not because the preacher is malicious — there is no evidence of that. But because the sermon's architecture, taken as a whole, does something specific: it builds a room where the Titus 3 passage can operate without being examined, where discipline can be applied without being questioned, and where the person who raises a concern has already been categorized before they open their mouth.
That is worth examining with care.
This is The Docket. Every installment takes a sermon, runs it against the text it claims to teach, and names what holds and what doesn't. Not to tear down a preacher. To build up people who can read.
The Bench
Preacher: Mark Martin Venue: Calvary Community Church Date: March 9, 2025 Primary Text: Titus 3:10–15 Stated Goal: Teach church leaders how to handle divisive individuals in order to protect congregational health Teaching Depth: Milk — practical application without covenantal grounding or theological depth
The Charge
The sermon uses a legitimate text to build a structure in which pastoral authority is insulated from congregational scrutiny — and it does so using the language of sound doctrine, unity, and biblical obedience.
What Was Preached
The sermon concludes a series on Titus by landing on Titus 3:10–15 — Paul's instruction to warn a divisive person once, warn them a second time, and then have nothing more to do with them. Martin walks through this as a three-step process for protecting congregational health: warn, warn again, shun. Supporting texts from Titus 1:9, 2:1, 2:10, 3:1, and 3:8 reinforce the theme of sound doctrine and godly living. Second Timothy 2:23–26 adds a note of gentleness.
The practical application is church discipline. The emotional tone is pastoral protection. The congregation is positioned as a flock that needs guarding. The preacher is positioned as the guardian. The divisive person is positioned as the threat.
None of this is wrong on its face. Congregational health is real. Divisive people are real. Titus 3:10 is in the Bible. But the sermon never asks the hardest question the text raises — and the hardest question is not how to remove a divisive person. It is how to determine who actually is one.
What the Text Actually Says
The Greek word translated "divisive" in Titus 3:10 is hairetikon (αἱρετικόν) — from hairesis (αἵρεσις), meaning a sect, a faction, a chosen party. This is where the English word "heretic" comes from. In Paul's usage, the hairetikon is not simply someone who disagrees with leadership. It is someone who has made a settled, repeated, divisive choice to fracture the assembly around their own position — who has been warned, considered the warning, and continued anyway.
The text does not say: anyone who raises a difficult question.The text does not say: anyone whose concerns make leadership uncomfortable.The text does not say: anyone who disagrees with how the church is being run.
The definition matters enormously, because Titus 3:10's instruction — have nothing more to do with them — is severe. Paul is describing the final step of a process that assumes the person has been given real opportunity to reconsider. Applied to someone who simply asks questions, or whose disagreement is substantive and good-faith, this text becomes a tool for silencing rather than protecting.
The sermon does not distinguish between these categories. It presents the three-step process — warn, warn, shun — as a protective mechanism without examining who it gets applied to and on whose authority that determination is made.
Matthew 18:15–17 is the fuller picture Yeshua himself gives. The process there is not pastoral announcement. It is direct conversation — between the offended party and the individual, then with witnesses, then with the assembly. The assembly. Not the pastor alone. The community holds the authority, and the goal throughout is reconciliation, not removal. Galatians 6:1 frames the spirit of the entire enterprise: "Brothers, if someone is caught in some sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently."
Restore. Gently. These are the operative words. They are not in this sermon.
The Architecture of the Room
This section requires precision. What follows is not an accusation of bad intent. It is an observation about what the sermon's structure produces, regardless of intent.
The sermon builds a room using six interlocking elements. Each one is individually defensible. Together, they function as a system.
The first element is unity language. "Stand together," "we praise you," the repeated use of "our people" and "we're protected, we're cared for" — this is the linguistic architecture of belonging. It is genuine pastoral warmth. It also means that the person who raises a concern is raising it inside a space where group cohesion has already been emotionally established. Dissent does not feel like a question. It feels like a breach.
The second element is external focus. A prayer for missionaries in Africa, descriptions of persecution in the field, urgent global need — these are real and worthy of prayer. They also function, within the flow of a sermon about internal discipline, to direct the congregation's emotional attention outward at the precise moment when internal examination would be most natural.
The third element is doctrinal authority. The repeated emphasis on "sound doctrine" — drawn from the Titus supporting texts — establishes a category of protected belief. Once sound doctrine is the standard and the preacher is its interpreter, the person who questions the preacher's application is not just disagreeing with a man. They are questioning sound doctrine. These are not the same thing. The sermon does not separate them.
The fourth element is flattery. "I can Google good works and your picture comes up" — this is warm, and it is likely sincere. It is also praise that creates social obligation. A congregation that has been told how well it is doing is less inclined to examine whether it is doing it correctly.
The fifth element is the discipline framework itself. Warn, warn, shun — presented as the biblical response to a divisive person, without defining divisive. The category is established by the text. The application of the category to specific people is left to pastoral discretion. The congregation is not given the tools to evaluate whether that discretion is being exercised well.
The sixth element is the closing grace language. The sermon ends with warmth and pastoral care, which creates a soft landing after a hard framework. The emotional register at the end of the sermon is not the same as the structural reality of what was taught in the middle.
None of these six elements is necessarily manipulative in isolation. Their combination — unity, external focus, doctrinal authority, flattery, undefined discipline, and grace closing — produces a specific result: a congregation that has been emotionally prepared to trust and practically discouraged from questioning.
That is what needs to be named.
The Missing Pieces
The sermon has no Hebraic grounding. Titus 2:14 — "He gave himself for us in order to free us from all violation of Torah" — is a covenant text. The "us" Paul is writing to is a Gentile assembly being brought into Israel's covenant framework through Yeshua. The holiness that Paul calls the community toward in Titus has roots in Leviticus 19:2: "You shall be holy, for I HaShem your God am holy." The discipline Paul describes has roots in Deuteronomy 16:18–20, where justice in the community is communal, not unilateral, and where the process is transparent and accountable.
The sermon treats Titus as a church governance manual. Titus is a covenant document. The difference is not minor — it determines whether discipline is understood as institutional protection or as the community's shared commitment to holiness before HaShem.
A Word to the New Believer
If you are new to faith and this is the model of church discipline you were given this week, here is what you need to hold alongside it.
Yeshua's process in Matthew 18 is the standard. Go directly to the person. Bring witnesses if needed. Bring it to the assembly if necessary. The goal at every stage is reconciliation, not removal. The assembly holds the authority — not the pastor alone, not leadership as a category. The community discerns together.
The person who asks hard questions in a congregation is not automatically the hairetikon of Titus 3:10. Paul's divisive person is someone who has been warned, has considered the warning, and has continued to fracture the assembly around their own position. A person who raises a concern, asks for accountability, or disagrees with a decision is not described by this text — unless the text is being stretched beyond what it says.
You are permitted to ask questions. You are permitted to test what you hear. The Bereans in Acts 17:11 tested Paul — a genuine apostle — and were called noble for it. If a church structure makes that kind of testing feel dangerous, the structure is the problem, not your questions.
"Now the people here were of nobler character than those in Thessalonica; they eagerly welcomed the message, and every day they examined the Scriptures to see if the things Sha'ul was saying were true." — Acts 17:11, CJB
The Verdict
Teaching depth: Milk — practical application without covenantal grounding, theological roots, or structural accountability.
Credit: Titus 3:10 accurately cited and the need for congregational health genuinely addressed.
Credit: Second Timothy 2:23–26 introduced as a softening note — the instinct to include gentleness is correct.
Credit: No replacement theology, no anti-Jewish content, no financial manipulation.
Charge sustained: Hairetikon left undefined — the critical category that determines who receives the Titus 3:10 process is never established, leaving its application entirely to pastoral discretion.
Charge sustained: Matthew 18:15–17 and Galatians 6:1 absent — Yeshua's own restorative framework and Paul's corrective of gentleness are not in the room when a sermon on discipline is being taught.
Charge sustained: Six-element architectural pattern — unity language, external focus, doctrinal authority, flattery, undefined discipline, and grace closing — produces a congregation prepared to trust and discouraged from questioning, regardless of intent.
Charge sustained: No Berean invitation — a sermon about handling those who challenge the church does not equip the congregation to challenge the sermon.
Charge sustained: Titus read as church governance manual rather than covenant document — the Torah roots of holiness and communal accountability in Deuteronomy 16 and Leviticus 19 are absent.
Selah
Titus 3:10 says to have nothing to do with a divisive person after two warnings. Who decides who is divisive — and what process protects the congregation from that determination being made incorrectly?
Yeshua's discipline process in Matthew 18 ends with the assembly. Not the pastor. The assembly. What does it change about how you understand church authority when the community holds the decision rather than the leadership?
The hairetikon is someone who has been warned, considered the warning, and continued to fracture the assembly around their own position. What is the difference between that person and someone who simply asks a question leadership would rather not answer?
If the architecture of a room makes questioning feel like betrayal, is the problem the question or the room?
Shalom v'shalvah — may the peace of our Abba guard your understanding.
Your brother in the Way,
Sergio
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