Titus 3:10-11

(Credit: Navarre Bible)


Titus 3:10-11

“As for a man who is factious, after admonishing him once or twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such person is perverted and sinful; he is self-condemned.”

“As for a man who is factious” (airetikos in Greek, haeriticus in Latin): literally, a heretic. “This is the only time this word appears in the New Testament; it did not yet have the technical negative meaning of someone who denies a revealed truth; it simply meant someone who followed his own erroneous ideas, even if that did not involve a direct attack on the Church.

Here it refers to those false teachers who rejected Titus’ teaching, even if they did not do so in any formal or organized way. If they do not listen to fraternal correction as Jesus taught (cf Mt 18:15-17), they must be treated as estranged from the Church.

It should be noted that it is not the Church who condemns them; it is they who have gone astray and the Church simply takes its position to show the faithful where error lies.