As a child in the 1980s, I went to very good Sunday school each week. But suddenly the other kids in my Sunday school class started disappearing from church. And over a period of a couple of years, the group went from sizeable and thriving to just two of us.

Over the same period, the church contracted from 120 people to 50 as many of the adults were losing their heads over some theological argument.

But in Titus 3, Paul urges churches to avoid pointless quarrels. To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with healthy persuasion and attempts to develop more advanced understandings of the Bible. He writes (CSB):

But avoid foolish debates, genealogies, quarrels, and disputes about the law, because they are unprofitable and worthless. Reject a divisive person after a first and second warning. For you know that such a person has gone astray and is sinning; he is self-condemned. 

Two items there need unpacking. The first is Paul’s reference to “genealogies”. 

According to BibleRef:

This sounds like an odd point, but certain false teachers took great pride in proving that they were direct descendants of Abraham. Yet God is not concerned with who one’s parents are—He is concerned about our salvation. Titus was a Gentile and had no Jewish lineage. Instead of comparing family history, Titus is to preach the good news of Christ. 

The second is “disputes about the law”. Here Paul touches on the difficult issue of how to square all that Old Testament teaching about Mosaic law, especially circumcision, and the fact that Jesus has displaced the need for it. In modern churches, there are those who have differing views as to how the Sabbath should be marked. Paul’s view is that we shouldn’t fall out over such things.

Two words that I often seen American Christian authors use, which represent the sentiment from Titus 3, are “winsome” and “irenic”. They’re used when making a theological position but when writers are conscious that they’re not trying to throw a metaphorical grenade at other Christians.

Notably, Paul uses the same chapter, both before and after his call to avoid rows, to talk about what Christians should be spending time on. Before, he refers to good words as “good and profitable for everyone” and after he talks of people devoting themselves “to good works for pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful”.

The New Testament calls us, as Christians, to make disciples and to help people.