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Titus 3:3
3 For [gar] we ourselves [hemeis] also [kai] were [en] [anoetos] sometimes [pote] foolish [anoetos], disobedient [apeithes], deceived [planao], serving [douleuo] divers [poikilos] lusts [epithumia] and [kai] pleasures [hedone], living [diago] in [en] malice [kakia] and [kai] envy [phthonos], hateful [stugnetos], and hating [miseo] one another [allelon]. KJV-Interlinear
3 For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. NASB
Take care, lest you forget from whence you originated.
All of humanity, with but three exceptions (Adam, Eve, and Jesus Christ), were born with a sin nature. Adam and Eve were created without a sin nature, but chose the path of sin.
Jesus was born without a sin nature, born of a virgin, with no human father, and since the sin nature is handed down from generation to generation through the male, ‘In Adam all sinned,’ then Jesus was born without it and lived a sufficient amount of time making daily choices that excluded sin, and thus became the perfect candidate for sacrifice, qualified both in body and soul in living a life apart from sin.
But as for the rest of us, sin was a part of our life from the get-go. Subsequently during our life, we all made conscious choices to commit sins, which simply reinforced our worthlessness.
So, no matter how far along in your spiritual life you might have come, you are to remember the day when you were worthless, and never forget it. Arrogance can sneak around and get you in a proud state even from within your spiritual growth.
Foolishness means to be without understanding. Understanding comes from listening, learning, having some application, which results in understanding. No understanding means a dysfunctional spiritual life.
Disobedient means to be obstinate, unconvinced, defiant, stubborn, preferring your own interpretation to that of God.
Deceived means to wander in error as a result of obstinate disobedience, not that you could not have known, but because you have chosen to not know, through refusal to maintain a daily study and spiritual growth program in your life.
Without doctrine in your soul, then you have no spiritual life to serve, therefore you serve by default the lusts (drives) of your sin nature. You do not have any control over your sin nature drives, but in spiritual defiance, you will become a slave to your sin nature. Your sin nature possesses drives for pleasures and lusts, angers and hatreds. These result from an insatiable pursuit that will never be satisfied, resulting in frustration and disappointment, resulting in anger, self pity, and hate. These in turn unlock many other sins.
What anyone else possesses, we envy, we covet, we desire. What we do not have, we want, believing that it will solve our inner desires and needs.
Hateful, ‘stugnetos,’ is a bit different than the word for hate, ‘miseo,’ in that the former, hateful, means that you are the one who is hated, because you have violated the oath of truth.
And the latter word for hate, means that you as a result of rejecting your oath of truth, will end up hating.
Bible doctrine is the only possession that will help you to avoid being consumed by corruption. Corruption is what sin does. It destroys everything that is comes into contact with.
Bible doctrine comes only from God. Bible doctrine is not something that you originate or invent on your own, and thus, you, as the dust of the earth, a hated and hateful wretch, have no place to boast either before your conversion to Christ and doctrine, or after it.
Doctrine gets all of the credit, not you. Christ gets all of the credit, not you. The Father and the Spirit, receive all of the credit, not you.
Our obligation in life is to take care of the soul, that we will not become enslaved to the corruption of the body.
The natural state of man is corruption. Repeat, the natural state of man is corruption. There is no such thing as the dignity of man. Doctrine, is the only thing that can transform corruption (putrid rot), into something of intrinsic value (gold).
