Titus 3:10 tells believers to stop engaging with someone who keeps stirring up division after being corrected twice. Paul is giving a practical instruction about church discipline, not a call to harshness toward everyone who disagrees with you. The letter is written by the apostle Paul to Titus, a trusted co-worker he had left on the island of Crete to set good order in the young churches there.
Avoid a factious man after a first and second warning…
Titus 3:10 (WEB)
What Titus 3:10 Means
The word “factious” describes a person who deliberately creates splits, cliques, or quarrels within a community. Paul is not talking about someone who simply asks a hard question or holds a minority opinion. He means a man whose pattern is to pull people away from the shared faith and into rival camps.
The instruction has a clear sequence. First the person is warned, and then warned again. Only when the warnings have been ignored does Paul say to avoid them. That order matters, because it shows that the church is expected to be patient, to give room for correction, and to treat the person as someone who can still change.
The verse does not promise that a divisive person will always be won back, nor does it spell out every detail of how to carry out a separation. It gives a principle: a community cannot keep building itself up while one person keeps tearing it down. Wisdom and love shape how that is done, and the verse leaves the particulars to the church’s careful judgment.
The Context of Titus 3:10
Titus is one of the three pastoral letters, along with 1 and 2 Timothy, traditionally attributed to Paul. Its recipient was Titus, a Gentile believer who had worked with Paul and was now leading congregations on Crete, an island with a reputation for unruly behavior. Paul’s letter addresses how leaders should appoint elders, teach sound doctrine, and live in a way that makes the gospel attractive to outsiders.
The verses just before this one (Titus 3:8-9) urge believers to devote themselves to good works and to set aside “foolish questionings, genealogies, strife, and disputes about the law,” which Paul calls unprofitable and vain. Verse 10 is the natural next step: when such quarreling becomes a person’s habit, the church must act. Verse 11 then explains that a person who persists in this way is “self-condemned,” which shows that Paul sees the problem as sin, not simply as a personality clash.
Key Phrases in Titus 3:10
Matthew 18:15-17
15 “If your brother sins against you, go, show him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained back your brother. 16 But if he doesn’t listen, take one or two more with you, that at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembly. If he refuses to hear the assembly also, let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector.
(WEB)
Jesus lays out a step-by-step process for dealing with a sinning brother, starting with a private conversation and moving to witnesses and then to the church. Like Titus 3:10, it shows that correction is meant to be patient, public only when necessary, and aimed at restoring the person.
2 Thessalonians 3:14-15
14 If any man doesn’t obey our word in this letter, note that man, that you have no company with him, to the end that he may be ashamed. 15 Don’t count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.
(WEB)
Paul tells believers to take note of those who refuse to follow his teaching and to avoid their company, yet to “not count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.” This pairs the call to distance with an equally firm call to keep seeking that person’s good.
A Short Prayer From Titus 3:10
Father, you know how hard it is to be part of a community when someone keeps pulling it apart. Give me clear eyes to see when a pattern of division has taken hold, and give me a patient heart that still wants the person to come home. Guard the people I love from quarrels that drain their faith, and help me speak the truth with gentleness and courage. Make your church a place of peace where your grace is seen. Amen.
