What are the mind and conscience in Titus 1:15?

In Titus 1, Paul outlines the qualifications for a church elder (verses 6–9) and follows up with a contrasting description of false teachers (verses 10–16). Within this context Paul pinpoints the false teachers’ basic problem: “Both their minds and consciences are corrupted” (Titus 1:15).

The mind and the conscience are elements of the spiritual part of human nature. The false teachers, despite outward appearances, are corrupt on a rudimentary level. It’s a degradation that eventually manifests itself in their behavior. Titus 1 also says that, besides being corrupt in their minds and consciences, the false teachers are

• rebellious (verse 10)
  
• full of meaningless talk and deception (verse 11)
  
• disrupting whole households by teaching falsehood (verse 11)
  
• greedy for dishonest gain (verse 11)
  
• guilty of lying and evil behavior (verse 12)
  
• lazy (verse 12)
  
• gluttonous (verse 12)
  
• focused on merely human commands (verse 14)
  
• rejecting the truth (verse 14)
  
• claiming to know God but denying Him by their actions (verse 16)
  
• detestable (verse 16)
  
• disobedient (verse 16)
  
• unfit for doing anything good (verse 16)

Paul’s warning to Titus was “especially [against] those of the circumcision group” (Titus 1:10) who were teaching “merely human commands” (Titus 1:14). So, the danger was in listening to the Judaizers who wanted to impose rules God never intended for the church. Their legalistic approach purported to “purify” people, but Paul negates that idea: “To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted” (Titus 1:15).

In other words, it is impossible to purify an unbeliever through external rites and religious performance. A person may refrain from eating “unclean” foods and follow strict guidelines in dress and hygiene, but if he is not in Christ, then it avails him nothing. His mind and conscience are still as corrupt as ever. Jesus put it this way: “What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them” (Matthew 15:11). Elsewhere, Paul wrote, “I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself” (Romans 14:14). It’s not the purity of our food that should most concern us but the purity of our hearts.

The mind is that part of us that can reason, understand, and think. The conscience is our innate, God-given ability to determine right and wrong and make moral judgments. If the mind is corrupt, then we cannot think straight; we will have a faulty understanding of whatever subject we try to grasp. If the conscience is corrupt, then we lose the ability to ascertain what is morally good, and things that should prompt guilty feelings in us will cease to bother us. A corrupt mind and conscience cannot be fixed with ceremony or religious activity. Such a disability requires a supernatural fix (Psalm 51:10; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15).

Sinful mankind will often try to compensate for their sin with some type of religious action. The prophet Isaiah addressed religious people in his day who complained that they had fasted and humbled themselves before God, yet God had not answered their prayers (Isaiah 58:3). God’s reply focuses on the corruption of their hearts, as evidenced by the sin they continued to commit, even as they fasted:


If you want to fast, God says, make sure it’s more than an external formality. Give heed to the mind and conscience, and choose to do what is right in God’s eyes:


May God preserve us from having a corrupted mind and conscience. May we truly understand His ways and what He requires of us—and what He does not require. May we reject manmade rules as a means of purifying the heart. May our ability to discern right and wrong remain synced with God’s perspective at all times and in every circumstance.