Titus 1:11

whose mouths must be stopped; men who overthrow whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.

Whose mouths must be stopped ... Here is ample authority for the elders of the church to exercise decisive control over the teaching from their pulpits, or even privately. The widespread notion that congregations should democratically hear any kind of teaching that comes along is incorrect. Purity of a church demands that the fountain from which it drinks must be pure. Elders have both the right and the duty to silence unsound, subversive and inaccurate teaching. Hervey tells us that one of the meanings of the Greek term from which "stopped" is rendered "means to silence, and is applied to wind instruments."[22] It is as if Paul had told the elders to "shut off the hot air."

The urgent necessity of stopping such teachers appears in the extent of the damage they were doing.