Titus Intro

As Paul opened this letter, he saw himself as two messengers at the same time. He first saw himself as one bending the knee to the will of God and also as someone raised up by God and given a mission of highest priority. He explains this dual role to Titus as serving God “… for the faith of those chosen by God.”

These two expressions in the opening carry strong OT tones. The first is his self description as “bond servant of God”. The second speaks of those “chosen of God”. These are expressed by Paul to send a strong signal  as to the authority he had as an apostle (one who had been sent).

Apparently Paul and Titus had been together in a ministry on the island of Crete (1:5). The fact that this ministry is not mentioned in Acts reveals to us that we do not have a complete record of all ministries there. Actually Acts contains a rather small record of all of the early church. Only the ministries of two of the apostles are focused there. Peter is focused in the first portion of Acts and Paul appears in the second portion. Even so, we are not given a full portion of either ministry of these two men mentioned. We must gain wisdom from information given to us in part.

Timothy was a Jew (defined by his mother being Jewish) who was circumcised by Paul and Titus was a Gentile who Paul refused to circumcise. Galatians 2 explains this difference is based upon the non Jewish status of Titus.

Later in Galatians 6 Paul makes his thoughts clear for us:

“For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.” (Gal 6:15)

He had Timothy circumcised because they were going into the synagogues. But in the great council of Jerusalem, the gospel was at stake and Paul would not let one bit of legalism creep into that meeting and he refused to consider the procedure for Titus. (Acts 15)

Paul provides a strong message in three parts in the epistle to Titus:

• The church must have an orderly organization.

• The church must contain sound doctrine, preaching God’s word.

• The church must be pure in life, ready to accomplish good works.
  
  We see here that the summary of all these parts of the message is that the church is saved by grace, is to live by grace, and is to demonstrate her faith to the world by her good works. Until a church has all three of the aspects that Paul outlines, it has no claim to be called a New Testament church.