Titus

Overview

Titus had been left on Crete to finish what Paul started: appoint elders in every city and deal with teachers upsetting whole households. Three short chapters tell him how.

Its argument is that grace teaches. Salvation is not by works of righteousness we have done, but the grace that saves also trains us to deny ungodliness and live soberly — which is why sound doctrine and good works keep appearing in the same sentences.

Background

Crete had a poor reputation, which Paul quotes one of their own poets to make. Churches there were young and unorganized, with Jewish teachers among them trading in myths and commandments of men.

Titus was a Greek, an uncircumcised test case Paul had taken to Jerusalem years before, and the man he sent to Corinth when that church was at its worst. He was evidently good at hard assignments.

Key themes

• Appoint qualified leaders; character first, in the home as well as the church.
• Sound doctrine produces sound living, group by group in the congregation.
• Grace saves and grace teaches — both halves.
• Good works are not the root of salvation but its fruit, and they are to be maintained.
• Avoid foolish controversies; they are unprofitable and vain.

Outline

1. Elders, and stopping the talkersChapter 1

   Ordain elders in every city, and silence teachers who subvert whole houses.

2. Sound doctrine for everyoneChapter 2

   Aged men and women, young women and men, servants — and the grace that teaches us.

3. Good citizens and good worksChapter 3

   Be subject, be gentle, remember what we were — not by works of righteousness.

Key passages

• Titus 1:5 Set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city.
• Titus 1:16 They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him.
• Titus 2:11-12 The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us.
• Titus 2:13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing.
• Titus 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us.
• Titus 3:8 That they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works.

Christ in Titus

Titus calls Him our great God and Savior, one of the plainest statements of His deity in Paul’s letters. He gave Himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and to purify a people of His own, zealous of good works — and His appearing is the blessed hope the whole letter looks toward.

Reading it

• Read chapter 2 by groups; Paul addresses each age and station in turn.
• Underline every "good works" — the phrase shapes the letter.
• Read it beside 1 Timothy; the same concerns, in a quarter of the space.