Epistle to Titus - Paul’s Troubleshooter TJL Compilation
TITUSA Suggested Outline of the Book of Titus
Theme: Christians should maintain good works.
Key verse: Titus 3:8
Introduction
I.Church Organization (Titus 1)
1.Preach God’s Word (Titus 1:1—4)THE MAINSPRINGS OF APOSTLESHIP
2.Ordain qualified leaders (Titus 1:5—9)
Titus 1:5-7aTHE ELDER OF THE CHURCH
Titus 1:7bWHAT THE ELDER MUST NOT BE
Titus 1:8-9WHAT THE ELDER MUST BE
3. Silence false teachers (Titus 1:10—16)
Titus 1:10-11THE FALSE TEACHERS OF CRETE
Titus 1:11-12A BAD REPUTATION
Titus 1:13-16THE PURE IN HEART
II. Christian Obligation (Titus 2—3)
1. Older saints (Titus 2:1—4a)
Titus 2:1-2THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER: Senior men
2. Younger saints (Titus 2:4b—8)
Titus 2:3-5THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER: Women
Titus 2:6THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER: Younger men
Titus 2:7-8THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER: Teacher
3. Christian slaves (Titus 2:9—15)
Titus 2:9-10THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER: Workman
Titus 2:11-14THE MORAL POWER OF THE INCARNATION
Titus 2:15THE THREEFOLD TASK
4. Christians as citizens (Titus 3:1—8)
Titus 3:1-2THE CHRISTIAN CITIZEN
Titus 3:3-7THE DOUBLE DYNAMIC
5. Problem people (Titus 3:9—11)
Titus 3:8-11THE NECESSITY OF ACTION AND THE DANGER OF DISCUSSION
6. Conclusion (Titus 3:12—15)
Titus 3:12-15FINAL GREETINGS
TITUSA Suggested Outline of the Book of Titus
Theme: Christians should maintain good works.
Key verse: Titus 3:8
Introduction
I.Church Organization (Titus 1)
1.Preach God’s Word (Titus 1:1—4)THE MAINSPRINGS OF APOSTLESHIP
2.Ordain qualified leaders (Titus 1:5—9)
Titus 1:5-7aTHE ELDER OF THE CHURCH
Titus 1:7bWHAT THE ELDER MUST NOT BE
Titus 1:8-9WHAT THE ELDER MUST BE
3. Silence false teachers (Titus 1:10—16)
Titus 1:10-11THE FALSE TEACHERS OF CRETE
Titus 1:11-12A BAD REPUTATION
Titus 1:13-16THE PURE IN HEART
II. Christian Obligation (Titus 2—3)
1. Older saints (Titus 2:1—4a)
Titus 2:1-2THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER: Senior men
2. Younger saints (Titus 2:4b—8)
Titus 2:3-5THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER: Women
Titus 2:6THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER: Younger men
Titus 2:7-8THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER: Teacher
3. Christian slaves (Titus 2:9—15)
Titus 2:9-10THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER: Workman
Titus 2:11-14THE MORAL POWER OF THE INCARNATION
Titus 2:15THE THREEFOLD TASK
4. Christians as citizens (Titus 3:1—8)
Titus 3:1-2THE CHRISTIAN CITIZEN
Titus 3:3-7THE DOUBLE DYNAMIC
5. Problem people (Titus 3:9—11)
Titus 3:8-11THE NECESSITY OF ACTION AND THE DANGER OF DISCUSSION
6. Conclusion (Titus 3:12—15)
Titus 3:12-15FINAL GREETINGS
IntroductionOur Man in Crete(Titus 1)
While Timothy was laboring in metropolitan Ephesus, Titus was on the island of Crete.
He was a Greek believer (Gal 2:3) and
He had been won to Christ by Paul (Titus 1:4).as Timothy had been (1 Tim. 1:2).
He had served Paul on special assignments in Corinth (2 Cor 7:13-14; 8:6, 16, 23; 12:18).
Paul wrote: “As for Titus, he is my partner and fellow worker among you.” (2 Cor 8:23 ).
Many are “fellow workers;” but few are really partners—fiduciaries.
Like Timothy, he was probably a young man.
But unlike Timothy, he was not given to timidity and physical ailments.
Crete
The people on the island of Crete were not the easiest to work with, and Titus became somewhat discouraged.
There was much mythology and tradition on the Greek island.
According to tradition, Minos was the source of their laws.
He conquered the Aegean pirates who were there and established a navy.
After the Trojan War, the principal cities of the island formed themselves into several independent republics, including Knossos, Cydonia, and Gortyna.
There were apparently churches in all of these places.
Crete was annexed to the Roman Empire about 67 b.c.
Titus: Paul’s Troubleshooter
Paul had assigned Titus to set things in order on Crete
Jews from Crete were present at Shavout (the Feast of Pentecost; Acts 2),
these may have been the core group who had returned to their land with the gospel;
Paul used Titus to help sort out extremely delicate situations.
While Paul was still working at the church in Antioch, he took Barnabas and Titus on a difficult visit to Jerusalem.
They debated with the leaders the position of non-Jews in the church.
Titus was probably the only Greek present (Gal 2:1-5).
Paul used Titus on a diplomatic mission to the church in Corinth.
Titus took a severely worded letter from Paul to the Corinthians tackling their unruliness.
He was also given instructions by Paul to enforce at Corinth.
When Paul and Titus met in Macedonia, Titus had achieved much of what Paul had asked for (2 Cor 2:12-13; 7:5-16).
Paul and Titus travelled to Crete, where Paul left him in authority.
Paul left him there to correct the things that were wrong.
Paul later wrote a letter to Titusshowing that Titus was in charge of another difficult situation.
Paul urged him to combat quarrelling and slander by rebuking his hearers and using his full authority to bring order.
The churches needed qualified leaders and the various groups in the churches needed shepherding.
One group of false teachers was trying to mix Jewish law with the gospel of grace (Titus 1:10, 14),
All the while some of the Gentile believers were abusing the message of grace and turning it into license (Titus 2:11—15).
By nature, the people of Crete were not easy to work with (Titus 1:12—13),
Titus needed extraordinary patience and love.
It would have been easy for Titus to have “heard God’s call to go elsewhere,” but he stuck it out and finished his work.
Outline of Titus: Maintain Good Works
This letter is a condensed version of Paul’s 1st letter to Timothy, written about the same time, about a.d. 64-67.
He will emphasize “the Blessed Hope” (Titus 2:13).
• As to Elders in the Assembly Chapter 1– Put things in order
• As to Classes in Particular Chapter 2– Adorn in sound doctrine
• As to Members in General Chapter 3– Perform and maintain good works
PERSONAL LETTERS
1 and 2 "Timothy" and "Titus" are regarded as forming a separate group of letters, different from the other letters of Paul.
Along with the little letter to Philemon, they are written to persons, all other Pauline letters are written to Churches.
They are private rather than public letters although they were read and followed publically.
The Muratorian Canon, which was the earliest official list of New Testament books, says that they were written "from personal feeling and affection."
Marcion, who, although he was a heretic, was the first man to draw up a list of New Testament books did not include the letters to Timothy or Titus in his list.
ECCLESIASTICAL LETTERS
Very soon it was seen that, though these are personal and private letters, they have a significance and a relevance far beyond the immediate.
In 1Tim.3:15 their aim is set down.
… "that you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the Church of the living God."
A clear ecclesiastical significance.
PASTORAL LETTERS
The title, “Pastoral Epistles”, became affixed to these letters in 1726 when a great scholar, Paul Anton, gave a series of famous lectures on them under that title.
These letters deal with the care and organization of the flock of God;
- They tell men how to behave within the household of God;
- They give instructions as to how God's house should be administered,
what kind of people the leaders and pastors of the Church should be, and
how the threats which endanger the purity of Christian faith and life should be dealt with.
THE GROWING CHURCH
In these letters we get a picture of the infant Church.
In those early days the Church was an island in a sea of paganism.
The church was only one step removed from their heathen origin.
It would have been so easy for them to relapse into the pagan standards from which they had come;
the tarnishing atmosphere was all around.
THE ECCLESIASTICAL BACKGROUND OF THE PASTORALS
These letters present problems to New Testament scholars.
We are confronted with a Church with having a fairly highly developed ecclesiastical organization.
- There are elders (1Tim.5:17-19; Tit.1:5-6);
- There are bishops, superintendents or overseers (1Tim.3:1-7; Tit.1:7-16);
- There are deacons (1Tim.3:8-13).
- From 1Tim.5:17-18 we learn that by that time elders were even salaried officials.
- The elders that rule well are to be counted worthy of a double pay and the Church is urged to remember that the laborer is worthy of his hire.
- There is at least the beginning of the order of widows who became so prominent later on in the early Church (1Tim.5:3-16).
There is clearly here an elaborate structure within the Church.
God is a God of order.
His church would be organized around qualified leaders and teachers.
Some of the different titles and offices may overlap or even be one and the same office in the church.
Teaching is prominent in the qualifications for leaders and is ranked together with character.
Remember, church members were on step out of paganism. The leaders/teachers had to be fully grounded in Jesus and God’s truth and their character had to display that fact.
A DANGEROUS HERESY
The forefront of the situation against which the Pastoral Epistles were written was a dangerous heresy which was threatening the welfare of the Christian Church.
-- It was characterized by speculative intellectualism.
- It produced questions (1Tim.1:4);
- those involved in it doted about questions (1Tim.6:4);
- it dealt in foolish and unlearned questions (2Tim.2:23);
- it’s foolish questions are to be avoided (Tit.3:9).
The word used in each case for questions is "ekzetesis," which means "speculative discussion."
This heresy was obviously one which was a play-ground of the intellectuals, or rather the pseudo-intellectuals of the Church.
-- It was characterized by pride.
- The heretic is proud, although in reality he knows nothing (1Tim.6:4).
There are indications that these intellectuals set themselves on a plane above the ordinary Christian;
At times the Pastoral Epistles stress the word "all" in a most significant way.
The grace of God, which brings salvation, has appeared to all men (Tit.2:11).
It is God's will that all men should be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (1Tim.2:4).
The intellectuals tried to make the greatest blessings of Christianity the exclusive possession of a chosen few;
-- Within that heresy were two opposite tendencies.
- There was a tendency to asceticism.
The heretics tried to lay down special food laws, forgetting that everything God has made is good (1Tim.4:4-5).
They listed many things as impure, forgetting that to the pure all things are pure (Tit.1:15).
They may have regarded sex as something unclean and belittled marriage, and even tried to persuade those who were married to renounce it, for
In Tit.2:4 the simple duties of the married life are stressed as being binding on the Christian.
- This heresy also issued in immorality.
The heretics even invaded private houses and led away weak and foolish women in evil desires (2Tim.3:6).
They professed to know God, but denied him by their deeds (Tit.1:16).
They were out to impose upon people and to make money out of their false teaching.
To them gain was godliness (1Tim.6:5);
They taught and deceived for base gain (Tit.1:11).
On the one hand this heresy issued in an unchristian asceticism, and on the other it produced an equally unchristian immorality.
-- It was characterized, too, by words and tales and genealogies.
It was full of godless chatter and useless controversies (1Tim.6:20).
It produced endless genealogies (1Tim.1:4; Tit.3:9).
It produced myths and fables (1Tim.1:4; Tit.1:14).
-- It was at least in some way and to some extent tied up with Jewish legalism.
Amongst its devotees were those of the circumcision (Tit.1:10).
The aim of the heretics was to be teachers of the law (1Tim.1:7).
It pressed on men Jewish fables and the commandments of men (Tit.1:14).
-- Finally, these heretics denied the resurrection of the body.
They said that any resurrection that a man was going to experience had been experienced already (2Tim.2:18).
This is probably a reference to those who held that the only resurrection the Christian experienced was a spiritual one when he died with Christ and rose again with him in the experience of baptism (Rom.6:4).
THE BEGINNINGS OF GNOSTICISM
Gnosticism" fits all this material.
The basic thought of Gnosticism was that all matter is essentially evil and spirit alone is good.
The Gnostic believed that matter is as eternal as God; and that when God created the world he had to use this essentially evil matter.
That meant God could not be the direct creator of the world.
In order to touch this flawed matter he had to send out a series of emanations--they called them aeons--each one more and more distant from himself until at last there came an emanation or aeon so distant that it could deal with matter and create the world.
Between man and God there stretched a series of these emanations, each with his name and genealogy.
If a man was ever to get to God, he must, as it were, ascend this ladder of emanations;
to do that he needed a very special kind of knowledge including all kinds of passwords to get him past each stage.
Only a person of the highest intellectual calibre could hope to acquire this knowledge and know these passwords and so get to God.
Gnosticism literally had endless fables and endless genealogies.
Further, if matter was altogether evil, the body was altogether evil.
From that, two opposite possible consequences sprang.
Either the body must be held down so that a rigorous asceticism resulted, in which the needs of the body were as far as possible eliminated and its instincts, especially the sex instinct, as far as possible destroyed;
Or it could be held that, since it was evil, it did not matter what was done with the body and its instincts and desires could be given full rein.
The Gnostic therefore became either an ascetic or a man to whom morality had ceased to have any relevance at all.
Still further, if the body was evil, clearly there could be no such thing as its resurrection.
It was not the resurrection of the body but its destruction to which the Gnostic looked forward.
All this fits accurately the situation of the Pastoral Epistles.
In Gnosticism we see the intellectualism,
- the intellectual arrogance,
- the fables and
- the genealogies,
- the asceticism and
- the immorality,
- the refusal to contemplate the possibility of a bodily resurrection,
all of which were part and parcel of the heresy against which the Pastoral Epistles were written.
One element in the heresy has not yet been fitted into place--the Judaism and the legalism of which the Pastoral Epistles speak.
Certain Jews claimed that it was precisely the Jewish law and the Jewish food regulations which provided that special knowledge and necessary asceticism that many of the Gnostics insisted upon
so there were times when Judaism and Gnosticism went hand in hand.
Gnosticism, as a formal belief system. did not emerge until much later than Paul.
It is quite true that the great formal systems of Gnosticism, connected with such names as Valentinus and Basilides, did not arise until the second century; but these great figures only systematized what was already there.
The basic ideas of Gnosticism were there in the atmosphere which surrounded the early Church, even in the days of Paul.
It is easy to see their attraction, and that, if they had been allowed to flourish unchecked, they could have turned Christianity into a speculative philosophy and wrecked it.
In facing the developing Gnosticism, the Church was facing one of the gravest dangers which ever threatened the Christian faith.
THE LANGUAGE OF THE PASTORALS
The total number of words in the Pastoral Epistles is 902,
54 are proper names; and
at least 306 never occur in any other of Paul's letters.
more than a third of the words in the Pastoral Epistles are totally absent from Paul's other letters.
175 words in the Pastoral Epistles occur nowhere else in the New Testament at all;
There are 50 words in the Pastoral Epistles which occur in Paul's other letters and nowhere else in the New Testament.
when the other letters of Paul and the Pastorals say the same thing they say it in different ways, using different words and different turns of speech to express the same idea.
Many of Paul's favorite words are absent entirely from the Pastoral Epistles.
The words for the cross ("stauros") and to crucify ("stauroun") occur 27 times in Paul's other letters, and never in the Pastorals.
"Eleutheria" and the kindred words which have to do with freedom occur 29 times in Paul's other letters, and never in the Pastorals.
"Huios," "son," and "huiothesia," "adoption," occur 46 times in Paul's other letters, and never in the Pastorals.
Greek has many more of those little words called particles and enclitics than English has.
Sometimes they indicate little more than a tone of voice;
every Greek sentence is joined to its predecessor by one of them; and they are often virtually untranslatable.