Invincible Truth and a Faithful Minister

Look for Qualified Spiritual Leaders

As an emissary from the Apostle Paul to Crete, Titus had the difficult task of correcting some aggressive and boisterous, as well as self-confident and self-appointed, teachers in the churches. It seems that these teachers were devising their own brand of theology based on an allegorical interpretation of the law and paying little attention to the authoritative revelation give to the apostles. He also had to deal with a culture peculiarly given over to sensuality and, therefore, at cross purposes to the Christian view of holiness. The search for qualified church leaders would be crucial in building an outpost for heaven in a population captured by the world, the flesh and the devil.

I    Paul’s Greeting establishes the foundational issue of ministry

establishes the authority of his apostleship  1-4  This will be an aid to Titus.  Titus probably needs no instruction or even reminder of Paul’s credentials or of the effectual operations of the gospel to secure a people for God’s own possession, even in a place like Crete.  What he does need is a letter that arms him with apostolic blessing in the eyes of the church and gives evidence that he has indeed been instructed to set this church in order.  The detail of the apostolic responsibility gives a startlingly clear picture of divine purpose in the task of Titus.

He is an servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ –  The first is the more general category and the second clearly establishes the manner in which his servanthood is carried out.

This appointment is defined by the phrase, “faith of God’s elect,” i. e. the task of  bringing God’s elect to faith –  We must never underestimate the motivation that the doctrine of election served in the apostles’ ministries. In 2 Timothy 2:10 Paul had stated his willingness to endure all things for the “sake of the elect that they too may obtain salvation.”  Not only does election serve as motivation, but it serves to define God’s purpose for establishing apostles.  They specifically are one of the means by which God will call his elect.  Christ came to save those that the Father had given him (John 6:37-40, 65; 17:2) and the apostles are sent that those very ones might be gathered in by the preaching of the Gospel.  In addition, the “faith of God’s elect” means that truth that constitutes the gospel message established before the foundation of the world and believed by God’s elect from the time of the first believer (Hebrews 11:2) to the present.  We are not free to alter, enlarge, or diminish the revelation of the gospel but are to be faithful stewards.  Paul could tell the Ephesians that he had not failed to declare to them full “counsel,” or purpose, of God (Acts 20:27).

Further, the elect will have their lives defined by truth (“knowledge of the truth”)  This reinforces the prior concept of faith, that not only is it an attitude of trust, but it is trust engendered by cordial embracing of a particular message about God.  The truth is constituted of several discreet propositions concerning the way God saves his people. He will have us know that we cannot save ourselves from condemnation, but must flee to Christ, the incarnate Son of God taking our nature to work vicariously for our acceptance before the righteous creator and judge of all. Christ accomplishes this on the basis of his substitutionary death and righteous life.  We must know that, when left to our own desires and plans, we have no heart for righteousness but indulge ourselves in unholiness and will not believe. Only when given a new heart in a new birth will the faith of God’s elect reside within the soul (1 John 5:1-5).  When we are saved we will know that it is of God. These truths among others constitute the elects’ “knowledge of the truth.”

This truth is given for the purpose of godliness – If one has believed according to the “faith of God’s elect” godliness will not be foreign to his affections.   He will not be repelled by it but drawn to it.  His desire will be to know and glorify God.  This distinctive element of faith supports Paul’s instructions further in the epistle [1:15, 16; 2:11-14; 3:8ff] Godliness is not manufactured by human energy, though its power engages and employs human energy as its outlet, but is the irrepressible working of the Holy Spirit in the regenerate soul, it is the continued and invincible operation of divine grace to transform believers in Christ to reflect more and more the heavenly glory (2 Corinthians 3:17, 18).

Godliness sustains the hope of eternal life –  Eternal life consists of living before the face of God in a state of endless joy, the fountain of which is the sustained and continually augmenting display of the beauty of God’s personal holiness.  This is the hope of eternal life.  “He that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he himself is pure” 1 John 3:3. None but the godly embraces such a hope and finds it pleasing.

God Himself, who never lies, has promised eternal life – All the preceding come in accordance with a promise made by God.  If God had not determined that this purpose for his elect would certainly come to pass, he could not have promised with the certainty of truth sustaining the promise.  God does not lie because (1) he cannot lie and (2) his decrees control all events and his words always comply with his decrees.  Literally the “unlying God.”  It means more than just that he does not but that his nature is such that he can just as easily be called unlying as he can be called omnipotent.  He is called ‘unlying’ with the same confidence that he is called “love” or “holy.”

He promised it before chronological time began [to whom did he promise it?]  This promise occurred within himself as a part of the eternal communications of love between the persons of the Trinity.  The promise given to Abraham had already been made to the seed of Abraham, that is, Christ (Galatians 3:14) and comes to the elect in accordance with this principle of omnipotent grace [Galatians 4:21-31].

The entire scheme is manifest through preaching – All of this, promised in eternity, came into history in the time peculiarly designed for it by God’s wisdom [The words indicate a critical time having its own criterion of importance]. Paul used different words in Galatians 4:4 “the fullness of time.” Bypassing the incarnation and atonement, Paul moves directly to the issue of how this eternal purpose and immutably truthful promise comes before sinners that live in time and space.  His answer is that it comes through the preaching of the apostles, peculiarly through the message with which Paul had been entrusted.  He was convinced that God would himself undertake the protection of this entrustment [2 Tim 1:12]

Paul was entrusted with this preaching by command – Paul has not taken this as matter of personal prerogative but has been commanded by God, or commandeered by God, as a vessel through whom the message would be given.  “Woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel, for I have a stewardship entrusted to me.” 1 Cor. 9:16

Addresses Titus with encouraging frankness

Reminds Titus that his faith is the same as Paul’s –  Both have been begotten by the same faith and though Paul was clearly instrumental in Titus’s conversion, they are both begotten by the truth that comes from God.  “For you have been born again, not of seed that is perishable, but imperishable, [that is by the immediate operations of the Holy Spirit] through [with the preparatory work of] the living and enduring word of God.” [1 Peter 1:23]

Reminds him that their support is from grace and their freedom is in the confidence of reconciliation. – “Grace and Peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.”

II   Titus’s Task in Establishing Gospel Order  5-9

Paul Had purpose in placing Titus there in Crete  “For this cause”

Paul had deep affection for Titus  cf. 2 Cor 2:12, 13; 7:5, 6  Clearly, if he left a field of usefulness in Troas because Titus was not there, he had a tremendous affection for him born from his conviction that Titus would be one of those who would give continuity to the message.  The open door was not as compelling in his discernment of God’s will as the necessity of establishing contact with Titus.

Paul had confidence in the sincerity and discernment of Titus – 2 Cor 7:7, 13-15; 8:16-18; 12:17, 18  He saw how Titus had been encouraged by the Corinthian response to Paul’s injunctions.  He was convinced that Titus genuinely loved godly obedience and had seen the power of truthful and loving rebuke in the restoration of God’s people to repentance..

Paul considered Titus as his fellow in the work among the Gentiles 2 Cor 8:23; Gal. 2:1-3 – Titus himself was a Greek, and uncircumcised but personally inundated with the truth of the gospel of Jesus the Messiah.

The churches recognized Titus as gifted, capable, and earnest 2 Cor. 8:19  He held a place of honor among the churches and was selected by those that had contributed to the offering for Jerusalem to take it to them

Now Paul clothes Titus with his own authority, as described above, that the church in Crete might know that Titus acts according to apostolic instruction – “ as I directed you”

Several Issues of Church order needed finishing – set in order what remains  5

Probably issues of order in worship and ordinances as at Corinth with which Titus was vitally familiar;  Also daily living according to orderliness and godliness chapters 2, 3  God does not leave the matters of his worship to the whims of men, but prescribes how we are to come to him.  Most prominently we come to God only by Christ.  Beyond that we are conformed to his image by personal and corporate worship in accordance with his requirements.  These requirements are not burdensome, but simple and lovingly designed to rid us of destructive inventions of our own and keep us focused on the truth as it is in Jesus.  We must not be so presumptuous as to think that Christian doctrine does not include particular instructions in Christian worship.  As Paul had given detailed instructions to the Corinthian church on how to proceed in an orderly manner so that the word of understandable revelation would be foremost in proclamation, prayer, and singing, so that focus on the word must be put in place at Crete.

Appoint elders –  Paul probably means lead in the appointing of elders; initiate the process and see that it is done according to requirements.  The qualifications are given not so much for the sake of Titus, who probably knew this well, but for the sake of the church so they would understand their own obligation and consent to Titus’s discipline of the process Cf. Paul and Barnabas in Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch Acts 14:21-23

Most urgent need—qualified elders, interchangeable with bishop [the word used in 1 Tim 3 is bishop or overseer, referring to the same office], seeing that it is used immediately in verse 7;  bishop refers to a function while elder refers to the respect and solemnity due the position

Marital fidelity  -“One woman man”  If one cannot bear up under the covenant that undergirds marriage, how can he care adequately for the bride of Christ? This is an important qualification given the place of marriage as fundamental to both society and church. God established human society with the marriage of Adam and Eve (Genesis 1:27,28; 2:22-25) and one of the evidences of the fragmentation of society was the corruption of God’s intent in marriage (Genesis 4:19-24). The book of Hosea, chapters 1-3, shows the divine intensity about faithfulness in marriage and that redemption is set in opposition to such unfaithfulness. The relation of Christ and the church shows how important marriage is as an analogy to Christ’s absolute faithfulness (Ephesians 5:25ff; Revelation 19:6-10).

Issues concerning children  -Since the church in the household of God, the manner in which a person takes the responsibility for his children says much about how he would function as a shepherd of the church of God.  The discipline that he is willing to administer in order to restrain sinfulness and the instruction that he gives that their lives might conform to truth must be observable if one is to be selected as an elder.

Faithful – some say believers, but that would impose on divine sovereignty – probably means instructed in the faith, “nurtured in the sound teaching of godliness” [Calvin, although Calvin says “that the children should be believers”] and attendant to the things of the faith while in the home. We cannot make children to be believers. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” But we can rear children so that they demonstrate respectfulness, are present during worship, maintain a demeanor of attention, and are held accountable to learn the things of the faith. We cannot give faith, but we can teach the truth, love the truth, live the truth, and show that gospel truth transforms.

Not self-indulgent or given to sensuality; not open to the charge of profligacy. When sinful indulgence is not checked at home, it becomes a burden to the church and society.  Selfishness and rudeness, disorderliness in God’s house should not be tolerated in any children of believers and most certainly not in the one who is to instruct the entire church in matters of self-mortification, reverence, and self-effacement.

Not given to public disorder, resistant to lawful authority – Children may at time engage in quiet and secret rebellions; when discovered these must be corrected quickly; public unruliness and unlawfulness is by no means tolerable in those still under the authority of parents in the home.

Free from sins of indiscretion as would be censurable even by the public “above reproach” He is an overseer of the household of God, a steward and must not be reproachful before the eyes of the world 7