Titus

1. SALUTATION (1:1–4)

1:1–2. In this salutation, Paul deliberately emphasizes the purpose of his apostleship rather than its source. God’s elect people should be characterized by faith in Christ rather than by empty “Jewish myths” (see 1:14). In addition, “the truth” (1:1) stands in distinct contrast to popular pagan legends about Zeus’s origins as a man born and eventually buried on Crete. The only hope for “eternal life” lies in what the true and living God promised “before time began” about executing his drama of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation (1:2). [Slave, Servant]

1:3–4. That promise has been fulfilled “in his own time” through Jesus Christ’s coming (which Paul discusses at Ti 2:11 and 3:4) and in the “preaching with which I was entrusted” (1:3). Paul refers to Titus as “my true son in our common faith” (1:4a). Titus is one of the most trusted—and most “Greek”—of Paul’s protégés. Moreover, Titus is a veteran of Paul’s battle over Jewish customs and teaching in Gentile churches (Gl 2:3). Paul considers him the perfect emissary for dealing with a situation in which teachers “from the circumcision party” (Ti 1:10) complicate these new converts’ situation. Paul greets Titus with the standard “grace and peace” (1:4b) from the earlier letters (minus the addition of “mercy” as in 1 and 2 Timothy).

2. LEADERS AND REBELS (1:5–16)

A. Identifying and appointing leaders (1:5–9). Paul reminds Titus he has left him on Crete to finish their work (1:5) by completing the organization of the churches (1:6–9), by dispatching the false teachers (1:10–15), and by laying out sound doctrine and ethics (chaps. 2–3).

The terms “elder” and “overseer” appear interchangeable, since Paul uses the latter term (1:7) to describe the attributes of those to be appointed to a role (that of “elder”) that could otherwise be thought of as merely honorific. Elders are to teach, both through lifestyle (1:6–8) and in word (1:9). In this missionary setting, elders model God’s plan to rehumanize a humanity that tells lies about God, destroys one another, and lives with uncontrolled passions (see 1:12). Christ has come to restore knowledge of God, rightness in relationships, and integrity of persons (see 2:12). Elders exemplify all three.

Since it will be their task to encourage piety, justice, and self-control within the churches, the leaders’ impact is looked for first on their most immediate circle of influence: their children (1:6). Paul wants to ensure that the Cretan leaders’ children are pious and do not leave themselves liable to a charge either of prodigality or of being rebellious (the opposite of living justly).

In this letter Paul explains to Titus why he left him on Crete (Ti 1:5) and advises him on the continuing ministry there.

B. Silencing rebels (1:10–16). Paul orders the silencing of certain Jewish teachers (1:11). To Paul, these teachers are “full of empty talk and deception” (1:10). Paul regards the teachers as being relationally disruptive: they are themselves “rebellious” (1:10) and are “ruining entire households” (1:11). To the extent that they promote any sort of ethic, they declare merely human “commands of people who reject the truth” (1:14), not rich biblical teaching. Paul also regards the teachers’ motives as corrupt (1:11) and their impact as corrupting. Rather than offer a genuine prescription for personal purity, these teachers locate the problem of cleanness in things rather than in the human heart itself (1:15; cf. Mt 15:10–20), and their conscience-corrupted actions deny the God they claim to represent (1:16; cf. 1 Tm 5:8; 2 Tm 3:5).

Paul’s condemnation is so strong because he fears Cretan culture is receptive to a counterfeit gospel. Thus, he offers from “one of their very own prophets” (traditionally, Epimenides of the sixth century BC) a probing self-critique about Crete’s distortion of theology, social ethics, and personal morality (1:12). One of the Bible’s most delightful moments of irony lies in Paul’s literary wink: “This testimony is true” (1:13).

The Cretan prophet’s saying (1:12) provides the keynote for Paul’s message to Crete’s Christians (see 2:11–12). Christ came to teach, and his followers are called to embody, the opposite of the Cretan prophet’s three phrases: Christ and his followers promote godliness, not religious lies; they display justice, not ethical viciousness; and they embody self-control, not corrupt motives.

3. A LIFESTYLE IN ACCORD WITH SOUND DOCTRINE (2:1–15)

A. Relationships among believers (2:1–10). Throughout this section Paul has a missionary perspective, as is evident in his three “so that” phrases (2:5, 8, 10)—the first two having to do with the silencing of opposition and the last having to do with the furtherance of the gospel. The most profound argument Christians have that theirs is the true God “who cannot lie” (see 1:2) is the lives they lead. The antidote for the sickness of soul Paul just diagnosed in Cretan culture and in the false teachers lies in the gospel’s power to reshape human lives.

2:1–5. If the false teachers deny God by their actions (1:16), the faithful teacher must see to the confirming of God’s character in the lives of Christ’s followers (2:1). God’s character is visible where Christ creates people marked by “self-control” (2:2, 5–6, 12), where relationships bear these marks of God’s character (2:2–10), and where the story of Christ’s incarnation and redemptive work forms a people “eager to do good works” (2:11–14).

Older men are to exhibit confirmed integrity of character, and they are to display the gifts and virtues Paul urged in his earlier letters (2:2; the practical outworking of hope). Paul wishes older women to be prime examples of Jesus Christ’s power to reshape impiety into godliness, social viciousness into justice, and intemperance into self-control (2:3). They are to urge younger women to honor their responsibilities to their husbands and children, especially in showing sexual faithfulness to their husbands and in educating their children (2:4–5).

2:6–8. To younger men, Paul addresses but one command: control yourselves (2:6). As unoriginal as the instruction may appear to us, it would have been altogether countercultural—and exceptionally community-formative—for Cretan young men to commit themselves to control over bodily appetites, avarice, ambition, temper, and tongue. What older women are to be to their younger sisters, Titus is to be to his younger brothers. In the whole of his behavior he is to be an example to them. In both the manner with which he teaches (2:7) and the theological accuracy with which he teaches (2:8), Titus is to point younger men to an intersection of life and doctrine, robbing detractors of a potent point of critique.

2:9–10. Paul loads slaves’ faithfulness in the most basic behaviors (not talking back and not pilfering) with the weightiest of freight. Thus, Paul joins ranks with Jesus in embracing the radically countercultural notion that the most eloquent pulpit is a towel and a basin (Jn 13).

B. Theological grounding: God’s grace and glory (2:11–15). Paul transitions now to the idea that God came not to punish but to save us from our “godlessness and worldly lusts” (2:12). Thus he “has appeared” once in “grace” (2:11). There will also be a future “appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (2:13). To counter the Cretan religious lie that God emerged from humanity, Paul stresses that deity has come down to humanity. Further, it is as one who is already fully divine that Jesus bestows saving benefits—deity is not something conferred on him after the fact.

Moreover, Paul describes Christ’s coming as bringing salvation “for all people” (2:11), a salvation that is defined in 2:14 in terms of Israel’s exodus (“redeem . . . a people for his own possession” [see Ex 19:5]) and God’s promises for a restored Israel (“cleanse for himself” [see Ezk 37:23]). A singular biblical story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation is being played out in the world’s history.

In this paragraph, Paul demonstrates that for him “salvation” is an immensely dense complex of realities. In the first place, Jesus’s coming has educative value (2:12), answering Hellenistic culture’s deepest desire for a school of truth, justice, and temperance. Second, as a work of redemption and cleansing (2:14), Jesus’s coming—like the exodus that prefigured it—breaks powers that hold humans (2:12). Third, Jesus’s coming provides redemption and purification precisely because he “gave himself for us”—that is, he came to provide atonement (see 1 Tm 2:6; Gl 1:4; 2:20; Rm 4:25; 8:1–4).

4. A LIFESTYLE APPROPRIATE TO SOUND DOCTRINE (3:1–7)

A. Responsibilities in state and society (3:1–2). In 1 Tm 2:2 Paul urges prayer for civil authorities. Now—as at Rm 13:1–7—Paul provides instruction for living under civil authority. The instructions in Rm 13 are simply to submit and be willing to pay taxes. Here the instructions are more active. The Greek term translated “to obey” (3:1) indicates an attitude of cooperation.

Whereas Paul discourages Christians from pursuing “works of the law” (Rm 3:21–4:25; Gl 3:1–4:7; 5:1–12), he encourages Christians to demonstrate “good works” that flow out of faith (e.g., Ti 2:7, 14; 3:1, 8, 14).

In an age when municipal leaders often declined when asked to help their communities, Paul tells Christians: “Be ready for every good work” (3:1). Moreover, when Crete’s Christians step into the political arena, their demeanor should belie the Cretan prophet’s saying that Cretans are “evil beasts” (1:12). Christians in the public square are to be winsome and conciliatory (3:2).

B. Theological grounding: God’s kindness and benevolence (3:3–7). 3:3. Without the grace of God, all people—not just Cretans!—show their incapacity for sobriety, justice, and piety. Thus Paul now includes himself in the confession of the misanthropic vices of humankind. As he did at 1 Co 6:9–11, Paul here describes the turning point in terms of washing, justification, and the Holy Spirit (Ti 3:5).

3:4–7. Following the stinging indictment of verse 3, verses 4–7 offer a robust theology of personal transformation. This statement completes and elaborates thoughts begun in 2:11–14. Christ’s appearing in 2:11 is completed by the stronger statement in 3:5: when Christ appeared, “he saved us.” Christ’s work extrinsic to us in 2:11–14 finds its complement in the Holy Spirit’s work intrinsic to us in 3:4–7. What Christ accomplished for us, the Holy Spirit now makes active in us. Verses 4–7 also go one more step by including reference to the Father; while it is true that Christ is called Savior here, nonetheless it is the (implied) Father who is the subject of the main verb of the whole sentence: “he saved” (3:5). Moreover, it is the (implied) Father who pours out the Holy Spirit (3:6).

Finally, these verses sweep Paul’s use of Hellenistic aspirations (to sobriety, justice, and piety) and Hebrew narrative (exodus and covenant community) into his familiar theology of baptismal washing, justification “not by works of righteousness,” and inward “regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit” (3:5).

5. SUMMARY: “GOOD WORKS” VERSUS FOOLISH CONTROVERSIES (3:8–11)

Titus is to teach with such authority (2:15) and to emphasize correct doctrine so strongly (3:8a) because Paul wants the teaching to take visible shape through believers’ being “careful to devote themselves to good works.” As those marked by a turning from irreligion, social viciousness, and personal dissolution (1:12; 3:3), believers display a life of gospel-shaped justice and self-control that is “good and profitable for everyone” (3:8b; cf. Mt 5:16).

Paul closes the body of the letter by repeating his warning about the false teachers (3:9–11; see 1:10–16). He adds here the provision to avoid those who are so divisive that they tear the fabric of the Christian community (cf. Rm 16:17–20; 1 Co 5:1–13; 2 Co 2:5–11).

6. PERSONAL INSTRUCTIONS (3:12–15)

The closing notes (3:12–13) seem straightforward but are relevant in the question of Paul’s authorship of this letter (see the introduction to 1 Timothy). Mentioned here are names familiar in other letters of Paul (Tychicus and Apollos). However, there also appear two individuals (Artemas and Zenas) and a place (Nicopolis, apparently on the west coast of the Greek mainland) that are otherwise unattested in Paul. The unfamiliar names seem unlikely from the hand of someone posing as the apostle. In fact, the references seem implicitly to confirm that Paul was released from imprisonment and went to new places unrecorded in Acts.

Just before his final greetings (3:15), Paul reasserts his dominant concern: that believers on Crete show the proof of their teaching in their lives (3:14).