An Introduction to Titus (Titus 1:1-4)

Introduction

If you have your Bible, please turn it to Titus 1:1-4.

If you were here last week, you’ll remember me stating that we’re taking the summer months off from our Genesis series intentionally because we know that going through rather long series can sometimes feel a bit redundant and tiring. So, we switch during the summer months for a breath of fresh air in the sense that it gives a breath of fresh air at the beginning of the summer and it reopens our eyes when we jump back into Genesis in the fall.

We’re starting this summer by continuing our series in the Pastoral Epistles, which we’ve been working through for quite some time—really, we’ve been working through this series since 2022 as we’ve sort of fit these sermons in during breaks and in other occasions when necessary, which by the way, if you find yourself wanting to go through those sermons, they’re all available on SermonAudio.

We know that the pastoral epistles—1, 2 Timothy and Titus—were letters written by the apostle Paul to two different men whom he discipled and mentored for the ministry. Both Timothy and Titus are mentioned elsewhere in Scripture as men who traveled with Paul, learned from him, and then were placed in their respective locations to pastor those areas.

In the case of Timothy, he was placed in the city of Ephesus and in the case of Titus, he was placed on the island of Crete, which is important to know, but I’ll get back to its importance later.

Today is more of a teaching sermon because it sets us up for the weeks to follow. By the end of today’s message, you’ll know:

a little bit more about who Paul is and who Titus is—as well as why Paul wrote this letter.

a little bit about the location of Titus and where he served.

and you’ll know a little bit about the relationship between Paul and Titus.

The idea being that when we finish up today’s message, you’ll see the background information that colors and reinforces the need for this letter.

Now, despite this being primarily a teaching sermon, don’t fret, there will be plenty of application for you to take home as you leave this morning.

Let’s read the text for this morning and we’ll jump right in.

Titus 1:1–4 ESV

1 Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, 2 in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began 3 and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior; 4 To Titus, my true child in a common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

As we study this passage, we’re going to keep the text in one section, but we’re going to start with an added section concerning the background information of the letter. (1) Information about Titus and (2) Paul’s Greeting to Titus (1-4). Again, by the time we finish up this morning, you’re going to have a solid understanding of who Paul is and why he’s writing to Titus; you’ll know what exactly Titus is expected to do and where he’s serving in his ministry endeavors, but you won’t walk away without any application. Rather, your application is going to come in the sense of Paul’s acknowledgement of who God is and how he describes his relationship with Titus.

Prayer for Illumination

Information about Titus

So, the letter to Titus is what is sometimes referred to as an occasional letter—what that means is that there is a reason for the writing of this letter—Paul isn’t just writing to say hello, he’s writing for a reason. And I would argue that there’s a general reason for his letter and then more specific reasons for his letter.

The general reason for his letter to Titus is the relationship that he has with Titus—he considers Titus to be like his own son, we see that in v. 4, “To Titus, my true child in a common faith.”

Paul writes this letter primarily due to this relationship that he has with Titus—that Titus is like a son to him in the faith.

And this relationship really ought not surprise us—when Paul, Titus, and Timothy all started working together Titus and Timothy were both rather young in age though the Bible doesn’t give us an exact age of either person.

It’s typically assumed that Timothy and Titus were relatively the same age and it’s typically suggested that Timothy was somewhere around 30-35 when the first letter to Timothy was written (which is part of the reason for Paul’s encouragement to Timothy to not let the people in Ephesus look down on him due to his young age).

Titus could’ve been a little older than 30-35, which is why Paul doesn’t really give the same encouragement to Titus, but again, we’re not entirely sure.

So, primarily, Paul writes this letter because Titus is like a son to him and like any father-figure, he’s trying to encourage, to teach, and to train his child in the faith.

Now, what makes this occasional as a letter is the fact that there is a purpose beyond just being a nice letter from Paul to Titus and that purpose is found when you look at the overall storyline of the letter itself. So, let’s do that:

Titus 1:1-4 is a brief greeting from Paul to Titus.

Titus 1:5-9 then jumps immediately into qualifications for elders—the reason for this is because as Titus serves on the island of Crete, part of his job is to find new elders to lead the church in Crete.

Titus 1:10-16 continues the conversation by warning against not just false teaching, but false teachers. The idea is that Titus needs to be careful in who he selects as elders because Crete has several false teachings that are rampant and ought to be avoided.

Titus 2 then tells Titus how to confront the issue of false teaching within the church—it’s to teach only that which is sound doctrinally.

Titus 3 then emphasizes the need of good works—not that good works can save you, but rather, good works are the fruit of your salvation—before wrapping everything up.

I hope you see what the reason for this letter is—Paul left Titus in Crete for the purpose of choosing elders to lead the church away and against false teaching and false teachers.

Or, in other words, the purpose of Paul’s letter is to remind Titus of his role in Crete and to encourage him to not hesitate to confront false doctrine within the church and even outside of the church.

How is he to deal with the issue of false teaching? By choosing elders who aren’t false teachers and by teaching right doctrine which leads to the fruit of good work.

Or, in other words—by choosing elders who teach and preach the Gospel accurately without hint of false teaching, those within the church ought to grow in such a way that their growth results in good work.

So, what this tells us are some details concerning Titus, the people of Crete, and both the role of Paul and Titus in all of this.

We’ll get back to what all this tells us about Titus and Paul,

but I do want to tell you about Crete a bit before we do that:

Crete is a rather large island about 100 miles off of the mainland of Greece—it’s sort of shaped weird in that the widest part of the island is only 35 feet wide and the bulk of the island is actually mountainous

From the biblical text, we don’t actually know too much about the island or the people beyond a few verses in the text.

For instance, we can infer the fact that Paul and Titus had visited Crete together and worked in Crete together because the opening verses tell us that Paul had left Titus there to develop the churches.

In v. 12 of ch. 1, Paul informs us that the people of Crete had a pretty rough reputation. He’s quoting a poet by the name of Epimenides who was actually from Crete and the quote isn’t flattering at all. Titus 1:12 “12 One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.’”

Again, it’s not exactly flattering, but the reason for Paul bringing up this quote is to remind Titus (and inform us) that the people of Crete weren’t exactly the easiest people to work with.

In fact, we know it because we use the term Cretan in a pejorative way. If you look it up in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition is, “a stupid, vulgar, or insensitive person.”

It makes sense then that when Paul tells Titus to select elders, he’s careful to remind Titus what the qualifications for eldership actually are.

And it makes sense that as Paul works his way through this letter, he emphasizes the importance of right teaching that leads to the fruit of good work.

Crete is a difficult place for Titus to minister in and yet, we do have an indication that Titus was able to fulfill his role in Crete based on 2 Timothy 4, which was written after Titus. At the end of 2 Timothy while Paul gives his final statements to Timothy, he mentions that Titus is no longer at Crete, but at Dalmatia and there is no indication whatsoever that there was a failed mission to Crete whatsoever. If Titus had failed to accomplish his purpose, he probably would’ve told Timothy; however, we cannot be dogmatic about this since the text doesn’t outrightly say this.

So, there’s a bit of a background for Crete—now, let’s look at our passage for today. Titus 1:1 starts with this:

Paul’s Greeting to Titus (1-4)

Titus 1:1–4 ESV

1 Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, 2 in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began 3 and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior; 4 To Titus, my true child in a common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

Our text starts with Paul’s statement of who he is and in making the statement, he tells us a little bit about himself.

He tells us his name is Paul, who was originally called Saul, which instantly connects him to various passages throughout the New Testament that show us a man who had been radically changed by an instance of meeting Jesus face to face.

In Acts 7, we read about Stephen who was just selected to be a deacon stand a preach a sermon in which he traces the history of Israel and God’s goodness to Israel through that history.

We then read about how Stephen ends that sermon by pointing out the sins of the people and calling them to repentance from sin and belief in Jesus Christ.

And instead of responding to Stephen’s sermon with repentance, they respond to Stephen by stoning him to death.

That account ends by the people laying the bloody clothes of Stephen at the feet of a man named Saul, who approved the death of Stephen.

Saul continues his path of destruction against Christianity until later in Acts when he is finally confronted by Jesus, Himself.

And in that moment, Saul repents of his own sinfulness, believes in Jesus, and follows Him.

During that event, Saul is renamed Paul—a change which highlights the significant change of heart and life; and he is commissioned by Jesus to go and do something in particular.

The commissioning by Jesus in the flesh to go and do something in particular is what makes Paul an apostle—the word αποστολος means a special messenger of God.

The term is utilized for those who receive a specific commission from Jesus Christ physically and in-person; and, in Paul’s case, we know that he’s the apostle to the Gentiles—he calls himself that.

And, in vv. 1-3, we see the whole purpose of apostleship—what God had commissioned him to do.

That he is sent to the Gentiles for their own sake—for their knowledge of what builds up into godliness.

That they would be built up in the hope of eternal life, which was promised to God’s elect before the ages began.

And all this truth, according to v. 3 is made manifest or is seen “in his word” and “through the preaching with which” Paul has been entrusted to do by the command of God.

It’s interesting to note just how much of Paul’s identity isn’t within himself, but rather in Jesus Christ. I think we ought to learn about this:

In v. 1, Paul describes himself like this:

A servant of God—the word translated as servant can also be translated as bondservant or even slave. He’s making the statement that he belongs to God and he knows that he belongs to God.

An apostle of Jesus Christ—recognizing that apostle carries the idea of being sent out to give a message, Paul makes it abundantly clear that he’s been sent out be Jesus Christ; and thus, the message that he speaks is not his own, but Jesus’.

In v. 3, we see this idea that Paul is:

Entrusted by the command of God—it’s a realization that the role that he has is not of his own volition, but rather by God’s own decree or command.

In addition, check out how he describes his role as an apostle:

That as an apostle, he has a specific duty for the good of God’s own people:

He isn’t an apostle because he wanted to, but because God called him to—that the benefit of his apostleship isn’t for himself, but for those who are part of God’s elect.

See how important he understands his role to be? That as an apostle he is charged to proclaim the word of God in a special and unique way—a way that’s not replicated today.

Thus, when you think of this in conjunction with how he views Titus, you can see why he takes his role so seriously—it is very much what God had commissioned him to do for a person with whom he had a close relationship.

So close, that he speaks of it as a father-son relationship in v. 4, “To Titus, my true child in a common faith.”

This is the same terminology that Paul utilizes to speak of his relationship with Timothy—and there are typically two ways that the idea is considered:

First, it could be that Paul considers Titus just to be part of his family (even if he’s not biologically part of his family).

Second, it could refer to Titus being a convert under Paul—meaning, Paul played an integral role in Titus’ conversion (that idea is based on the “in a common faith” phrase).

It could be both or it could be for other reasons—at the very least, it does emphasize their close bond.

Paul then wraps up his introduction with his typical statement, “Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.”

He says this often as he introduces himself to various people in different letters, but the meaning remains the same across the board.

It’s a modification of the Jewish shalom, in which the Jewish people would say shalom as a sort of passing of the peace between one another. Or, in other words, when the Jewish people say shalom they’re essentially saying may you experience the peace that only God can give.

Likewise, what Paul is doing is he’s making the statement may you experience grace, which is only given by Jesus Christ and peace, which is experienced in God and through you.

It might seem like it’s just a pleasantry, but when you consider the concept within the reality of Paul’s role as an apostle—it seems to heavily point to this idea that the same message that Paul was sent to preach is the same message through which you experience grace and peace.

Now, I mentioned at the beginning of this morning’s message that this sermon is primarily a teaching sermon; however, there is still application that’s worth drawing out from this text—albeit, it might take a little bit more of an effort to do so. Instead of having an outright statement of what exactly this text means, we derive our application from what Paul says about himself and his relationship with Titus. Let’s consider this in more detail as we wrap everything up:

Application

First, need to know who your are in Jesus Christ and what that means for you.

It is clear in Paul’s introduction that he knows precisely who he is identity-wise. He knows what his role is and he knows how exactly he serves and has been commissioned to serve.

He knows that he belongs to Jesus—he makes this abundantly clear when he calls himself a servant or slave of the Lord.

And he isn’t ashamed of this nor is he hiding this fact.

He knows that he is Jesus’ and he is unashamed about this truth.

He knows that his role is to serve Jesus—all believers are commissioned into the role of making disciples. Paul’s role was a bit more in that he was called to be an apostle.

He didn’t shirk that responsibility.

He took that responsibility seriously and he sought to fulfill that role anywhere that he could.

He knows how he is to serve Jesus—A lot like many other things in life, there is a right way and a wrong way to do things. When it comes to serving Jesus Christ, the right way involves serving Him authentically, genuinely, with the right heart and spirit.

As he serves the Lord, he isn’t doing it for himself, he’s doing it for the good of God’s people.

He’s doing it because he cares for God’s people and he loves God’s people.

The question is, do you know who you are identity-wise as a believer in Jesus Christ?

If you believe, you belong to Jesus—you are his child (a daughter or son of the king) a fellow-heir with Jesus Christ. You’re also a bondservant, a servant, or a slave to the Lord, Jesus Christ—He owns you.

And you ought not be ashamed of this nor should you hide this fact.

You need to know that you belong to Jesus and you should be completely unashamed about this truth.

If you believe, your role is to serve Jesus—this is completely contrary to the modern-world, which insists that the whole goal of life is to serve yourself. You are a disciple of Jesus Christ, His follower, a subject in His royal kingdom.

Don’t shirk your responsibility to serve your King and your Master.

Take care to obey what Jesus has told you to do—after all, if you love Him, you will obey His commandments.

If you believe, you need to know how to serve Jesus—if you’re claiming to do the work of ministry, you need to be sure that you’re doing it with the right motivation and for the right person.

You shouldn’t be doing it for yourself, you shouldn’t be trying to puff yourself up as you seek to serve Jesus.

You need to be serving Jesus because you love Him and you love His people.

And, just as a side-note, you can often tell when people are doing things for the wrong motivation if they feel the need to defend themselves a lot—e.g., they bring up all the great things that they’re doing and then they quickly follow up with, “but it’s not me, it’s all Jesus.”

Someone doing it with the right motivation won’t feel the need to bring it up all the time.

Again, you need to know who you are in Jesus Christ and what that means for you—and then you need to live according to the truth that you belong to Jesus.

Second, you need to develop relationships in which you are being discipled and in which you are discipling.

The reason that Paul and Titus have such a close relationship is ultimately because Paul took serious the Great Commission.

Paul was making disciples when he met Titus—Titus was turned into a disciple and was still in the process of discipleship.

As Paul discipled and continued to disciple Titus, Titus then turns around and disciples the people of Crete.

Essentially, this pattern is the whole goal of the Great Commission—that you, as a disciple of Jesus Christ turn around and make more disciples.

And, the reality is, if you aren’t replicating, if you aren’t discipling, if you aren’t helping others to become more Christlike, you’re disobeying Jesus’ command to make more disciples.

Paul had a relationship with Titus in which he was working on Titus to make him more like Jesus—he was discipling him.

Paul learned this methodology of training Titus from his own training—first as a Pharisee of Pharisees in which Gamaliel trained him personally.

But also as he was trained by Jesus after his encounter with Him on the way to Damascus.

It’s clear throughout Scripture that this was a typical pattern for Christian growth:

Paul discipled Titus and Timothy (and others).

Apollos was discipled by Priscilla and Aquila.

The apostles were discipled by Jesus, Himself.

And then those who were being discipled turned around and discipled other people.

The question is, who is discipling you and who are you discipling?—this ideology is really prevalent later in Paul’s letter to Timothy that the older ought to be teaching the younger (or, in other words, you’ve been discipled, go and disciple those who are younger in the faith).

Who is like Paul to you? Who is intentionally pouring into your life in a way that they’re not content with you just being the same, but they want to see you grow and mature in the faith?

If you can’t think of anyone discipling you intentionally, more than often, you’re being discipled by someone who shouldn’t be discipling you—maybe TikTok, social media, Fox News, CNN, or any other source like that.

Someone that you know personally needs to be pouring their life into you—they should be teaching you, pointing you to Jesus, helping you see things in a biblical worldview and perspective.

And, if you don’t know anyone doing that, come talk to me before you leave this morning and we will find you someone who is faithful to help disciple you.

Who is like Titus to you? Who are you intentionally pouring into their life in a way that you’re not content with them just being the same, but you want to see them grow and mature in the faith?

If you can’t think of anyone that you’re discipling intentionally, often, that means that you aren’t discipling anyone, which is disobeying the Great Commission. You are to be making disciples and that includes pouring your life into the life of someone else.

You need to be pouring yourself into someone—you need to be teaching them, pointing them to Jesus, helping them to see things in a biblical worldview and perspective.

And, if you don’t think you’re doing this already, come talk to me before you leave this morning and I will help you obey this part of the Great Commission.

You need to be discipled and you need to be discipling.

As we jump into Titus, the introduction insists that we know who we are in Jesus Christ—that we live according to who we are in Jesus Christ and that we be not ashamed of who we are in Him. It also insists that we find ourselves in relationships where we are being discipled and we are discipling others.

True disciples disciple others because they understand their role in Jesus Christ.

Pastoral Prayer