Titus: Establish Healthy Churches

PRAY

INTRO [series title]:

Having just completed a four-year study of Luke-Acts, we will now turn to the brief letter of Paul to Titus. And I’m really enthusiastic about this series because of not only how it follows well from the end of Acts in terms of the timeline of Paul’s life, but especially because of this season in our own church where we will greatly benefit from the discipleship emphasis in the letter: discipleship for the whole church at every level, that we are all involved in. It is essential that we become integrated in one another’s lives to ground us in the gospel, to have a sound faith in Jesus that leads to godliness and good works, which play themselves out in the specific genders and life situations that God himself has given us.

Let’s read the opening verses to Titus.

Titus 1:1–5 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. 5 This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you—

Titus: Establish Healthy Churches

Today our goal will be to describe an introductory overview, which is particularly helpful so that we get the big picture and apply the big picture, and that we keep that big picture in focus even as we study the details and parts of the letter (to keep our bearings by that north star as we journey along).

It’s also my way of giving you some accountability with me for how we should study and apply this letter. It’s like looking at a good overhead view of the route you are going to take from point A to point B before you simply follow the instructions of your GPS. The GPS may not guide you wrong—it may get you there—but how much you might miss by not knowing where you are as you go along!

Now, here’s what we have to work with in this endeavor to get an overview: There is internal evidence from the letter itself (which is the most helpful and certain evidence available to us), and we have other NT writings for comparison (which are reliable in themselves, so they can give us help as to timing and occasion, and especially about what Paul may mean or not mean when he says certain things… bc of consistency), and then we also have access to some historical information (about Crete at the time, for example), and early church tradition (that can at least give us hints for understanding where Titus fits in the scheme of Paul’s life and ministry).

The overarching question we aim to answer this morning is…

Why does Paul write this letter to Titus in Crete (and why should we study it, and how should we apply it)?

One thing that helps the reader to get at the heart and purpose of a book is to create an outline inductively, from the inside out, based on careful reading of the flow of the content. In lieu of reading through the whole letter this morning and coming up with an outline together, we’ll save time by me just giving you one that helpfully breaks the letter into its flow.

I like the simplicity and directness of this one from the ESV Study Bible:

Outline of Titus (ESV Study Bible)

I. Opening (1:1–4)

II. The Occasion: The Need for Proper Leadership (1:5–9)

III. The Problem: False Teachers (1:10–16)

IV. Christian Living in Contrast to the False Teachers (2:1–3:8)

A. Proper living by age and gender groups (2:1–10)

B. Gospel basis (2:11–14)

C. Summary command (2:15)

D. Proper living, particularly with respect to outsiders (3:1–2)

E. Gospel basis (3:3–7)

F. Summary command (3:8)

V. The Problem Restated: False Teachers (3:9–11)

VI. Closing Exhortation (3:12–15)

[Highlight a few things.]

If you read the letter several times, you’ll begin to see for yourself the way the letter does flow and fit together in this general manner. In fact, because this book isn’t long, I encourage you to read Paul’s letter to Titus once a week while we study it together.

For now, my hope is that this outline might be helpful as a point of reference as we continue with an introduction this morning.

When we begin to look more closely within the letter, the first (and easiest) thing to tackle is to be reminded of who the author of this letter is, the Apostle Paul.

Paul, the author

Paul (also called Saul, his Hebrew name) was the Pharisee ferociously persecuting the early church, when the resurrected and ascended Jesus himself intervened and appeared in glory to Saul on the road to Damascus (recorded by Luke in Acts 8&9). So Paul was called to faith in Jesus and only days later commissioned (through Ananias in Damascus) to be the Apostle who would specifically branch out to bringing the gospel offer of salvation to the Gentiles as well as to Jews.

To be an apostle is to be a messenger, an emissary sent out with a message, which in one sense is the responsibility and privilege of all those who are made saints in Christ Jesus (set apart to him). But the term apostle is most often used in the NT, as here, in the more formal sense of specific men who saw the risen Jesus and who were selected by him to be particularly foundational and authoritative messengers and representatives in the establishment of the Church.

So when Paul needs to either enforce or encourage from this apostolic authority, he will mention it. Here it is stated to reinforce Titus’s authority on Paul’s behalf to do what is needed with the local churches in Crete.

Even more fundamentally, though, Paul does not elevate himself in any way but considers himself to be “a slave of God,” and so sets an example for Titus and others. As one rescued from sin and the controlling power of Satan, Paul is free to live for God, but he is not free to do whatever he might please (that would be the wrongheaded view of those who are actually slaves to sin and Satan). No, in this sense, a slave is one who does not belong to himself but belongs to another, and who does his Master’s bidding, and seeks to obey and please his Master. So this is not meant to negate the truth and value of understanding ourselves as God’s children by faith in Jesus, as Paul himself says that God “predestined us for adoption to himself as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will” (Eph 1:5). What Paul emphasizes at the outset then is a humble self-understanding of how to relate to serving God as a perfect, benevolent Master. Paul sets an example: I do not belong to me; I do what pleases God according to his will.

And speaking of Paul setting an example of servant leadership, and of his apostolic authority applied through another, Paul writes this letter to Titus.

Titus, the direct recipient

(with the likely expectation that it will have a broader readership as well… at the very least the leaders Titus is appointing, but which they would likely read to the churches themselves - Paul ends the letter with “Grace be with you all.” [plural])

To Paul, Titus is “my true child in a common faith,” meaning that Paul thinks of Titus as a spiritual son. It is probable that Paul led Titus to faith in Christ, and it is indisputable that Paul has taken this man under his wing and mentored him as a disciple of Jesus. Although Titus is clearly younger than Paul, he might not be quite as young as Timothy, of whom Paul specifically mentions his “youth” (who may have been as young as his 30s when Paul left him in Ephesus and wrote 1 Timothy).

Paul’s ongoing relationship to Titus and Timothy (as well as Luke and others) should remind us of Jesus and his first disciples during his earthly ministry. They would hear Jesus teach publicly and serve alongside him as he performed miracles, and then he would invest further in them to explain more in depth, and to interact with them personally for their growth, and for them to see him prioritize prayer and hear him pray, and so on. Jesus also sent them out with his authority to start learning how to be his witnesses.

So Titus was likely saved by God on one of Paul’s earliest missionary journeys, and had traveled and served with him extensively now for some time. From Paul’s letter to the Galatians (Gal 2:3) we find out that Titus, a Gentile, was in the middle of the controversy about whether Gentile Christians needed to be circumcised (and conform to the ceremonial aspects of the Mosaic law), but that the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 rightly decided that such was not required for Gentiles in the New Covenant.

From Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, we also learn that Titus was active in ministry in Corinth and in collecting and bringing financial support from Corinth for the poorer saints in Judea. Not much else of Titus is known, but that he gone, presumably again in ministry, to Dalmatia at least part way through Paul’s imprisonment at the last (2 Tim 4:10).

Yet the most we learn of Titus is in this letter from Paul because he has been entrusted with this major responsibility to make sure the churches in every town have healthy elders. Because Paul has invested so much in Titus and trusts him, the focus is not on explaining or defending doctrine (like Romans & Galatians)… because Paul is confident in Titus’s soundness in this area (from all the time spent together in training). -But the focus is on proper leadership in the church and the practical outworking of sound doctrine for healthy churches with healthy households that are grounded in the gospel and growing in godliness and good works for the furtherance of the gospel.

Paul leaving Titus in Crete for this purpose (v. 5) raises a question about where this fits into Paul’s life.

The most likely timeframe

It is generally agreed that these letters to Titus and Timothy do not fit well into the narrative of Acts, but instead Luke closes Acts before a decision is made in Paul’s case in Rome. Paul is still breathing. Early church tradition suggests that Paul was released from his first Roman imprisonment, and did more missionary traveling, during which time these things took place and he wrote this letter to Titus and the first one to Timothy. When he writes a second letter to Timothy (his last), he is no longer free, but imprisoned again in Rome (after which he is believed to have been martyred).

So the most probable timeframe is between a first (Acts 28) and second Roman imprisonment (2 Tim). The best explanation for this letter (and 1 Tim) seems to be that during that ministry between Roman imprisonments, Paul did his usual thing on a fourth missionary journey (circa A.D. 62-64), where he would revisit and reinforce believers and churches before moving on to evangelize in new places.

Based on this letter, Paul seems to have traveled in new evangelistic ministry to Crete, along with teammates, as usual. So while Timothy’s task was to remain in Ephesus and deal with false teachers there in that established church, Titus’s responsibility is to make sure the new believers in fledgling churches are set on healthy footing. Thus the nature and priorities of this letter.

To get at this purpose further, we can turn from the author and recipient to the situation, which we glean from context clues, beginning with the island of Crete and its historical context.

The situation of Cretan culture

(and it’s continued influence in the lives of new Christians)

Crete had become proverbial for its comfortability with sexual immorality, with gluttony at feasts (where much promiscuity also took place), and with dishonesty and greed (a mercenary mentality) for personal gain.

[map] In this regard it is helpful to understand that that they believed their island to be the birthplace for many of the Greek gods, including Zeus. And in their version of worshipping Zeus, he was a man turned god— a human honored for his gifts to men by being elevated to the status of a god. But this man turned god, a hero to them, was renowned and celebrated not only for his courage but also for his violence and self-interested womanizing, lying, and lack of restraint.

In the letter then we have a backdrop of newer churches being established on Crete in various towns, and with the goal of health for continued evangelism, but in a highly immoral culture accepted as normal, and thus with new Christians foolishly tempted to assimilate Christianity into the accepted culture.

The first issue is that these Christian communities are allowing sinful aspect of Cretan culture to remain in their lives (trying to assimilate their new Christianity into their existing Cretan culture). - There’s always a temptation to try to simply assimilate Christianity into the accepted culture, so that you can go on living as you please but feel “safe” in your relationship to God. (But God does not accept such worship. Our lives must holistically reflect having become the ones he has saved by his grace in Christ Jesus.)

Now on top of this, Paul warns of an additional problem, Judaizers giving the wrong remedy.

An added problem of false teachers giving the wrong remedy

Judaizers were teaching the wrong remedy to ‘Cretanized’ Christianity: ritual religiosity.

Hellenistic Jews, even those claiming to be followers of Jesus, were apparently (here like other places) promoting observance of ceremonies and rituals of the Mosaic law to provide people with a ritual purity. (Things like: Get circumcised, don’t eat certain things, observe the Jewish festival days… as long as we keep up with that, we’re good with God and ok to keep living as we please.) But they themselves did not live godly lives, so they are treating this ritual purity like some sort of inoculation and quick fix, which ultimately just allows people to go on living in immorality and dishonesty and greed.

If we’re truthful, this sounds like a dangerous error that has continued throughout church history and is present with us today. (In sadness, some of us will rightly think of centuries and segments of the Roman Catholic church having proliferated this problem of outward conformity to rituals, and thereby wrongly convincing people that keeping up with such rituals will suffice.)

But we also mustn’t think that this doesn’t strike us at home, for the exact point Paul makes to Titus is that such wrong thinking lures us away from true Christianity in the most fundamental areas of our lives. (Again, we ultimately will just be cretanizing Christianity and inoculating ourselves with ritual religiosity.)

If ritual religiosity is the wrong answer, what is the right one?

Christians are to lead transformed lives marked by godliness and good works, which is promoted by healthy churches with healthy households, with everyone doing their part.

(and all of this grounded in the gospel)

To counter the temptation to cretanize Christianity, and it’s wrong antidote of ritual religiosity, the right remedy is healthy churches. And a healthy church must have healthy leaders over healthy households …that realize the transformational power of the Saving God to change our lives and adorn the gospel in order to continue the mission.

Titus needed to help the churches in Crete clean house and become established on sure footing for faithfulness and further evangelism.

The answer is a countercultural faith in Jesus that transforms our lives in godliness and good works to adorn the Gospel. - To accomplish this, we need healthy churches with healthy teaching, led by healthy leaders, and made of healthy households.

Model households will not build themselves, so we must teach and encourage one another how to live godly lives in our God-given genders and roles (even phases of life). And Paul’s argument is that getting such fundamental things right is grounded in the gospel itself, and that godly living and good works demonstrate the beauty of the gospel of God in Christ Jesus.

Paul’s letter to Titus teaches us that the antidote to immoral, self-centered immaturity is not ritual religiosity, but healthy churches with healthy leaders and healthy households (members of both genders and all ages) who are growing in godliness and good works because they are grounded in the gospel.

Conclusion: We must be a healthy church.

How can we be a church that is faithfully set apart to God in our lives and faithful to our evangelistic calling? How do we live in a culture that is going mad with immorality, while not assimilating to that culture or by thinking that religious ritual will inoculate us?

We must let the gospel change us, grow us in godliness and good works. We must be a healthy church. The way forward for evangelism and fighting false doctrine is healthy local churches. This letter was written Titus to help fledgling churches. To us, an established church, this becomes a call to return to the basics and make sure we are doing them well.

A healthy church not only needs healthy leaders teaching healthy doctrine, but also for all members to be serving in their role and to be involved in one another’s lives to help each other learn to serve in the roles God has presently given us.

To deal with being Christian witnesses in an immoral culture, we do not need conformity to mere outward religious piety, we need healthy churches that are promoting the true gospel and the corresponding godliness that necessarily should pervade our whole lives.

PRAY

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