The Book of Titus

The letter states its purpose in the first sentence Paul writes to his own delegate: "For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee" (Titus 1:5). Titus belongs with 1 and 2 Timothy among the Pastoral Epistles; the letter names Paul as author (1:1) and its details fit a period of ministry after the imprisonment recorded in Acts, though some modern critical scholars have questioned Pauline authorship on grounds of vocabulary and developed church structure. The Sanctum notes that debate rather than hiding it, while treating the traditional ascription as defensible and following it here. What Titus is actually sent to do is unglamorous and load-bearing: finish the unfinished, and put qualified men in place. The qualifications follow at once, nearly parallel to 1 Timothy 3 — "blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly," not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, but "a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate; holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers" (1:6-9).

The gainsayers were close at hand. "There are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision... teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake" (1:10-11), and Paul reaches for a witness his readers could not dismiss as an outsider's slander: "One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies" (1:12), a line from the Cretan poet Epimenides. Paul citing pagan literature to make a point is not unique to this letter — he does the same with Aratus in Athens and with Menander in Corinth — but here the citation is aimed inward, at the very culture Titus has to plant elders inside of. "This witness is true," Paul adds, "wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith" (1:13).

Chapter 2 turns from qualifying leaders to instructing the whole congregation, and it does so household by household: aged men are to be "sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience" (2:2); aged women are to teach the young women "to love their husbands, to love their children" and to be discreet and keepers at home (2:3-5); young men are told simply to be "sober minded" (2:6); servants are to be obedient, "not answering again," not purloining, "shewing all good fidelity" (2:9-10). Every instruction ends on the same hinge: so "that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things" (2:10). Doctrine, in this letter, is something a life either dresses up or embarrasses.

Then the letter states why any of that obedience is even possible, in the anchor verses of the whole book: "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ" (2:11-13). Grace here is not excuse but teacher (paideuousa), training the whole of a moral life — soberly toward self, righteously toward others, godly toward God. And the closing clause, "the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ," read in its natural Greek grammar names one person, not two, making this one of the clearest single statements of Christ's deity anywhere in Paul's letters. He "gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works" (2:14).

Chapter 3 opens outward, toward rulers, obedience, and gentleness toward "all men" (3:1-2), and then gives the reason such gentleness is even possible for people who were once nothing like it: "For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another" (3:3). Against that plain description, Paul places the plainest statement in the letter of how salvation actually works: "But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost" (3:5), poured out "abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (3:6-7). The same grace that trained conduct in chapter 2 is the grace that saved in chapter 3 — mercy first, works after, never the reverse.

That sequence is also why the letter has no patience left for the Cretan controversies it named back in chapter 1. "Avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain" (3:9), and for someone who will not let go of the quarrel, the instruction is short and final: "A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject" (3:10). Sound doctrine gets a household to run and a congregation to keep; it does not get an endless argument to referee. For Sanctum of Spiritborn, Titus is the godly-order lane: elders qualified, false teachers answered and then set aside, and grace that has already appeared to all men, training ordinary households in good works while they wait for the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Paul, the Figure, writing to the delegate he left behind on Crete.

Titus, the Figure, set in order what was wanting and ordained elders in every city.

Zenas, the Figure, the lawyer Paul asks to be sped on his journey.

Apollos, the Figure, traveling companion named alongside Zenas at the letter's close.

Sanctum Christology, the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ of 2:13.

Sanctum Grace, the grace that appeared, teaching before it ever excuses.

Sanctum Church Order, elders qualified and heretics rejected after admonition.

Bible Reader, Titus in Greek and English.