Titus 1
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.
I have in my hands a yellow, hardbound book published in 1975 and entitled Notes, Quotes, and Anecdotes. In and of itself, the book is unremarkable. It is a fairly typical collection of stories and quotes that preachers and public speakers can turn to for illustrative material.
I do not actually use the book. And yet, the book is one of my most prized possessions. Why? Because on the first page of the book there is a handwritten letter to me from a now-deceased minister who I revere. He was a Baptist pastor. He was my Grandfather. He gave me this book after I shared with him that God had called me into the ministry. He wrote the following in it (typed here as he wrote it):
To a special Grandson
Wyman Lewis Richardson
some one special to the family and especially to God
May he always put Jesus
first place and all the
rest will Come in place
always remember Wyman
God Loved you & Loves you
More than his own Life
St. John 3:16
See you in Heaven Wyman
All because of Jesus
Grandaddy Richardson
This is more of an inscription than an epistle, but there are similarities, I would argue. An older minister writes a younger minister to remind him of the gospel and call on him to focus on Jesus. I know what this little note means to me. It is priceless.
So, too, is Paul’s letter to Titus. In the book of Titus, the older minister, the Apostle Paul, writes to a younger minister. He reminds him of the gospel and calls on him to focus. And we are privileged to be able to consider this amazing letter today.
“For the sake”: The “why” of Paul’s apostleship
Paul’s introduction to this letter is laden with theological and pastoral concepts. First, we consider Paul’s reflections about being an apostle. He writes:
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
In point of fact, Paul refers to himself as “a servant of God” before he refers to himself as “an apostle of Jesus Christ.” This is significant. William Barclay writes:
Right at the beginning Paul calls himself “the slave (doulos) of God.”…It meant that Paul was the undisputed possession of God; it meant that Paul had no will and no time of his own; it meant that Paul’s life was totally submitted to God.[1]
May the same be said of us! It is significant that Paul stresses his status as God’s slave before stressing his position as an apostle. There is something grounding in that fact, something that nuances with humility. No matter what position God might raise us to, we are first and foremost His servants.
Yet, Paul is also “an apostle of Jesus Christ.” Here we see the “why” of Paul’s apostleship, why God had called him to this life. He offers two reasons, the second of which contains an important further observation.
- “for the sake of the faith of God’s elect”
- “for the sake of…their knowledge of the truth”
- “which accords with godliness”
“For the sake of the faith of God’s elect.” I agree with H.A. Ironside’s observation about the phrase “the faith” in verse 1.
“Faith” here refers not to trust nor confidence in God on the part of the elect, but to that body of doctrine which the elect are called to defend.[2]
In other words, by “the faith” Paul means what Jude means in Jude 3:
3 Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
A great deal has been made about “the Bauer Hypothesis”over the years, and I would contend that the New Testament idea of “the faith” undercuts it. Frederick Norris gives a good summary:
The publication of Walter Bauer’s Rechtgäubigkeit und Ketzerei im ältesten Christentum in 1934 stirred no wide interest but it did attract the attention of some significant scholars. Its thesis was that the classical theory of the development of orthodoxy and heresy, the priority and majority of orthodoxy, was incorrect; although heresies were forms of community and faith that later generations would reject, earliest Christianity in most regions was first and strongest heretical. Bauer basically skipped the New Testament as a field of study and worked on the literature at the end of or just after its era. He divided the evidence into geographical areas and made his case for each. Only Rome fits the description of having an orthodox majority from the beginning. (That was itself an unexpected claim from a staunch Protestant.)[3]
In other words, Bauer argued that the early church did not hold to a common “faith,” but to many disparate “faiths,” all under the banner of Christianity. There was no core unity, the deviation from which we can call heresy. There was no orthodoxy, just orthodoxies.
But it is telling, as Norris notes, that Bauer “skipped the New Testament.” But of course. The New Testament does argue for the idea of “the faith,” and note that Paul assumes that Titus understands what “the faith” is, just as Jude assumes his readers have the same understanding.
Paul is an apostle “for the sake of the faith of God’s elect.”
Viewing the example of Paul, we may conclude that apostles (1) spread the faith, (2) taught the faith, (3) defended the faith, (4) stewarded the faith. Their churchly work, then, was not institutional, first and foremost, but theological. It was the content of the faith, even moreso than the organization of the congregations, that was first and foremost on their minds.
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
But Paul was also an apostle “for the sake of…their knowledge of the truth.”
The gospel introduced to the world new ideas, a new body of truths, indeed, a new mindset. It challenged the old orthodoxies of Rome and of Greece and of Jerusalem. There is an educational aspect to the faith. There is content we must know, just as there is content we must understanding.
Christianity is not a leap into the dark. It is a leap, as has been famously said before, into the light. There is a beautiful phrase by Anselm of Canterbury: “faith seeking understanding.”
Fides quaerens intellectum, means “faith seeking understanding” or “faith seeking intelligence”, is a Latin sentence by Anselm of Canterbury.
Anselm uses this expression for the first time in his Proslogion (I). It articulates the close relationship between faith and human reason. Anselm of Canterbury states: “Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam” (“I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but rather, I believe in order that I may understand”).[4]
This is profoundly helpful, I believe. Faith should seek understanding, intelligence. It is a scandal of the first order that some Christian traditions view faith as largely emotional or psychological while neglecting the intellectual aspect of it. We should seek to grow in our knowledge of Jesus and of His gospel! Knowledge is not the enemy of faith. Knowledge is pursued by faith.
Yet, Paul in no way sees “knowledge” as mere head knowledge. Far from it!
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
True knowledge “accords with godliness.” It compels us toward holiness!
Again, Ironside puts it succinctly and well when he comments on how the knowledge of God impacts the actual life of the believer.
The truth apprehended in the soul produces piety in the life. This is insisted on in this letter.[5]
One of the scandals of the life of the church that is truly heartbreaking is the sometimes-scandalous personal lives of the church’s brightest minds, of the church’s theologians. I am thinking of a world-famous theologian from the twentieth century who, it was discovered, allegedly wrote his great masterpiece with his mistress. I am thinking of another who wrote a book that has impacted countless ministers, including myself. After this theologian died, numerous female students came forward to speak of his lecherous behavior toward them. I am thinking of another theologian, famous and renowned in America from some years back, who was a serial adulterer and who left behind obscene pictures for his family to discover when he died. I am thinking of another, a tremendous Evangelical theologian, who was notoriously think skinned, who obsessed with making a name for himself, and who once, when he received a large advance on a book to be published, ran down the hallway of the seminary waving the church in the air.
How can it be that those with the most knowledge could simultaneously be living such sinful lives? Because, of course, we are sinful people, but also because their knowledge was not allowed to take root in their lives and produce the fruit of holiness. But true knowledge “accords with godliness.”
Paul’s apostleship is for the sake of the church’s faith and the sake of the church’s knowledge, a knowledge that accords with godliness! He truly lived for Jesus in service of Jesus’ church.
“in hope”: The end of Paul’s apostleship
But his apostleship was ultimately lived “in hope”! Of what? Watch:
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
Again, these are two rich verses. Paul was an apostle “in hope of eternal life” He then offers two further assertions about this “hope of eternal life,” the second of which connects with Paul’s preaching ministry.
- “in hope of eternal life”
- “which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began”
- “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”
This “hope in eternal life” was promised “before the ages began” by our God “who never lies.” This hope, then, is trustworthy. You can bank on it!
When did God “promise” this hope “before the ages began”? It can only mean that the promise of salvation is part of God’s loving character, part of who God is. Our God is a saving God! Philip Towner writes that “it was part of his eternal will that his people would enjoy eternal life.”[6] I agree.
Then, “at the proper time,” this promised eternal life was “manifested in his word.” There has been much discussion about the definition of “his word” in this context. Ultimately, of course, it parallels John’s reference to Jesus as “the Word” (John 1:1) that “became flesh” (John 1:14). But the promised eternal life was manifested before the incarnation of Jesus in and through the proclamation of the prophets. It was a promised eternal life and, in Jesus, it is a fulfilled eternal life.
That same word was preached, Paul says, through him “by the command of God our Savior.” True preaching is therefore the proclamation of salvation in Jesus Christ.
This hope of eternal life is grounded and certain and sure. It is not a desperate, blind leap. It is a certain hope, a trusting hope.
Philosophers speak of teleology or the telos of a thing, by which they mean its ending or its goal. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy contains this entry:
Telos is the ancient Greek term for an end, fulfilment, completion, goal or aim; it is the source of the modern word ‘teleology’…
In ethical theory, each human action is taken to be directed towards some telos (i.e. end), and practical deliberation involves specifying the concrete steps needed to attain that telos. An agent’s life as a whole can also be understood as aimed at the attainment of the agent’s overall telos, here in the sense of their final end or summum bonum (‘highest good’), generally identified in antiquity as eudaimonia(happiness)…
In the natural science of Aristotle, the telos of a member of a species is the complete and perfect state of that entity in which it can reproduce itself (so, insects reach their telos when they become adults). The telos of an organ or capacity is the function it plays in the organism as a whole, or what it is for the sake of; the telos of the eye is seeing…
We can say that salvation was the telos of Paul’s apostleship, of Paul’s life. It was the ultimate goal, the purpose, the end to which he strove, the summum bonum, the highest good, the final state beyond which there could be no further development, no further striving. And the same is true of us. We are proclaimers and stewards and transmitters of hope, of the certain knowledge that Jesus is Lord!
“To Titus”: The “for” of Paul’s apostleship
Then, after all of this, we have the recipient of the letter named.
4 To Titus, my true child in a common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
The recipient is named, then an identifying qualifier follows. Finally, an expressed hope and desire for grace and peace “from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.”
- “To Titus”
- “my true child in a common faith”
- “Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior”
Who was this Titus? We can piece together the evidence of the New Testament to form a picture.
Titus was a follower of Jesus who served as living proof that one need not become a Jew in order to be saved. In Galatians 2, Paul speaks of taking Titus with him to the Jerusalem Council spoken of in Acts 15. At heart, that council was discussing whether or not Gentile converts to Christ would need, in essence, to become practicing Jews in order to be saved. Titus, a Greek follower of Jesus, served as evidence that the Gentiles need not so convert. Paul writes in Galatians 2:
1 Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. 2 I went up because of a revelation and set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain. 3 But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek.
So Titus was a Greek convert to Christianity whose conversion was so thorough that he stood as evidence that even Gentiles could be saved.
Titus was a comfort to Paul. In 2 Corinthians 7, Paul writes that Titus comforted him and his team during a difficult time.
5 For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn—fighting without and fear within. 6 But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus, 7 and not only by his coming but also by the comfort with which he was comforted by you, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still more.
Titus was joyful. In the same chapter, 2 Corinthians 7, Paul speaks of Titus as both joyful and as a spreader of joy.
13 Therefore we are comforted. And besides our own comfort, we rejoiced still more at the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by you all.
Titus’ joy was strengthened by the Corinthian church and he, in turn, brought joy to Paul and his team.
And Titus loved the body of Christ. In 2 Corinthians 7, Paul writes of Titus’ “affection” for the Corinthian believers.
15 And his affection for you is even greater, as he remembers the obedience of you all, how you received him with fear and trembling.
Yes, it is a pleasure to be able to read this amazing letter from Paul to Titus. In the introduction, we are given a beautiful picture of Paul as the apostle of Jesus, proclaimer of the faith, and steward of hope. And, in the rest of the New Testament, we are shown a powerful picture of Titus: a convert to Jesus and His way, a man who loved the body of Christ, and a man whose example demonstrated that salvation was truly open to anybody who would call on the name of Jesus!
[1] Barclay, William. The Letters to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. (Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press, 1968), p.259.
[2] Ironside, H.A. Timothy Titus and Philemon. (Neptune, NJ: Loizeaux Brothers, 1964), p.263.
[3] https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/review/the-bauer-thesis-examined-the-geography-of-heresy-in-the-early-christian-church/
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fides_quaerens_intellectum
[5] Ironside, H.A. Timothy Titus and Philemon, p.263.
[6] Towner, Philip H. 1–2 Timothy & Titus. The IVP New Testament Commentary Series. Series Editor Grant R. Osborne. Volume 14 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 19940), p.219.