Titus 1
v.1-3
Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God’s elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness - 2a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, 3and at his appointed season he brought his word to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior,
All gospel truth is according to godliness, teaching the fear of God. The intent of the gospel is to raise up hope as well as faith; to take off the mind and heart from the world, and to raise them to heaven and the things above.
Jewish sources traditionally employed the phrase “*eternal life” to mean the “life of the world to come,” which (according to Jewish teaching) was to be inaugurated by the future *resurrection of the dead. That God could not lie, that he had spoken through the prophets from the beginning and that the future resurrection could be proved from the earliest parts of the Bible fit common Jewish teaching and could not be disputed by his opponents (1:10).
What is faith and knowledge from God except that it is rested upon a hope for eternity? What good to have faith or knowledge if it not for the most prized reward - eternal pleasure and intimacy with the Creator of the heavens and the earth. The truth that turns dead sinners into lively saints is rooted in a reality where we spend eternity fellowshipping with God.
“His word” is not the personal Christ, the Logos (cf Jn 1:1), but rather the saving message of the Gospel. This message was made known “at his appointed season,” the opportune time established by God in his eternal wisdom. All history was the preparation for that revelation. The historical appropriateness of the time is evident from the existence of the Roman peace that gave a favorable setting for the preaching of the Gospel and the development of Greek as the linguistic medium of its proclamation throughout the entire world.
v.6
An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.
It is probably true, also, that the preachers at that time would be selected, as far as practicable, from those whose families were all Christians. There might be great impropriety in placing a man over a church, a part of whose family were Jews or heathens.
Their remaining pagan would throw into question the father’s ability to lead others to the faith.
v.7
Since an overseer is entrusted with God’s work, he must be blameless - not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain.
The ancient Greek word used here (orgilos) actually refers more to a settled state of anger than the flash of an occasional bad temper. It speaks of a man who has a constant simmering anger and who nourishes his anger against others – close to the idea of a bitter man.
v.8
Rather he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined.
v.9
He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
from Greek section in Greek: “holds on to” in a way that matches the object grasped. Elders must hold onto (devoted in Luke 16:13) the word as tightly as the word is holding on to him after he heard it taught.
The former method is to be used where men know the truth, but need encouragement to follow it; the latter, where they are ignorant, or are opposed to it. Both exhortation and argument are to be used by the ministers of religion.
v.11
They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach - and that for the sake of dishonest gain.
Not all topics are up for discussion. Don’t be so open-minded your brains fall out.
v.12-13
Even one of their own prophets has said, “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.” 13This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith
“So notorious were the Cretans that the Greeks actually formed a verb kretizein, to cretize, which means to lie and to cheat; and they had a proverbial phrase, kreitzein pros Kreta, to cretize against a Cretan, which meant to match lies with lies, as diamond cuts diamond.” (Barclay) Paul didn’t say to Titus, “Cretans are liars and cheats and gluttons, with one of the worst reputations of any group in the Roman Empire. You should look for an easier group to work with.” Instead he said, “I know how bad they are. Go out and change them with the power of Jesus and for His glory.”
v.14
and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the commands of those who reject the truth.
v.15
To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.
“Paul was refuting the false teaching of these legalists with reference to foods. They were teaching that Jewish dietary laws still applied to Christian believers.” (Wiersbe) “The all things refers to everything which is non-moral; such as appetite and food, desire and marriage, exchange and commerce, weariness and recreation, and so on through all the varied realm of life. To the pure all these things are pure, and they will be maintained in purity. To the impure, every one of them may be made the vehicle and occasion of impurity.” (Morgan)
These Cretan teachers apparently were engrossed in perpetuating ceremonial distinctions between the pure and the impure. They tended to lay emphasis on outward appearance and judged others on the basis of their own external criteria. Paul teaches that true piety lies not in adherence to nonmoral external rites and regulations but in the inner purity of the regenerated heart. Material things receive their moral character from the inner attitude of the user. This maxim does not, however, invalidate the revelation that certain things are morally wrong.
See also Psalm 18:25-26.
v.16
They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.
The word abominable has the idea of polluted by idolatry. Disqualified: The ancient Greek word is adokimos, and was used in many different ways:
- It was used to describe a counterfeit coin.
- It was used to describe a cowardly soldier who failed in battle.
- It was used of a candidate rejected for elected office.
- It was used of stone rejected by builders. If a stone had a bad enough flaw, it was marked with a capital A (for adokimos) and set aside as unfit.
Are there none now who profess that they know God, but in works deny him; whose conduct is such that it ought to be abhorred; who are disobedient to the plain commands of God, and whose character in respect to all that pertains to true piety is to be disapproved by the truly pious, and will be by God at the last day? Alas, taking the church at large, there are many such, and the fact that there are such persons is the grand hindrance to the triumphs of religion on the earth. “The way to heaven is blocked up by dead professors of religion.”
In the Old Testament, “knowing God” was being in covenant relationship with him; on a personal level, this meant an intimate relationship of faithfulness to him. But the claim was false if not accompanied by just treatment of others and obedience to the Scriptures (Hos 8:2-3; Jer 22:16).
Moral quality of life is the determinative test of religious profession (1Jn 2:4) and by it true character is exposed.