Introduction
The media love crises. Situations where something is going wrong; someone has mucked up; or someone has to be sent into a situation to fix it up make really good copy.
Well, if you’re the sort of person who buys the newspaper or watches ‘A Current Affair’ to learn about the latest “crisis” then you should enjoy studying the little New Testament book of Titus. This short letter, tucked away near the back of the NT almost out of sight and out of mind, is in fact a fascinating expose of how the great apostle Paul handled a situation on the island of Crete that the media of the time would have called a “crisis” in the church.
And as it happens, after an intensive archaeological expedition, I have obtained for you exclusive copies of how the Mediterranean press covered this story back in 64 AD.
{At this point in delivering this talk I handed out copies of “The New Testament Times”, a mock up newspaper cover page including an ancient painting of Titus and some summary articles about issues covered in this sermon.}
Over the next few weeks we are going to learn a few things about how to live as a Christian in tough situations, surrounded by difficult people. Maybe we’ll learn how to handle the odd crisis in our own church or fellowship group, or in our own walk with the Lord.
Who was Titus?
The writer of the letter was the apostle Paul, about whom I assume most of you know at least a little bit. I’ll talk more about him later. But who was Titus?
As well as being able to glean some information from this letter, there are a couple of other references to him in Galatians and 2 Corinthians which give us some interesting background on him.
For one thing they tell us that Titus was Greek – well you could tell that from his picture in the paper couldn’t you?!! That is more important than it might seem because it means that Titus was one of the first people to be a Christian without going through the Old Testament Jewish rituals. This was one of the breakthrough themes of Paul’s preaching.
We also know that Titus was a member of the closest circle of Paul’s companions and had been for several years before his time on Crete. It seems that he was the Treasurer of the group, someone that Paul trusted implicitly. He seems to have been given some of the tougher church jobs that came up – like dealing with the Corinthians, who had so many problems that Paul had to write to them more than once to try to guide them through.
In which case it is no surprise that he left Titus on Crete to “straighten out what was left unfinished” as he puts it in 1:5. As we shall see, dealing with the people there was not an easy matter!
Why write this letter?
On the surface, it seems clear that Paul wrote to Titus to explain to him the things he wanted him to do on Crete – appoint elders and teach certain things. Maybe Titus did need some guidance or encouragement on these matters, but I think that someone who had been around Paul as long as he had would already know most of what is in this letter.
Therefore, I don’t think the letter was written to instruct Titus, but to provide him with support for his work. Its purpose is to inform the people on Crete that Titus has the authority to do the things he is trying to do and to teach the things he is teaching. It’s pretty clear from chapter 1 that there was opposition to Titus. People were challenging him, claiming that they knew God and his ways and that Titus should butt out of their affairs. However, Paul says that their claim to know God is denied by their actions; he gives Titus the go-ahead to rebuke them and to appoint in each town qualified Christian leaders rather than the rebellious deceivers who were standing against him.
OK, but what gives Paul the right to say those things? From where does HE get the authority to tell the churches to pay attention to Titus. The answer to that question is also critical for us as it takes us right to the heart of our understanding of the New Testament as the revealed word of God.
The writer of the letter – the apostle Paul
The way Paul introduces himself in the opening verses of the letter is one of the reasons why I believe that the letter is really written to the church, not to Titus. If anyone already knew the things that Paul says in the first few verses it would be his close companion Titus. He didn’t need to hear them, but the Christians on Crete did.
He says the following four things about himself:
1. He is a “servant of God”;
2. He is “an apostle of Christ”;
3. That God’s message has been “entrusted to Him”; and
4. That He was “commanded by God” to preach that message.
What do they really tell us about him?
Servant = one who lives totally dedicated to God, given over entirely to God’s work and mission. The actual Greek word used means that Paul has willingly offered himself to be God’s bond-servant, bound to Him forever.
There is also a deeper meaning than this. Throughout the Bible we find the idea that someone who is God’s servant is so because of a special appointment by God Himself.
I think of the famous passage in Isaiah 42 when I read Paul’s words – “behold my Servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight”. Do you hear that – the ‘servant’ is ‘chosen’. Have you ever thought of being a Christian like that? That you have been chosen to serve the living God! It is an awesome privilege to have been appointed by God to serve Him.
For Paul this appointment was even more special, because his was a unique service, one that none of us can ever enter into. He was one of the first people to take the gospel message to the world. Whatsmore, Paul was called by God to be the first messenger, the apostle, who would take the word of Christ to the non-Jewish world.
The word “apostle” literally means “sent out one”. Jesus said to his disciples that “as the Father has sent me, so send I you.” And this is what Jesus said to Paul when he called him on the road to Damascus in that famous incident recorded in Acts 9.
Do you remember what happened? He was on his way to Damascus to put Christians there in prison when he was blinded by a flash of light from heaven and he heard a voice say to him:
“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
He asked who was speaking and the reply came, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.”
From that moment on Paul became not only a follower of Jesus, but for the rest of his life he served as one “sent out” with the direct authority of Christ to proclaim the gospel. On that road Paul MET THE RISEN CHRIST, which qualified him to be regarded as one of the original apostles who had been chosen by Jesus and had witnessed the resurrection. That gives him a unique, special authority to speak the authoritative word of God.
There’s another significant thing to come out of the encounter Paul had with Christ on the road to Damascus. What Jesus said to him changed his perception of God and what being His servant meant forever. I don’t just mean that he experienced God’s amazing grace, when God forgave and accepted someone who had been persecuting the church – that is true and important, but there’s more to it than that.
Listen again to what Jesus said to him. “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.”
Do you get that? Paul had been taking people into prison and having many executed. Yet the voice said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.” In persecuting Christians, Paul was persecuting Jesus Himself. When he heard that, Paul came to realise that believers are united with Christ; and for that to be so, then they must be free of sin, forgiven, made new. Paul realised that his former belief that people are accepted by God through keeping the law was wrong. He realised that we don’t earn eternal life, but that God offers it freely, through faith in Christ, through knowing Christ.
This was the message that he was commanded by Jesus to preach. This is the message that he tells Titus to preach on Crete.
See what he says in 1:2 – that his apostolic ministry was all about faith and knowledge. These two ideas are closely linked. “Faith” is not as someone once said, “believing in something you know isn’t true”. On the contrary, faith IS knowledge of the truth about God.
But it is more than knowledge. Mere knowledge, the possession of information about God, is not enough. You can have all the great teachings of the Bible clearly in your mind, but unless you have embraced Christ by faith as your Lord and Saviour, that knowledge is pointless. Faith is trust, faith is personal commitment to one you know about, faith is entering into a relationship with the one you know about; faith is knowing it in your heart, not just in your head.
This is why he also says that faith and knowledge lead to godliness. When you know something in your head it might interest or fascinate you; but when you know it in your heart as well, it will change you.
There is one more thing that is crucial to understanding why Paul has the authority to speak the way he does. Although he personally received that powerful message directly from Christ and there was much that was new in what he had to say, ultimately his message wasn’t new at all. Look at 1:3-4, where he says that our hope of eternal life had been promised throughout time by God, who does not lie. The gospel that Paul was now preaching was not God’s “plan B” for the world, but the fulfilment of the one plan that He had always been working out. The difference between OT times and NT times is that now Christ has come - the way in which God would keep His promise of bringing eternal life was “brought to light” as he puts it. The gospel of Christ is foreshadowed in the OT – for example in the Servant Songs of Isaiah that I referred to earlier – yet now the preaching of Paul and the other NT apostles is bringing it out of shadow by explaining how Christ has fulfilled all the things that were promised of old.
Paul’s authority to speak the way he does comes from God. It comes from God because of the direct command he had to preach, but also because everything he says is totally in line with the promises of the OT. Paul preaches about the fulfilment of promises, about a God who is reliable and never changing, who has at the appointed time sent His Son to be the Saviour of the world.
Concluding Remarks
You might have a significant ministry in your school or workplace or in the youth group here, or wherever. But no one has ever had a ministry like that of the first apostles and in particular the apostle Paul. Everyone else who has served God since has been carrying the baton of the gospel, but Paul started the race. Because of his unique situation in Christian history, Paul is able to call the gospel HIS gospel. He was the first to preach to the world what Christ’s life, death and resurrection were all about. No one else since that time has any new revelations from God about these things. In fact, everyone else since then is charged with the responsibility of aligning their teachings with the things Paul and the other apostles taught – ie with the Bible – or they are false.
This was the crisis on Crete that Paul was addressing. Titus was being opposed by people teaching things other than the revealed gospel of Christ. The church was being offered a different baton to run with. Paul’s letter is telling the church on Crete – and telling us – that the message Titus was giving them was trustworthy and true, because it was the same message as Paul’s. So when he calls Titus “my true son in our common faith” he is saying much more than just a nice thing about a mate, he is endorsing his ministry as being a legitimate carrying of the baton in the race.
You know, any problems in the church ever since have ultimately come from people departing from gospel teaching and/or gospel living. If you want to manage a crisis then the first thing to do is to make sure that the issues that have arisen are being considered against revealed Biblical truth and that the solutions that are being proposed are Biblical ones.
And if you want to tell if a teacher is telling you the truth, then test what they say against the Bible, against the Old Testament, against the writings of Paul, against the writings of the other New Testament authors.
God does not lie; His message of salvation has been consistent throughout time. Brought to light in the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus that message is one of grace, mercy, forgiveness for all who turn their lives over to Christ. When you face difficulties in your life, even if they are of crisis proportions, your starting point in dealing with the situation must be the sure character and promises of our Saviour God. I’m not saying that there won’t be other things you will have to do in your situation; trusting in God is not a magic formula that makes hurts go away, or wards off troublesome people who cause you grief, or anything like that. But, if you try anything else without trusting in God then you will not grow as a Christian through the experience, you will not get closer to God, you will not ultimately deal with the situation in the best way possible.
As the old hymn says:
“On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”
May He give us grace to share with Titus this “common faith”.
