The Book Of Titus: Paul Writes To The Young Pastor In Crete

“A television program preceding the 1988 Winter Olympics featured blind skiers being trained for slalom skiing, impossible as that sounds. Paired with sighted skiers, the blind skiers were taught on the flats how to make right and left turns. When that was mastered, they were taken to the slalom slope, where their sighted partners skied beside them shouting, "Left!" and "Right!" As they obeyed the commands, they were able to negotiate the course and cross the finish line, depending solely on the sighted skiers' word. It was either complete trust or catastrophe.

What a vivid picture of the Christian life! In this world, we are in reality blind about what course to take. We must rely solely on the Word of the only One who is truly sighted--God Himself. His Word gives us the direction we need to finish the course.”

-Robert W. Sutton

And that is what we’ll see in the book of Titus today, is that the Apostle Paul is writing to his young pastor friend Titus, giving him guidance, left and right, faith, obedience, and living out what we they believe on the corrupt little island of Crete.

The book of Titus was written in AD 65 or 66, near the end of Paul’s ministry, right around the same time that Paul wrote 1st and 2nd Timothy, the classic pastoral letters. So these 3 letters today, are really letters written by a senior leader, to more junior leaders. So like a letter written by the head pastor, or the deacon, over many churches, to local pastors throughout their mission field. And the mission field we see here on the screen, which included the ancient middle east, all connected by the Mediterranean Sea.

Paul is writing from a city called Nicopolis in Greece, to give instructions to Titus about issues within the church. Titus us pastoring a small church on the island of Crete, a very corrupt little island with lots of problems and already in the church there are false teachers and problems that must be addressed.

So let’s just dive into it. We get Paul’s opening words and opening greeting and he gets right into instructions for elders in the church. What is an elder? An elder is someone who is a senior leader in the church. Generally, you have a pastor, or a group of pastors, and then you have a senior committee or group of elders or leaders who advise and consent on the development of the church.

So here’s what Paul says. Titus 1:6-9 “An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. 7 Since an overseer manages God’s household, he must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. 8 Rather, he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. 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.”

In the Salvation Army our “elders” are what we call the corps council, made up of senior soldiers in the church who display a maturity to make decisions for the good of the body. The elders, or senior soldiers help care for the needs of the church, and help serve those in need. But they also lead the church, and mentor the younger believers.

Faithful elders are not easy to find, and we can see from the list of requirements for elders that they must be mature believers, self controlled, holding firmly to the truth, blameless, faith, and so on. A group of elders is really the backbone of the church. And that’s something we’ve really lacked at the Owosso salvation army. And apparently it was still a need for the church in Crete because we see Paul giving instructions about what elders ought to be like.

I want to point out a few of the requirements here:

-Must not be over-bearing – So can’t be someone who enjoys power

-Must not be quick-tempered – can’t be someone who gets angry easily

-Must not pursue dishonest gain – can’t be a sort of used car salesman attitude about ministry

-Must not be violent – obviously someone who isn’t violent cant be an elder

-Must be Self controlled - self control is all about being able to moderate our lifestyle

-Must be Upright and holy - being upright implies a sense of divine accountability, a lifestyle that matches our talk

-Must be Disciplined - an elder has developed prayer time, bible reading, spiritual disciplines, they've crafted their lives to seek God

These are all not simply guidelines, but requirements for elders in the church. But it’s also just generally good teaching for how to live as a mature Christian.