In a moment, a little background to this letter but first an acknowledgement that it opens with what must be the most complicated sentence in all Pauline literature

Day 299 – June 26^th

Titus 1.1-16

In a moment, a little background to this letter….but first an acknowledgement that it opens with what must be the most complicated sentence in all Pauline literature. The NIV translation does its best but wow verses 1-3 take some unravelling. Have a go yourself; I think in the end the message is ‘Hi it’s Paul. I became a servant of God when I met Jesus Christ, and I am now committed to making more servants of God through sharing the good news’!

Titus was a good friend and helper of Paul. He is serving the church in Crete which seems to have been a particularly difficult place to nurture the faith. In this pastoral epistle Paul is offering some practical advice about how Titus may go about the task.

Paul wrote this letter between his first and second imprisonments in Rome, and so was written before 2 Timothy. Crete was a trading centre for the Mediterranean and was also a training base for Roman soldiers. As a result, outside influences were huge and pagan philosophies and ideas were widely welcomed. Crete also had a significant Jewish population and a group of ‘former Jews’ who were teaching that if someone wished to become a Christian, they must become a ‘Jew’ first. These are the characters that Paul refers to as the ‘circumcision group’ (vs 10) and they were causing considerable unrest and confusion amongst the members of the fledgling church. Cretans, it seems were not highly thought of, even by themselves! ‘One of Crete’s own prophets has said it: ‘Cretans are always liars, evil brutes and last gluttons’ (vs 12 – quoting Epimenides!). I guess we can be certain that he was never going to run for Mayor!!

So, if the influence of incomings and passer-by in Crete made life difficult for the church, and the reputation of the locals made it worse, perhaps it is not surprising that as Paul opens this letter he focusses on the character and qualities needed in the leaders of the congregations. Titus’ task is to appoint a pastor in each community (vs 5) and Paul suggests to him the kinds of gifts and graces that he should be looking for in these people. We have encountered similar idea in previous letters (not least in the letters to Timothy) and much of what has been previously said applies here too. Leaders should be trustworthy, honest, self-controlled and self-disciplined; they should be an example to others and be respected within their families and in the wider community. Paul also refers to the ‘elders’ as ‘he’ throughout. He is gender specific when it comes to the appointed leaders in the Church. I hope by now we have established the likelihood that we are supposed to understand this as ‘context specific’ guidance – one that should not be automatically transferred without careful thought into our present day. This is certainly the view that I take – although I recognise that many others do not.

The desired qualities in leadership highlighted here by Paul are not, I believe in themselves gender specific, except at those points where they become so because Paul has made them that way!! Discuss.