27. The Apostle Paul's Job Description
Throughout the epistles of Paul the apostle gives us glimpses of how he saw his job description. Most of his epistles open by greeting those to whom he writes as an "apostle" or "servant" of Jesus Christ, but these are essentially job titles rather than job descriptions. Similarly, in his letter to Philemon Paul introduces himself as the "prisoner" of Jesus Christ because of his captivity, but once again this is a summary of his situation at that time, not an extended job description. It is interesting to look closely at examples where Paul elaborates more fully what the goals of his work were. We can find several such verses, but one particularly interesting description occurs in Paul's letter to Titus:
Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ to further the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness—in the hope of eternal life (Titus 1:1-2a).
This description revolves around the famous triad of "faith, hope and love" Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 13:13 and elsewhere, although the fact may not be obvious without thinking about it. In his letter to Titus we see he mentions faith and hope directly, and the third quality – love – is lightly veiled in the form of "godliness" which (although it can be more than love alone), the Bible frequently equates with love. Because God is love (1 John 4:8), godliness obviously is also love; and we see the equation made clear, for example, in 2 Peter 1:3-7 where godliness is positioned alongside brotherly affection and love.
But Paul does not mention his great triad of spiritual qualities just to include them in the letter. Instead, he stresses them in the statement of his job description as being at the heart and core of his work. Reading the whole of Titus 1:1-2 we see how Paul envisioned this. The apostle clearly saw a big part of his job as "furthering" or growing and expanding the faith of those God had called, as well as their "knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness" and their "hope of eternal life."
Most of us think of "faith, hope and love" in the context of 1 Corinthians 13, where they are discussed as qualities Paul shows we should be developing in ourselves. So it's easy to read over the same qualities in the epistle to Titus without grasping their significance for Paul – as key elements in the job he was called to do to help others. We may study, meditate and pray about these very qualities as things we should strive to develop in ourselves, but do we, like Paul, think of them as goals for the lives of others?
Remembering Paul's self-defined job description, we might think more about how we can help grow these qualities in others. For example, it's easy to see the outgoing aspect of our calling as essentially one of helping others to initial belief in Christ – but then it tends to stop. Perhaps we think of continuation in terms of ongoing "encouragement" of our brothers and sisters, but Paul shows us that he had specific goals in mind in the work he did. Faith, hope and love/godliness lie at the heart of what Paul had to say throughout his writings about living God's way of life. Titus 1:1-2 shows us that Paul also saw teaching and developing these qualities in others as an important part of doing God's work.
How do we apply this to help others grow these qualities? It's a big question, but if we want to imitate Paul as he tells us to do, just as he imitated Christ (1 Corinthians 4:16, 1 Corinthians 11:1), it's a question we should think on.