God’S Stewards
GOD’S STEWARDS
TITUS 1:5-16
Paul contrasts the qualities required in elders and those seen in the lives of the false teachers. How could our own lives be described?
Clearly Titus was a man of ability and one in whom Paul placed a good deal of trust. He had left him in Crete, he says, “that you might amend what was defective” (1:5). This is fairly difficult, but Paul appears confident that Titus would be successful. In this passage Paul’s concern is chiefly with the ministry. First he speaks of the qualifications to be looked for, and then of the opposite kind of teaching ministers would meet.
Paul says much the same to Titus as he said to Timothy on the qualifications required in ministers (1 Timothy chapter 3). He speaks first of “elders” and then of “an overseer,” but this should not be understood in the sense that there were many elders in a church and only one overseer. The sense is, “The elders you appoint must have certain qualifications, for one who exercises oversight must be …” Paul insists on the necessity of an upright life, a good home and family, and a firm hold on sound doctrine so that he can deal with false teachers (1:9).
Interestingly, the people of Crete were troubled by teaching with a Jewish flavor (1:10,14). Apparently it had something to do with food laws, for Paul quotes a Cretan poet among other things for the expression, “lazy gluttons.” But the main thrust of the quotation is that the Cretans “are always liars.” This incidentally is written into the Greek language with the verb cretizo, “to lie.” The poet also speaks of Cretans as “evil beasts” (“evil brutes,” NIV). It adds up to a grim situation where very firm action is necessary. So he calls on Titus to “rebuke them sharply” (1:13). There are occasions when the servant of God must take a very strong line. These people were thoroughly corrupt (1:15f.). They required the firmest of firm hands.
Notes 1:10: the worst heretics were Jewish, but these were not the only ones. 1:12: the poet is Epimenides (sixth–fifth century BC), though some think Paul takes the quotation immediately from Callimachus (third century BC). Epimenides was widely held to be a prophet and Paul evidently uses the general title. 1:16: this is surely the ultimate condemnation of the merely professing Christian.