Tituschapter 1
16 verses · BSBTitus book hub →
Speaks with:1 Timothy 1×42 Timothy 1×3Titus 2×31 Timothy 6×31 Timothy 3×31 John 2×2
Summary
Chapter summary
Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, to Titus, mine own son after the common faith. For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city. A bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God. There are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers; their mouths must be stopped. The Cretians are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witness is true. They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him. Henry reads the chapter as elder qualification under cultural pressure.
Context
Epistle · Paul — Titus overview
- A. 1–4 Promised by the God Who Cannot Lie
- B. 5–9 Appoint Elders in Every Town
- C. 10–16 Empty Talkers on Crete: Rebuke Them Sharply
The outline
A.Promised by the God Who Cannot Lievv. 1 to 4
Read vv. 1 to 4 →B.Appoint Elders in Every Townvv. 5 to 9
Read vv. 5 to 9 →C.Empty Talkers on Crete: Rebuke Them Sharplyvv. 10 to 16
Read vv. 10 to 16 →
The world behind this chapter
Titus 1The history
Crete was a long mountainous island famous for its many towns — the old saying gave it a hundred cities — and for a bad reputation. Cretans were proverbial liars in the Greek world; there was even a verb meaning 'to cretize,' that is, to lie. The line Paul quotes about Cretans being liars and lazy gluttons comes from one of their own poets.
Rome had taken the island in the previous century and joined it with Cyrene in North Africa as a single province. Piracy had been the old trade, and the mountain towns were hard to govern from anywhere.
There was a Jewish population on Crete as well — Josephus mentions it, and Acts lists Cretans among those in Jerusalem at Pentecost. That explains why the trouble in this chapter comes specifically from teachers of the circumcision peddling Jewish myths and human commandments.
Appointing elders in every town meant riding a circuit. There was no central council; each town's congregation needed its own recognized men, and Titus's job was to install them and leave.
What it meant to them
The first hearers had just been quoted their own national insult, from their own poet, and told it was true. That takes the ground out from under any claim that they were fine as they were.
The elder list gave scattered groups a way to survive without an apostle: known men, with households everyone could see, who could hold the teaching and shut down the talkers.
Sources cited
- Flavius Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews (Whiston translation)
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Titus 1. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.