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Titus

Tituschapter 3

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Speaks with:2 Timothy 2×3Ephesians 2×3Colossians 1×2Titus 2×21 Timothy 4×2Titus 3×2

Summary

Chapter summary

Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost. These things I will that thou affirm constantly. Avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain. A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject. Let ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses. JFB reads the chapter as the gospel's ethic for outward witness.

Context

Epistle · Paul — Titus overview

  • A. 1–8 We Were Once Foolish Too: Saved by the Washing of Rebirth
  • B. 9–11 Warn a Divisive Man Twice, Then Be Done
  • C. 12–15 Send Zenas and Apollos On, and Learn to Do Good

The outline

  1. A.We Were Once Foolish Too: Saved by the Washing of Rebirthvv. 1 to 8

    Read vv. 1 to 8 →

  2. B.Warn a Divisive Man Twice, Then Be Donevv. 9 to 11

    Read vv. 9 to 11 →

  3. C.Send Zenas and Apollos On, and Learn to Do Goodvv. 12 to 15

    Read vv. 12 to 15 →

Threads

Each of these runs on past this chapter. The passage you have just read is marked.

The faithful sayings of the Pastorals

Pattern

Five times the Pastoral letters mark a church maxim with the formula this is a faithful saying: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, the desire of the bishop's office, godliness profitable unto all things, if we be dead with him, and the charge to maintain good works.

The formula shows the young churches already carried fixed, quotable teaching while the apostles still wrote. Paul stamps each saying reliable, and the five together run from salvation to office to godliness to endurance to good works.

  1. 1 Timothy 1:15

    Christ Jesus came to save sinners

    The first saying carries the gospel itself, and Paul signs it: of whom I am chief.

  2. 1 Timothy 3:1

    He desireth a good work

    The KJV reads this is a true saying here; the Greek carries the same formula as the other four.

  3. 1 Timothy 4:8-9

    Godliness profitable unto all things

    The saying holds promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

  4. 2 Timothy 2:11

    If we be dead with him

    The saying runs on: we shall also live with him; if we suffer, we shall also reign with him.

  5. Titus 3:8 you are here

    Careful to maintain good works

    The last saying is to be affirmed constantly: these things are good and profitable unto men.

The world behind this chapter

Titus 3
When
After Paul's first Roman imprisonment · c. AD 63–65
Where
Closing orders about public life, quarrels, and two travelers passing through
Who first heard it
Believers on an island with a long habit of resisting whoever was in charge

The history

Crete had a history of rebellion — it had fought Rome hard before falling, and its towns had a reputation for feuding among themselves. Telling Cretan believers to submit to rulers and be ready for every good work was aimed at something real in their civic culture.

The washing named in this chapter would have been heard against a world of ritual baths. Jews immersed for purity, and Greek cults had their own washings; what is claimed here is different — a washing that produces new birth rather than a cleaning that must be repeated.

Zenas is called a lawyer, meaning either an expert in Jewish law or a Roman legal advocate, and Apollos was a known teacher from Alexandria. Sending them on their way meant provisioning them — food, money, letters, sometimes a guide — because there was no safe public system for travelers.

Nicopolis, where Paul planned to winter, was a real port on the west coast of Greece, founded by Augustus to commemorate his victory at Actium. Naming a wintering place shows the sailing calendar dictating the movements of the mission.

What it meant to them

The hearers were told to remember what they had been — foolish, disobedient, enslaved to passions — before being told how to treat outsiders. The gentleness commanded toward everyone rests on that memory.

The instruction to warn a divisive person twice and then have nothing to do with him gave small island congregations a way to end arguments that could otherwise consume them.

Sources cited

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on Titus 3. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

Connections from this chapter

v. 5 · A picture of Christ

The bronze laver for priestly washing prefigures the washing of regeneration (cf. Eph 5:26).

Exodus 30:18→

“You are to make a bronze basin with a bronze stand for washing. Set it between the Tent of Meeting and the altar, and put water in it,

Exod 30:18-21; Titus 3:5; Habershon 1898

This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament; Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary and Patrick Fairbairn, The Pastoral Epistles.

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