An Introduction to Titus — Galatians 1-2

0:09 The theme of today's talk is going to be on Titus. And last week we had scheduled to have Ray present the last chapter of second Timothy. And of course we got cancelled out because of weather. So it was decided that we just go ahead with Titus and Ray would finish off next week on the second chapter of Timothy. So in trying to do an intro because that was the main thing I was assigned to do.

0:44 And trying to do an intro to Titus, I thought that perhaps the best way would be to try to help us understand the man himself, Titus, to whom the epistle is written. And so I'm going to try to go through a little bit of the life of Titus try to see him as a person to whom the Apostle Paul was addressing one of the inspired epistles. And so in attempting to study Titus, I was rather surprised that because somehow I never realized this before that Titus is not even mentioned in the book of Acts. And that was kind of surprising to me. Said, wow.

1:44 Somehow in my mind I kind of had him bunched there with Silas, but he's not even mentioned in the book of Acts. However, he is mentioned four places in Paul's epistles. Of course, one of them being Titus itself. So what I'd like to do is go to the first mention of Titus and and that's in Galatians two. This is chronologically the first mention of Titus in in the word of god.

2:15 So, if you would turn with me to Galatians chapter two. I'll just read the the first verse here. I'll just read the first verse of Galatians two and after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and also took Titus with me And I went up by revelation and communicated to them that gospel which preached among the Gentiles but privately to those who were of reputation, lest by any means I might run or had run-in vain. So this mentions fourteen years, and so I ask first of all the question, what is the fourteen years referring to? And it apparently is referring back to three verses into the previous chapter.

3:08 It says afterwards I went into regions of Syria and Cilicia, and then the second chapter, then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem. Furthermore, if you were to go back a little bit further in this first chapter, you'd see that he speaks of conversion, of Paul's conversion. And then Paul tells how he went, first he went to Arabia, he was saved in Damascus. He went to Arabia, stayed for some time there, then came back to Damascus. And then after three years, and I assume that means three years after his conversion, he went to Jerusalem.

3:54 And he stayed in Jerusalem for fifteen days and then if you go into Acts, find out he was preaching the gospel and the people of Jerusalem wouldn't hear of it and making designs upon his life. The brethren took Paul and sent him off to Tarsus. Now Tarsus is essentially Cilicia. Tarsus is in Cilicia. So we have Cilicia in the twenty first verse here.

4:24 Now having gone to that trouble, I just wanted to kind of say, well, now the Apostle Paul was supposedly saved about three years after the crucifixion of our Lord. And then he spends three years before he goes up to Jerusalem, we've got six years there, right? And then now we have fourteen more years. So we're about twenty years after the Lord's crucifixion, approximately. Now I'll just go to this for a moment and then go back.

5:00 I have a map here of Paul's journeys and I just wanted to point here, sorry I don't have a laser pointer, over here it says Jerusalem Conference AD forty nine. Well, if you took the Lord's crucifixion as being at twenty nine AD and added twenty years to it, where would you be? Forty nine AD, right? So at least I must have my math pretty close here. I do know how to add numbers.

6:15 Now what do you think of that? That's pretty bad, isn't it? That's undermining the very gospel by which you and I have been saved. It's putting something besides simple faith in our lord Jesus Christ and and and we we find that the apostle Paul and Barnabas weren't very happy about this. It says in the second verse, therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute among them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question.

6:52 So they go along. Now we notice there that Titus is not mentioned in that verse but it does say Paul and Barnabas and certain others. So no doubt Titus was one of those certain others that went up to Jerusalem with Paul and they went to the Apostles there in Jerusalem to get a definitive answer concerning this matter of whether the Gentiles were to be put under the law of Moses, specifically circumcision. Now we're going to run back to Galatians two again and I'm I'm going to start reading. I'll put this back.

7:33 Excuse me. I'll put this back to there. We're gonna start reading in the third verse. Yet not even Titus who was with me being a Greek was compelled to be circumcised and this occurred because of false brethren secretly brought in who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus that they might bring us into bondage. To whom we did not yield submission even for an hour that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.

8:07 So first of all, in in this portion, we get the sense that that Titus himself was targeted by these Judaizing teachers. And that they were making an attempt to make Titus get circumcised. So not even Titus who was with me being a Greek was compelled to be circumcised. They were trying to compel him to but it didn't happen. It didn't happen and so the Apostle Paul says, to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour.

8:43 Now there was a reason why they stood up against this teaching and Paul expresses it like this. He says, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. And so we find here the importance of maintaining good doctrine, maintaining the doctrine concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. And to if these men were allowed to have their way and to enforce this this the this law of Moses, the circumcision against the Gentiles. The apostle Paul is saying it's going to undermine the gospel of Christ And so he didn't allow it at all.

9:26 Now, as they went up to Jerusalem, they took Titus with them and it's almost as though Titus became a sort of an example of a godly Christian brother that, godly gentile brother I should say, that had been saved through the grace of God. And so he's brought up and kind of presented to the brethren there in Jerusalem. Now before I actually leave this subject, I want to get the final answer of the apostles there in Jerusalem on this subject. And that's back in Acts 15. I'm just gonna read the end of the letter that they that they wrote.

10:11 This is Acts 15 verse 28. For it seemed good to the holy spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood and from things strangled and from sexual immorality. If you keep these, if you keep yourself from these, you will do well, farewell. And so that's the the the end of the letter that was written back. Now, we see clearly that that the Gentile was not put back under the law.

10:48 Clearly that was not true. And furthermore, it would have corrupted the gospel of Jesus Christ to have done so. At the same time, we see clearly that the moral content of say the 10 commandments is not removed in the least. And so we have them, they're told they're not to have anything to do with idols or blood, and they're stay clear of sexual immorality. So clearly, the moral side is not removed.

11:25 And that's kind of important because we will find as we get into the epistle to Titus that that's kind of one of the subjects of the epistle of Titus is that we might live godly lives. And that we might be separate from the sins of this world. Okay, so we're going to... What I wanna do now is go back to my map here, and this map as you can see is Paul's four missionary journeys. The black line in it is the first missionary journey.

12:40 We don't hear anything of Titus in the second missionary journey of Paul's. But in the third missionary journey, we find some references to Titus and we find them in second Corinthians. Now in the third missionary journey, we find the Apostle Paul coming up from Antioch and we see him crossing Cilicia, we see him going across Galatia and ending up here in Ephesus. One of the interesting things is that in that third missionary journey, he stayed for two full years in Ephesus. It's just like God was really targeting Ephesus.

13:24 And the Bible tells us that many were saved. We're told that Paul reasoned in the school of one Tyrannus. Anyway, somewhere during that two years that the Apostle Paul was in Ephesus, he wrote the first epistle to the Corinthians. And sent it off to Corinth. And if I would understand the heart of Paul, was very burdened in his heart concerning the brethren in There had been moral sin there and it was messing up the assembly and he sent this letter to straighten things up, straighten up points of doctrine with them also.

14:12 So Paul's back in Ephesus and he's, in my thinking, he's worried about the Corinthian saints. And so apparently, he takes Titus and he sends them to Corinth from Ephesus to check on the Corinthian brothers. He wanted to see what was going on. Were they listening to what he had spoken in that first epistle? And so Here is Paul here and he sends Titus and in all likelihood Titus followed the same line going up along the land bridge and coming back down here to Achaea.

14:57 Corinth is right here in the middle of Achaea. And so Titus comes up there. So while Titus is away on this journey to Corinth, the Apostle Paul is still here in Ephesus and we have this tremendous riot that occurs in Ephesus. It was when Demetrius, the silversmith, he's so angry because it's affected their business. Silversmiths made their living through making all these idols.

15:37 And so we know that in this riot that they began to scream out, greatest Diana of the Ephesians, greatest Diana of the Ephesians. And they continued that for about two hours. I think the Bible says they just screaming out and it was quite an uproar. Well, fortunately, there was no damage done or Paul, if I remember correctly, kept Paul from going down. He wanted to go down and they kept Paul back in the house.

16:10 And when the uproar was all over, thought it was time for Paul to move on out of Ephesus because of the uproar that occurred there. Now, I'm reading a little bit between lines, I think you'll understand why I think it's true anyway. So here is Paul and he's really concerned about Corinth. And in the beginning of the, I think it's the twentieth chapter, let's see. Maybe it's the nineteenth chapter.

16:39 Beginning of the nineteenth or twentieth chapter is where Paul leaves Ephesus and says that he was going to go into Macedonia and to Achaia. So I take it from that that Paul was hidden back and he himself had the thought to go to Corinth. So he starts off and he's gonna follow this same route that in all likelihood Titus himself had taken. But in Paul's thinking, I suppose that he's thinking, okay, let's see, Titus has had this long, he's gone over here to Corinth, he'd be back. The Bible tells us that he hoped to find Titus in Troas.

17:24 And so he starts up here towards Troas, right up there. He starts up towards Troas. Sorry, don't have one of these fancy laser pointers. So he starts up towards Troas and he gets to Troas and he hopes to see Titus there. Now what I want us to do now is to turn to second Corinthians chapter two.

17:47 And and here here we have Paul coming to Troas. Second Corinthians chapter two and verse 12. Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel and a door was opened to me by the Lord. So we know this is the thing Paul did, wherever he went he preached the gospel. He said the door was opened to me of the Lord and I had no rest in my spirit because I did not find Titus.

18:15 Now that's why I say, he must have somehow figured out and said, Okay, Titus would be coming back from Corinth, and maybe he'll be at Troas when I get there. So he says, I had no rest in my spirit because I did not find Titus, my brother. But taking my leave of them, I departed for Macedonia. Now, if I remember this correctly, I believe he stayed for seven days in Troas before he left. And then he just burdened in his heart for the Corinthians.

18:48 He starts on up. We see him at Troas here and he's going up towards Macedonia and he's looking as he's going, he's looking for Titus. He wants this news from Corinth. He wants to know what is going on with our brethren in Corinth. Now, we're told in second Corinthians seven what actually happened here.

19:40 Nevertheless, God who comforts the downcast comforted us by the coming of Titus. Oh, finally finds Titus up there in Macedonia. Okay, and not only by his coming, but by the consolation with which he was comforted in you. And he brought a good message concerning the Corinthian brethren. When he told us of your earnest desire, your mourning, your zeal for me so that I rejoiced even more.

20:15 Okay. So Titus tell tells tells Paul of how earnest the Corinthian saints were when they found out when they received this letter. How earnest they were and how they had mourned over the spiritual state of the assembly and their zeal in trying to do the things that Paul had commanded them in the first epistle to do. And so Paul says, so I rejoiced even more. I like to think of it that Paul was in a kind of an exquisite, yes, yes, it worked.

20:50 And so we have this rejoicing that Paul has. Now, I would say that probably that ecstasy, that rejoicing that Paul had was probably what actually energized the writing of the second epistle to the Corinthians. Now, I would say furthermore, as you read down a little further, like reading through the eighth and ninth chapters of second Corinthians, there's several mentions of Titus. We'll go to two or three of them. There's several mentions of Titus and you get the sense particularly from chapter eight that Titus was actually the bearer, the messenger who carried second Corinthians, the epistle of second Corinthians down to the Corinthian assembly.

21:55 That's number one, he was the bearer of this information. I'm gonna go on beyond this. He was the bearer of this information. And then in addition to that, we find in the eighth and ninth chapters of second Corinthians, deal with the matter of making collections and they give us some general principles. They are talking about something specifically that was happening.

22:32 That is, a collection was being taken up in the various assemblies in Macedonia and Achaia. A collection was being taken up to send to the persecuted church in Jerusalem. And so these two chapters deal quite a bit with the idea both of the principle of giving and also of the specific matter of making this collection for Jerusalem. Now the first five verses of chapter eight talk about how the Macedonian assemblies had already made the collection, they already brought the funds together and they were already prepared to send them to Jerusalem. And now in the sixth verse, and we're gonna read the sixth verse of chapter eight.

23:30 So we urged Titus, we're back to Titus again, We urged Titus that as he had begun, so he would also complete this grace in you as well. So just as the Macedonian assemblies had gathered these funds together, he's saying to the people of Corinth, I'm sending Titus for the purpose of collecting these funds so that they can be sent on to Jerusalem. So we could say, I believe it would be correct thing to say that Titus was commissioned to go and get these funds to be carried to Jerusalem. And in the eighteenth verse, we find out that there is there is another brother that's that is we're not given his name but he's to sent along with Titus. And we have sent with him with Titus, a brother whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches.

24:34 We're not given his name. I wonder if it might be Apollos. I don't know if anybody else has any thoughts on that but I wonder if it might be Apollos. Not only that but who chosen has by the churches to travel with us with this gift. So this would be the Macedonian churches that had taken up the collection.

24:56 And to travel with this gift which is administered by us to the glory of the Lord himself to show your ready mind. Okay, so Titus is to travel, he's gonna have this other brother that's going to go with him, and they're going to have the responsibility of taking these funds to Jerusalem. Now on top of that, there's also a really sweet commendation of Titus and that's the twenty third verse. It says, if anyone inquires about Titus, he is my partner and fellow worker concerning you. So Titus was given that commendation and that is indeed a sweet commendation coming from the Apostle Paul himself.

25:47 Now that actually concludes what we actually know of Titus the book of second Corinthians. So what I'd like to do from this point is go to the next mention, is the book of Titus itself. So turn with me to the book of Titus and we'll find what we can of Titus there. The first thing I'd like to point out in the book of Titus is the fourth verse. It says, to Titus, a true son in our common faith.

26:50 We're not told exactly where but he was actually a convert of Paul. Is Paul was the one that was used to lead him to the Lord. Now, the point that Paul is actually writing this epistle to Titus, he speaks about apparently they had been in Crete. And since it says I left you in Crete, I'm assuming that the Apostle Paul was in Crete and perhaps was evangelizing through Crete and get you the sense that there were many that had been saved through the outreach of the gospel in Crete, assemblies had been established. So let me read the rest of the verse.

27:36 For this reason I left you in Crete that you should set in order things that are lacking and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you. So it was kind of an administrative job that he was to go, I suppose, each of the local churches there in Crete and he was to become acquainted with the brothers there and then the Apostle gives him many qualifications here in the next four verses concerning the way that you would choose an elder. Now one of the things that the apostle Paul pointed out concerning the culture of Crete was that was that there was there it was kind of an immoral culture. Not surprising, I suppose, a heathen culture but in the twelfth verse, I'm just going to read this just we get this characterization because it gives us a sense of what Titus was up against as he went into this land. One of them, a prophet of their own said, Cretans are always liars, evil beast.

28:50 Lazy glut is kind of a not a very happy description, and says, this testimony is true. Well, I'm sure that Crete wasn't the only place where there could have been this testimony, it is interesting that they were called liars. They were said to be evil and they were said to be lazy. So that would give us a sense that perhaps this culture was a little hard to shake loose from. So you get these people that are being converted to the Lord Jesus through the gospel as Paul spreads the gospel.

29:28 And we find that they sometimes are like Lazarus still wearing the grave garments which need to be unwrapped from him. So in a sense, picturesquely would say, yes they need have someone that ministers to them and shows them that they need to have lives that are in keeping with the wonderful holy savior that has saved them. Okay, so that was what was given to Titus to do in Crete. Now, some of the older, like some of the old King James translations. Sometimes they say at the end of Titus that he was the Bishop of Crete, I think.

30:23 I may have wrong exactly what it says because it's not in my Bible here. The question is, was this a permanent assignment or was this not a permanent assignment? Was he to stay there and he became this bishop? And I think the answer is not likely, not likely. And we are given a verse that helps us on that.

31:38 Okay, to me that indicates that that was only a temporary assignment for him, that that was not his permanent assignment. We are also told that after this, and now this verse is coming from second Timothy. I'm not gonna turn to it because I'll have to explain some other things if I do and I want to just get the meat out of it. Okay, in second Timothy two it says that Titus has departed to Dalmatia. So apparently, he went up to minister to possibly some believers that were known there or maybe just to spread the gospel itself in Dalmatia.

32:19 Now I'm going to turn to the map again and what I want to do is point out to you where these places are. So we're in Achaea over here. Nicopolis is right up here by the shore and that's where Paul was wintering. And Crete is down here, so Titus was going to have to make his way from Crete up to Nicopolis And he'd went there with Apostle Paul. And I assume that it wasn't too long after that, that Titus makes his way up along the Aegean Sea, up North of Macedonia to a place called Dalmatia.

33:07 I looked it up, it's where the current day Croatia is located, it's where Dalmatia is. And that's our last reference to the Apostle Paul in the epistles or rather to Titus in the epistles of Paul. Now what I'd like to do is go and spend the next ten minutes going through the first four verses of the book of Titus. First of all, in summary, and this is a summary based on what I've just been saying. Titus was a mature Christian, Gentile Christian capable of dealing with many doctrinal and moral issues that were in Corinth and Crete, and trustworthy enough to bear the responsibility of administering considerable sums of money.

33:57 So that would be kind of a summary of Titus. Now when I first stepped into studying Titus, the first thing I ran against was the idea of pastoral epistles. So at least there's four pastoral epistles amongst Paul's epistles and they are first and second Timothy, Titus and Philemon. And they're written to individuals rather than to assemblies and their instructions generally to younger men, at least younger compared to Paul, to whom Paul was ministering with these letters. Comparing Timothy to Titus, they're very parallel in many respects to the point that some people make accusations of repetition.

34:56 But repetition is good because repetition is what will stress things for us. So when God thinks something is important, he's likely going to have some repetition concerning it. To Timothy, Paul stressed the importance of sound doctrine, but to Titus, Paul stressed more the importance of sound behavior. And so that seems to have to do with that problem of the condition of things in Crete. So I think I'll go down.

35:33 I'm gonna go one more. Okay. Ironsize summarized Titus in this way, said, chapter one dwells with the need of godliness in the church, chapter two dwells on godliness in the home, and chapter three dwells on godliness in the world. So that was Ironside's summary of, or outline I should say, of the book of Titus. Okay, so the next thing I'd like to do is go through those first four verses and it starts off Paul introducing himself, Paul, a bond servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ.

37:12 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and you are not your own, for you were bought at a price. You are not your own, you are bought with a price. Paul, a bond servant of Jesus Christ. You are bought with a price, therefore, what's the significance? Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

37:44 I believe that perhaps would capture the idea behind a bond servant. I do think it's kind of interesting that in the epistle to Timothy, Paul refers to the Lord Jesus as paying a ransom. So that would get the idea of being bought also, wouldn't it? So he's also called an apostle that is referring to his authority. Perhaps we'll talk about that in a minute or two.

38:16 Then we have according to the faith of God's elect. Now, the faith of God's elect, notice that it's not faith, it's the faith. It's not faith, it's the faith. And I believe it was Ironsides that used this comparison. Says, the faith is that body of doctrine upon which faith rests with confidence.

38:47 That is a body of doctrine. In other words, the faith is what we believe. The faith is what we believe. And I like this idea, it's those truths which the Holy Spirit has brought with conviction to our souls, bringing us through repentance and faith to spiritual rebirth. It's the faith.

39:14 Okay. The next thing I'd like to go to is, and the acknowledgement of the truth which accords with godliness. So acknowledging the authority of god's word in our lives. Acknowledgement of the truth. So God has given us his word, and what are we gonna do with it?

39:47 And find, well, it has to do with changing everything within us. Again, this is very much in keeping with the theme of the book of Titus. What are we going to do with that truth? Are we going to let us... Are we going to let it grapple with our souls to the point where we're led along in a pathway of godliness?

40:11 Is that what we're going to allow the truth to do? Well, that's very important for us to to do and it was very important relative to Titus. The next one is in hope of eternal life. So I kind of like the idea that hope here is not used quite in the sense that we usually would use it. Oh, I hope so, I'm not sure but I hope so.

41:01 And so the question we might ask is, are we living for today or are we living for that day? Are we living for the temporal or are we living for the eternal? Now, several years ago I read the book called The Purpose Driven Life. I didn't read all of it, I got buried in the latter part of it, I couldn't quite swallow everything he said. But the early part of that was excellent actually, And he made this point, he said, if we could see our lives the way that God sees our lives, it would make a tremendous difference to us.

41:43 And this is how he characterized our lives. He says, life is a moral test, that is presented before us whether we would do God's will, do what is good, or whether we're going to do our own will and enter into that which is evil. Life is a moral test. The second thing is life is a stewardship trust. And it's simply the idea that every one of us is granted exactly one life to live for the Lord.

42:15 And we don't own that life, it doesn't belong to us, it belongs to him. And we're simply stewards of it, life is a stewardship trust. What will I do with this life that God has given to me? The final point he made of his three points was, life is a temporary assignment. It's a preparation for a more permanent.

42:38 Well, I like to, particularly to associate that last statement with the hope of eternal life. This life that I've been given is a temporary assignment, but I'm looking ahead to a permanent one when I'll spend my eternity with him. I'll be with him forever. Am I living my life in the light of that? The realization that this is only temporary but the real permanent stuff is up there.

43:49 And when our God makes promises such as eternal life, we can rest upon it because he can't lie. God can't lie. He won't. If he says it's true, it's going to happen. So if God, and I think it's a delight to go to Revelation 20 and read, is it 21 to read the beautiful description of heaven and you have the foundation, the foundation of gemstones, you have the golden streets, you have the pearl gates, it's very picturesque, but it's wonderful, it's beautiful, it's something that's made to attract our souls.

44:43 Now, who promised this to us? It's the faithful God that promised to us, and that's the basis on which we have confidence before God concerning what occur is to us in the future. God who cannot lie promised before time was. He's the eternal God in the past, he's the eternal God in the future, and he's made certain promises to us and our souls can rest upon them. Now I think my time is up so I'm just going to stop with that and just commend Titus to us all as we begin a study of Titus in the next few weeks.

45:24 Let's pray. Father god, we thank you for your love to us. We thank you for the lord Jesus. We thank you for the the things that are given to us concerning Titus. We we are glad to understand this man, Lord, and we're more than more than everything, Lord, we would like to know how your word can affect us in our souls and we desire that we might be dependent on you keep us oh lord help us to allow your word to affect us in our very lives so that we're changed to be in your likeness We pray this in Jesus name, amen.