Titus Introduction
Titus · Mike Doyle · May 21, 2023
Titus, No. 01
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261931223133

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Titus is a really interesting book. I thought what I'd do is give you a little history and background and outline and stuff and then I've got the questions prepared and I'll send them out probably today. Titus is an interesting book and it's one of the pastoral epistles.

You know why they call it that? There are three of them, 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus. I would call them the pastoral epistles. I didn't know either because it's written to three guys who are pastor, two guys that are pastors. Timothy is a pastor at Ephesus and Titus is a pastor of the church on Crete. And so these letters are written to two men that are very similar.

First Timothy and Titus are very similar in terms of what their focus is. And these two guys, Titus and Timothy, were some of the most reliable people that Paul had involved in the ministry with him. And they did a lot of different things, especially Titus. Titus isn't mentioned in Acts, but he's prominent in the epistles, and he's used by Paul for certain tasks and responsibilities.

And you can look at Titus 1.5, 2 Corinthians 7, 6 and 7, and 8 through 16. He was Paul's emissary to the Church at Corinth, you remember when Paul left and he was wondering how things were going and he was trying to hook up with Titus who had been sent there to sort of encourage them and how Titus really helped him.

He was also the one who was in charge of the collection. He was trusted with the collection from Berea and Philippi and Corinth and other places for the Christians that were in Jerusalem. He was the guy who was in charge of that. So he's very trustworthy guy, obviously.

And I did a little homework on Crete. Crete was an awful place. The people of Crete were just nasty. You know, and they were, I mean, almost like Westerners 150 years ago. They were wild. And so he goes there and he's the head of the church in the island of Crete. Kosovo calls them men of low character. So at the end of his life, Paul sends Titus to Dalmatia, which is today Yugoslavia. So he evangelized and set up churches there.

So he's an interesting guy. I mean, he certainly is a servant. Man, he's something else. Now, in the context of the book, what we're going to go through, and it seems like we don't have a lot of content, but there is actually a lot of content in here.

One is the pastoral epistles will address the issue of the qualification of elders. What do you need to be in order to be an elder? And hopefully, we'll discuss that, do you need to live up to every single one of these requirements? Or is 8 out of 10 good enough? The second thing that we'll see is that there's a big focus on doctrine, really focused precisely. It also talks about obligations. of elderly men and women, which will fit us, and young men and women, and servants.

And a warning almost throughout the whole book against false teaching. The church had been in existence 35, 40 years. This was written in 65 A.D. So, Paul is like he does in Timothy. He warns against false teachers. And I had a conversation with a friend yesterday and we were talking about false teachers in the contemporary church. And he's a guy from California that spent 20 years of his life in John MacArthur's church and finally daunted him that John MacArthur was a false teacher. And so now MacArthur, I guess, his health isn't very good and he doesn't get up and preach every Sunday, but he set up How do I say that? He doesn't take a big salary from his church, but he set up an income stream from other sources that he's a really wealthy guy, and his family.

We're going to see two really outstanding doctrinal passages, and one of them I mentioned a minute ago, Titus 2, 1 through 14, talks about grace. And then the other one is chapter 3 verse 4. And verse 4 says, but after the kindness and love of God our Savior towards men appeared, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. So, two really great passages that we'll spend a lot of time on those passages.

Somebody keep track of the time, I don't want to go over. One minute? Okay. So, outline wise we're looking at Qualification duties of elders. One, you need them, you got to have them. Personal prerequisites, doctrinal qualifications, what their abilities ought to be about the doctrine that they've learned. The pastoral work of a true minister towards various groups of people, older men, older women, younger women, younger men and servants. Then the appearance of life-changing grace.

And then the last two chapters of Acts tell us of Paul's arrival and imprisonment in Rome and having approximately, was approximately the year 62 AD. And between that time and his death, five or six years later, we have three New Testament books, which is 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus. We walked right by the place where they had him in jail. Well, at least you guys did.

So, okay. Both Titus and Timothy are very personal letters and the relationship, what Paul does though is he sets the relationship aside here because he wants to demonstrate to them his authority as an apostle and he stresses that in an official tone.

And he does it because he wants doctrine to be taught correctly and accurately. And so he does, rather than talking about Timmy being his buddy and Titus being his buddy, he doesn't do that. He says, I'm an apostle and here are my directions. And, you know, sound doctrine is really important and here's why.

Let's see. And then he's going to talk about, which we'll start on the questions next week, he talks about how he became an apostle, and he goes at it a little different in this book than he did in some of the others. He talks about how God creates or calls what he calls a bondservant and we'll spend some time talking about bondservants. I got a little education past what I knew about what bondservants are and that truth according to the knowledge of godliness and that struck me because in the main service we're going through righteousness by faith, and that God has concluded all under sin, Jew and Gentile, every single human being, which means that they are all ungodly.

Ungodly seems to be the criteria. Godliness and ungodliness, you're either one or the other. And if you're ungodly, you're out of the loop. You're like all human beings. And so, Paul, even in Titus, talks about, here's the issue, guys. Godliness is the issue.

And we think about the bride of Christ. What's the one criteria that you have to have to be the bride? You have to be like him. Well, who is he? He's God. You have to be godly to be a member of the bride. And it's something that's done to you and for you and you just receive it by faith. So there won't be a marriage between someone who isn't qualified. Everyone that will be at that wedding feast will be a godly person in Christ. So a short introduction, but next week we'll start on the questions. Like I say, I'll send them out and you can get to work. Let's close.

Father, how we thank you for your grace and how we thank you that we are under your grace. living in an environment of grace. It's air we breathe. It's everything we do. And yet we need to grow and understand what the environment is that we live in. And we're thankful that you're about that, about showing us that everything that is done to and in us and for us is by grace alone, including being the bride. So it's hard for us to express our appreciation. for everything that you have already done. But we thank you and we pray in your son's precious name. Amen.