Titus 1:1-9

We've moved on from 1 Timothy to 2 Timothy, and now we're in the beginning of Titus. Titus is one of those books that every time I get to read through it, I think to myself, this is one of my favorite books in the New Testament. But I find that whatever book I'm reading, I always think, this is one of my favorite books in the New Testament. Maybe you have that same experience.

Paul is writing the Titus here, and we're going to look at the first nine verses. We're going to see that Paul, we know that Paul wrote this letter. Sometimes if you look at secular or liberal attitudes towards the text, we see these people say, oh, so-and-so couldn't have written this letter. He couldn't have written this letter. But this book starts off with Paul's fingerprint on it. I just held up my thumb. I guess I should hold up a finger if I say fingerprint. But this has his fingerprint in it, and as we read it, let's see if you can identify the fingerprint, okay?

Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness, in the hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised long ago, but at the proper time manifested even his word and the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior, to Titus, my true child in a common faith, grace and peace from God the Father, and Christ Jesus our Savior. You're supposed to take a breath after each sentence, but you just can't do that with that one. For this reason I left you in Crete that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you. Namely, if any man is above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion. For the overseer must be above reproach as God's steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of assorted gain, but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, just, devout, self-controlled, holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict." Now what's the fingerprint on this letter?

He says Paul first. Oh, he says Paul. But let's say the liberal person says, what? Anybody could say they're Paul. He says he's an apostle. Okay. Children of God. Alright. But anybody could claim this. What is a literary fragment in this that actually really stands out and seems consistent amongst Paul's letters.

He writes run-on sentences and he starts out with a humdinger of a sentence. When I had to take several breaths reading one sentence, he's got... as far as we know, has written the longest Greek sentence. When I was in junior high, the teacher made us read the longest English sentence that, at that time, she was aware had been written, and it was Edgar Allan Poe, and he had commas and semicolons all over the place, and it was like two pages of sentence. I mean, really, it's the worst run-on sentence ever in the English language. Yeah, diagramming, yeah. The thing is that with the semicolons he really does fragment it well enough that it's multiple ideas. But Paul here, it just comes full on with this sentence that is really long and full of all kinds of doctrinal truth.

I tried to write in the handout some questions regarding that, but really there's so much doctrine here we could have probably just done the introduction and been done. If we were teaching this like they are teaching the first second and third John class. We would have gotten three verses at a time. That's usually the standard division and we would have gotten this first introduction and that would have been it. So let's take a look at this and see what's there.

He says, Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. What's a bondservant? It's the word for slave. It's a word for slave. Does he start out like that? He often does. The first word is usually the most emphatic word. Is he emphasizing that?

He wants to make sure you know, but a bondservant is a little bit more particular than a slave. It's a kind of, if you will, it's a kind of slave. Does anybody know how it differs? Is a bond servant more like a family member? Okay, they would probably be treated more like a family member. Is Willy a slave? Yes, a slave may have been abducted from their household at some point in time and taken and forced into labor.

A bond servant has taken a vow and often what they would do in the Roman culture is you'd go put your ear up next to I don't know if it's your right or your left ear. I'm going to use my left ear because this has got the microphone on it. And you'd hold it up to your doorpost and they would take a metal awl and they would pierce your ear up against the doorpost and they would punch a hole in your ear and it was a sign outwardly to the world that you were a bondservant. That not only were you a slave, but you were a willing, loving slave.

So why is that significant? That Paul would It is as though I would punch my ear up against the doorpost of the Lord's house. Do you think he was pro-ear piercing? Is that what his motive was? It was a secret message to the future. Guys can get their ears pierced.

Just what you said, he was a willing slave. He was willing to be a member of that household and live according to the household rules and do what Yeah, so there's a depth of relationship there and there's a submission that is part of that. It's not just simply a technical position within the household. It is a personal and emotional connection in the household. So being a bondservant was not just trivial or just some small part of things. It actually had some depth and some elements of relationship.

So then he says he's an apostle. Yes? I think it's important to consider that first of all he was on fire inside. He was a bondservant because this burning compelling, inescapable assignment he had and knowledge that he had. He had to do it. It was his whole life. Yeah, and the next thing that he says ties in with that thought. Because he says not only is a bond servant, but there's a relational aspect and there's a passion aspect, but then there's also the have-to-do-it aspect of it, which is part of him being an apostle of Jesus Christ.

The had-to-do-it is something that maybe is a little bit complex to say, but the idea is that as an apostle, he had been commissioned not just by some person, any old random religious teacher. Who had he been commissioned by? Wasn't Benny Hinn. Who was Paul commissioned by? The Lord Jesus Christ had commissioned him.

And so that was a pretty significant deal. What's required to be an apostle? There's a checklist of items, but what are some of them? You have to personally know Christ. You have to have seen Christ. Okay. And anything else? Did it just come with, you got to just say, I saw Christ? What came with it? You hinted on it earlier, so... You're commissioned, you had to, basically, you had to do it, but not in a legalistic sort of a way, but that you'd been commissioned by Christ to go do something, and empowered to go do something, to preach the gospel.

Paul was the apostle to who? The Gentiles, okay, so that's important, but he's going to go into that so I won't jump ahead So he's a bond servant. He's an apostle of Jesus Christ For the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth, which is according to godliness So he's a bond servant he's a he's a willing slave and he's an apostle for the faith Or according to the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness. So now we have to get into the tough question. What does it mean to be chosen? You're talking about as an apostle. Well, he says for or according to the faith of those chosen of God. He's an apostle bringing the message according to the faith or for the faith of those chosen of God.

Now, what this really comes down to is that in Calvinism, everybody is familiar with Calvinism? I didn't get any response to that, but I'm going to assume that's a yes because we've talked about it before. But in Calvinism, one of the tenets is that God chooses those who are believers, and then where most other Calvinists go is that God also chooses who's going to hell. It's called double election. The scriptures don't actually specify double election, that he elects those who go to heaven and those who go to hell. But it does say that those who believe are chosen.

And so what you get into is something that becomes a little bit of a logical... I'll call it a kink, but that's probably not the right way to describe it. It becomes difficult because people like logic. I don't know about you. As a software developer, I really like logic. Many people like logic. If you don't like logic, I apologize to assert that you do. But people go, oh, well, logically, if this certain thing is true, then they start developing correlations.

How many of you hated algebra and geometry because you had to do those theories and work through the correlations? Did you ever have to do that? Or they'd say, OK, we've got to draw proofs. We've got to write out proofs. This is why this mathematically relates to this. I hated that so badly.

But what happens is that if you have proofs that you're writing and you want to prove something, you have a theory that you're trying to prove, you're going to draw, you can, you don't necessarily absolutely have to, but it's very easy to draw a logical assertion to try to proof or prove what your theory is. So what you get is maybe something that is constructed artificially, but is not actually logically consistent with what the text says. Stan?

The word chosen, it's kind of like whether you're looking forward or whether you're looking back. Man can only look at the present and the past. God looks at the future. because he's omniscient. And so, yes, you can look back and you can look at the present and probably make a guess at those who were chosen, but you don't know man's heart, so you don't even know that. It's hard.

What ends up happening is you get all these logical loopholes and all these logical situations that people get into theologically where the truth of the matter is that the focus needs to be set on the nature of being chosen is that they're believers and then you let God be the chooser and you don't try to pinpoint who that is. There are people who come from a legalistic background within Calvinism who take this position of, well, if you walk away from Christianity or I find that you have bigger parts of sin in your life than I knew about, then you probably weren't saved and you weren't chosen. Is that what the text says? It's not what the text says, but it's the logical jump that people take. So when we see the word chosen, we need to be careful.

Another place where we see the word chosen, and let's jump over there just for the sake of looking at other contexts where Paul writes this, Romans 8.29. I'm sorry, the word chosen isn't used here, but we'll take a look at it because it's the same context.

So Romans 8.29, he says, for those whom he foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren. And these whom He predestined, He also called. And these whom He called, He also justified. And these whom He justified, He also glorified.

So we see here that God has an eternal perspective. And so when we look at the concept of being chosen or being predestined and these words that are there, they're in the nature of Christ. It's the identification with Christ where this stuff matters. It's not just simply that you get to say that you're part of a special club, which is sometimes how the doctrine of being chosen gets treated. So Paul, he's a bondservant.

He's an apostle for or according to the faith of those who are chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth, which is according to godliness. So he's an apostle and a bondservant. of the knowledge of truth, which is according to godliness. Now, why would he use the phrase, the knowledge of truth according to godliness? Why couldn't he just say, and the apostle of truth? chosen because of knowledge.

And so here we go again in the second step when you're talking about knowledge. This isn't an elitist or some kind of special knowledge that, you know, the Kabbalists and the Gnosticism and all the other little mystery cults that were existing at that time.

Paul's saying this all is under God and only under God. So I think they're kind of related, the two They absolutely are related. Well, it's the word for full knowledge. Okay. They had some knowledge, but he wanted them to have more complete knowledge, would you say? Oh, absolutely. And so Paul is constantly fighting against the secular ideas of what is real, what is true, what is knowledge. Paul fights against those ideas because, much like our culture, the idea of truth was very relative.

If you were part of a mystery religion or a mystery cult, you had your own set of truths and your group knew them and no one else did. So here's the difficulty with that. How do you know that you're going to a heaven or a better place when you die if you're part of a mystery religion? How do you know that you've got truth compared to the next person? It's tied into those concepts of faith that our world uses today. When they say, oh, you have faith, what do they mean? What does the secular world mean when they say you have faith? Or you're a person of faith.

That's one of my favorites. We're all going to the same place. It doesn't make any difference. Or we may not be going anywhere, but you just happen to believe something. And truth is relative. It's probably not true. Faith to them doesn't have anything to do with truth. Faith is touchy-feely, mystical, garbagey stuff. You might as well say, I like crunchy or creamy peanut butter. It's an opinion. It's a personal preference. It's not really relevant, other than the price of peanuts seems to be going up. Then it becomes relevant, right? Because it hits our pocketbook.

So, he's a bondservant, an apostle of Christ according to the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness. See, if you have truth that's not according to godliness, that's different. How many of you have heard the phrase, all truth is God's truth? Have you heard that before? Maybe? No?

It's used by various people who kind of hold a position that is pro some secular idea often. So let's say I believe in a non-literal creation account. It's a nice story, it's mythical, that was passed on because I happen to be enlightened by scientific revelation that the Earth is really billions of years old and so So what they might say instead of saying you're wrong by believing in a literal six day creation with a seventh day rest, they'll say all truth is God's truth. So what they've just now done is they've subverted the revelation of Genesis and said we have new revelation that is true because science has proved it out that is not from God that becomes part of their faith.

It's complicated, but when Paul talks about truth, he's combating that, and it's undergodliness. It's not just truth, all truth is God truth. It's a specific kind of truth that's revealed by God to apply to the believer. And Paul's an apostle and a bondservant to those truths and that faith.

So keeping going, because this is such a long sentence, we can't slow down. He says, according to godliness, in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ago, or long ages ago. When did God first promise a Redeemer? First promise hope of eternal life?

Genesis 3.15. But He didn't just stop there, which is good. But God promised eternal life and promised hope and promised to bless through Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. He promised through Moses. He promised through David. He promised through Isaiah. And as we read through the Old Testament, God continued to promise and continued to promise from ages long ago. Now, I do want to step back and go one moment at the third word in the sentence there.

It says, in the hope of eternal life. What's hope? talking about. Okay, it's a sure hope. But what is hope, if we have to define hope? I'll confess to not having really thought about hope until I named my daughter Evelyn Hope, and I realized, hey, that's her middle name. I should at least have a rough idea what it means. What is hope?

Stan? It's focused on something. generally focused on something not seen. It's something not seen, but it's something that we look forward to, something we have anticipation of. The hope of eternal life, and because this is a sure hope or a true hope, that's a really cool thing. It's not a hope of eternal life like we use faith secularly. Faith is just this mystical idea. Hope is equally mystical. You know, I hope this certain person wins a political election, or I hope this person doesn't win a political election. That's that whimsical hope that has nothing solid behind it. But Paul writes about a hope of eternal life, which is solidly and realistically going to happen.

Which God, who cannot lie, just in case truth wasn't already an obvious context, he says God who cannot lie promised long ages ago. starting in Genesis 3.15 and continuing to move forward throughout scripture.

Then we get to verse 3 as we're just hauling right along. He says, "...but at the proper time manifested even his word in the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior." So what's at the proper time? Why is that significant? Or what is significant about the actual proper time. God chose it. Okay, God chose it. What was significant about the time that Christ arrived on the earth, born of the Virgin Mary? Stan? Well, there's probably a lot of things, but I've heard primarily the language, for example, because the Greek was such great language to be able to write out the gospel or make it clearer? It's very exacting, the language.

We just talked about the mystery religions, just briefly, but we mentioned them. If everybody was part of their own mystery religion, everybody had their own gods and goddesses and everybody had their own little secrets. Remember my dad uses that moose flying across the screen, what's the Greek word for that? That he always uses that joke with. Mysterion. The mystery religions.

Everybody had their own secret. Like, oh, you want to come be part of our guild and part of our group? Well, you've got to prove yourself, and then we'll tell you our secrets. But Paul was wide open. He said, here you go, here's the truth. Here it is.

It was the appropriate time because culturally, Christianity spread like wildfire, which is always a bad illustration because wildfire is usually destructive. But Christianity spread rapidly because it was open. Wasn't that at a time when they called it Bocce Romana, when there was a peace of Rome, when it was a relatively peaceful time, as far as the Roman Empire was concerned? And then they had all the road system changed.

The roadway, yeah. Absolutely. Stan? And even though the Romans were not considered that great of a government, it was relative peace. Yeah, and that's what Joanne was saying. I couldn't hear. Yeah. Yeah, so there's relative peace, there's a roadway system. Basically, the culture was ripe, and the political environment was ripe, and the geography was ripe.

I mean, most of, it's dangerous to say the known world, but most of the world's population could rapidly be reached. And then, apparently, according to at least church tradition, the apostles spread out all the way across Asia. There have been some studies done looking at the Chinese language and there's even symbols within the Chinese, because it's a character-based language with lots of symbols. There are symbols that reflect the gospel or biblical truths even in the Chinese language, which is pretty cool. So we have a readiness that was there.

This is always used to show that Christians are exploiting people, but when When the Spaniards and the monks and the Padres came over to the New World, why were they embraced with open arms? It wasn't because they had fancy ships. Why were they embraced with open arms?

The civilizations had religious traditions of a redeemer coming riding on a white horse. coming to save them. So the gospel message had been perverted. The biblical truths, even from an Old Testament perspective, they didn't have the gospel. The biblical Old Testament truths had been perverted, but they'd been passed along. So there was a readiness that when Christianity came about, the world was waiting. It was ready for that. So at a proper time, Christ was manifested.

And then he said, even his word. And his word, what's that? It's pretty simple. Logos, right? Word. But why is that significant? It was new revelation with a new message, consistent building upon the fulfillment of Christ's first coming. And Paul, again, being a steward of those things, He says, "...in the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior." So Paul, again, he's continuing on with his long run-on sentence. He's supposed to be proclaiming the Word and supposed to be proclaiming the time manifest. "...with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior." So God commanded him to go. We already established that earlier when we talked about him being an apostle.

Then finally in verse 4, to Titus, my true child and a common faith, grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. So he always says grace, that's a common Roman or Greek phrase as you greet someone. So why does he call Titus my true child? Is it because he's biologically Titus' father? I mean, we know that's not true. No, he's theologically his father. He's theologically his father. And so there is a sonship that is not biological, because he says it's in a common faith. He's clarified what that is.

So, he's now introduced himself. Titus knows it's Paul. It's got his fingerprint on it. It's got the traditional Pauline run-on sentence. They're not run-on, though. It's grammatically fine. It's long, yes. Yeah, it's long. It is a long sentence. It does not make sense. Yeah, well that's right.

We usually use... a teacher would say that's a run-on sentence by which she meant I had two thoughts that didn't make sense together necessarily. Okay, so verse 5, we finally get into some of the meat of the letter as he starts out here. Now why are 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus called the pastoral epistles? That is the common understanding.

I think it's a terrible misrepresentation of the contents that are here. But Paul writes these to individuals who are in charge of setting up churches out in various locations, in this case Crete for Timothy Ephesus. So he says, for this reason I left you in Crete that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you. So we have here that he needs to set in order what remains. We don't know entirely what remained. But we can guess by some of the contents of the letter that he's going to tell us some of the details, just in case Titus had kind of lost some of those things in place.

And appoint elders in every city, as I directed you. Okay, so elders in every city is an important doctrinal concept. We've talked about eldership because it's in 1 Timothy, and we're going to do some comparison and contrast this morning because of the fact that there's an overlap that's there. One of the arguments from theologians is that pastors are elders, and elders are pastors, and that there should be one pastor at each church, therefore there should be one elder at each church. Now I'm going to come out and say that I think that's a bunch of hogwash on the offset, but let's talk about why someone might argue that there should probably, in most cases, only be one elder or one pastor. Why should there only be one? Remember, this is straw man. We're going to just obliterate this thing. We're going to light it on fire when we're done.

Why do people argue for there to be one leader in each church, whether you call him an elder or a pastor? Stan? I think it's called unity of of the organization. Yeah, unity. That's a very commonly leveled argument. Because where you have two minds, you're going to have at least two, if not three or four opinions, right?

So if we only have one leader, then no one can argue. Or at least they can be minimized. Yeah, they'll reduce... Because other people won't have as much authority. Yeah, that's right. Fewer people with authority, it'll be great. Because they've looked too much at their local government and not enough at the Word of God. Yeah, you could have a dictator or someone who really doesn't meet these requirements, but no one else has the ability to come alongside and deal with that in any capacity. That's the way we've always done it. One I've heard before, and I will confess that this one came from a dear friend in Texas who's actually the president of a seminary that he's trying to get started.

And he said, these churches don't have other people who are elder candidates. Even if they could have a plurality of elders, the person who's leading doesn't have a problem with that. There's no one else who's capable of being an elder. I really wrestle with that one myself in the sense that that means that that person who may be the sole elder better be discipling the next group of elders and be in there teaching them through God's Word and making sure they have godly biblical resources to grow in to co-shepherd with them.

Because all I can imagine is that if you're a pastor who has no one else that you can pass off your work on, what do you do when you're sick on Sunday morning? Do you teach sick? If you're a pastor and you've got no one else to call on and you can't teach and you want to go on vacation, what do you do? Do you not go on vacation? Do you only vacation from Monday through Friday? Do you vacation by calling in some other young whippersnapper at a seminary? What do you do?

And I'm not actually looking for answers, but the difficulty is that Paul, by saying elders plural, there's a reason for that that is just fully functioning in the body. Human beings run out of hours on the clock. Maybe you don't, but I do. I find that 24 hours in a day sometimes feels too long and sometimes feels too short.

But if you were in charge of shepherding, that would be a big deal. Churches are just organizations rather than an organization. That can often be the case. You need a CEO. You've got to have an executive leader and then you have your board of directors, also known as the deacons. From so-called church government, as far as the state is concerned, it's going to be a non-profit organization. It's a rejection of the simplicity of biblical revelation for just in cases or just becauses and it's unfortunate.

So Paul left Titus there that he would set up or appoint elders in every city. Namely, and then namely is implied there, you see it's in italics in some of your Bibles, then he's going to give us a list So we're going to read through this list and then we're going to jump back to 1 Timothy 3, 1-7 and we're going to compare and contrast these.

If you turn your handout over on the back side, you'll see I've actually got the bullet points lined out. But let's read through them first and then let's have some discussion and comparison and contrast and some of the nuances of the list. Namely, if any man is above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion, for the overseer must be above reproach as God's steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sordid gain, but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, just, devout, self-controlled, holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. I'm going to flip back to 1 Timothy chapter 3 and read 1 through 7.

It is a trustworthy statement if any man aspires to the office of overseer or elder. It is a fine work he describes or he desires to do. An overseer then must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of money.

He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity. But if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the Church of God? And not a new convert, so that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil. And he must have a good reputation with those outside the church, so that he will not fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.

Alright, so we have two lists. So Paul must be contradicting himself, right? I'm joking. I think it's obvious that the ideas overlap. He's got slightly different items on each list in a few nuances, but there's consistency between them. So what's the significance of the differences that are there? What is the difference, or what is different in these lists.

Timothy doesn't say anything about having children who believe. Down toward the bottom it says, keep these children under control. Yeah, so we have children under control. Otherwise... I don't see where the last letter of Titus was refuted, which is really... Yeah. the refuting those who contradict us is different. Stan?

Well, if you look underneath Titus, you kind of see, I don't know if you could call, I think that's, I don't have a correct word for it, but it's more like character and how you live your life, because if you really hear or you think about what the Cretans were like and some of the comments that were made, you know, kind of a rebellious disorder antagonistic type society. And so I think Paul is kind of focusing on that aspect here for Titus. And if you look at Timothy's part, which is Ephesus and Galatia and a few of the others, you don't see the focus necessarily on whatever it is I'm trying to say there. The moral character and the veracity of the or the intestinal fortitude of the leaders. The qualities that are there, and I think that's one of the points I wanted to make, Stan, is just simply the qualities of the people that are there are pretty significant. When I look at this list, I'm humbled.

I don't know about you. Maybe you guys live up to these things already, but I look at some of these things, and in one of my prayer requests this morning, Lord, help me be a good dad who can adapt to his children and love his children. I feel like my children are actually generally well-behaved, but there is just this sense of constantly needing to work on being a parent. And I think, oh, I fall short on that. I don't tend to be a fighter, not a rip-off artist, not addicted to much wine. But when I'm parenting my kids, sometimes I can be quick-tempered. So I was like, oh, Lord, help me grow in those areas. It's not that I'm ready. Yeah, it's normal. Thank you. But the qualities are there. So both of the lists have above reproach. What's reproach?

Because we don't tend to use that often. They won't show up on CNN, right? For screwing up. Needing to be punished, yeah. They're above being corrected and taking correction all the time. We had a relationship as well. Now here we have two lists. Yeah. And so if you want to spend some time to look at this and say, well, this is something I need to do. I'm not doing this. I really need to work on this. And this seems to be one of my problems here. So I really need to focus on that.

Isn't it more or less. of the people who are being submissive to God, and God is working through the people to accomplish this, and that's why the lists aren't the same. The lists are going to be different because the author is writing at different times. The Lord may have revealed some things to Paul since he wrote one letter and then the next. But the thing is, it's not a to-do list. This isn't a checklist of legalism. That's an important thing to point out.

When we look at these things, these are character qualities of an abiding believer, of a beholding believer that's looking at the Lord, the one who's reckoning themselves dead. When I go look at that list and I start to think of how I'm falling short, why am I falling short? Am I falling short because I need to work extra hard on those places? I need to reckon myself dead. I need to be abiding and walking with the Lord. Now, as we go through this, let's ask this important question. This is kind of a tangent, but I want to kind of draw this out because I think it's important. When a church is lacking in some character quality, maybe you've been to different churches and you say, oh, the frozen chosen are over there, or these people are not hospitable, or these people do this, that, or the other thing.

When there's some shortcoming somewhere, what's the best way to fix that? I'm not being specific on purpose. What's the best way to fix that? What does the church leadership need to do? Obviously they need to go by the next 40 days of fasting or the 40 days of whatever the shortcoming is, right? When you just need a new book and that will fix everything.

The fundamental nature of why are the elders the elders? What are they supposed to be doing? They're supposed to be shepherding. They're modeling these character qualities for the body. When you look at the elders here at Holly Hills, we'll notice that they're not flawless in every nuance of every little minor detail that's on this list. But the general overall quality of the elders is that these characteristics are true of them. And they're modeling them before us as sheep.

My dad being an elder, People go, oh, you're a pastor's kid. And they assume that my dad's been a pastor for my whole life sometimes. Not everybody. Not here at Holly Hills, because you guys know. But people go, oh, wasn't that a lot of pressure? Did you always feel like you had to be perfect? I was like, no, my dad was not always an elder. I didn't run into that pastor's kid stigma that is common. But my dad actually had a lot of these qualities growing up. to where it's not shocking to me that people ask my dad, will you be an elder? He's been an elder at three different churches. It's not shocking that that would happen.

Mike Doyle, he's a former Marine, right? He's a former Marine? Okay, I'm sorry. I've been corrected. Mike Doyle is a Marine who's no longer actively serving in the military. Roger is an engineer. Still, yes. My dad is an engineer at heart. My dad has done so many things professionally, it's kind of amusing. Why is it cool to have three elders, or when Hal was here, four elders with different backgrounds, even though Roger and Hal have similar backgrounds? Why is it really good for the body?

They know different things. They grew up in different towns. The qualities and the diversity of the eldership mean that if you come in as a sheep who's wounded and you need some counseling, if you come in as a sheep who's hurting in some capacity, one of the elders is probably more going to understand where you're coming from, maybe, than the others. That's right. If anybody knows legalism, it's a former Catholic. And so he can come in and he can say, hey I understand where you're at, but that's not what we're called to. And so it's neat to have the different backgrounds.

This morning Roger is going to teach during the main service and I can't wait. I remember at a former church we went to, Anytime the teaching pastor, and I put that with air quotes, was gone, everybody was nervous because it was like, oh no, who's going to do a dreadful job for 45 minutes that I have to sit through? So the requirement, able to teach, probably isn't just that they'll tickle your ears and be a good communicator or something, but the idea is able to teach is being able to take the Word, reveal the truth, and give you some food out of it. I don't worry about the elders at Holly Hills doing that.

I've still seen them grow. My dad's grown, Mike's grown, Roger's grown in their capacity, in their knowledge, in what they're doing, what they're capable. So we have similarities, we have differences. Why was it important for there to be elders in Crete? It's a new church being started on this island. There's a large population there. They must have had more than one church.

Yeah, he says in the cities, in the plural areas that he's targeting, which means that Titus had to make sure he got a lot of miles on his Nikes, right? But we have these things because, again, Paul knows he's not going to be there forever if the Lord tarries and the rapture doesn't happen. We know that didn't happen. Titus knows he's not going to be there forever. So they've been commissioned to help establish the church body and keep it going there because it will have to last. It will need to impact the people that are there.

One question I have, as we get into the issue of elders, and this gets brought out kind of antagonistically, especially if you talk about there being a plurality of elders. Why doesn't Paul address the other letters to Galatia, to Ephesus, to Philippi, to Colossae, to the elders at those cities. There is a bit of ambiguity to that question, but it seems that that was kind of the pattern that Paul would want to do that overall. But the idea is in part that The churches that are there are still going to have people who are teaching. The churches that are there are still going to have the same needs that any body needs.

Stan? I was also going to say, I think, don't you think part of it is that the relationship that Paul had with Titus and Timothy was to the degree that he felt that they could understand Not only the connotation, but the denotation of what he was teaching, and that they would fully understand to the degree that they could pass this on without error or with a little error.

Whereas if you start, it kind of goes back to the decentralized control type situation again. You want to keep it as small as a nuclear station as possible. Again, Christ sent them out two by two. He didn't send them all out together. So you've always got a small number that's basically, that's got this capsule of truth that's been given to fall through Christ. But they're constantly spreading it, and the idea is that it carries on.

Part of why I think that, and to answer the question and get back to it, part of why I don't think the letters are addressed to the elders at Ephesus, to the elders at Colossae, is because he's writing general truths for the whole body that's there. Elders are ones who are to be exemplifying godliness, but he's writing for the full benefit of the full body. He mentions elders, actually, in his first letter to the Corinthians. So the idea is that they're there, but the truth that is revealed when he writes to the Romans is, I mean, how many of you, I can say with great confirmation that none of us in this room are elders, how many of you read through the book of Romans when we're still edified?

Still felt like it applied to you. Romans, it's a letter that is, it is a true letter written to believers and it doesn't matter that you're an elder or not an elder. Those things are, it's not relevant that you're an elder to receive and understand the letter.

It also says, if any man desire the office of elder or something, so you're talking to all those other people. Something could be. That's the key to everybody. And the thing is that in writing that these people would desire that office, it's a great responsibility, but the truth is that these are characteristics that are true of a believer who's abiding. whether an elder or not. And that is the thing that is of greater relevance, is that we observe that this is an abiding believer. And if we see that these things aren't true of us, we understand that it's an area we need to abide in.

It's that simple. It's not complicated. So as we wind down, Brian's ringing the second bell. Any other thoughts or questions on this? We've gone through all of my pre-scripted questions. disagreements, things you wish I hadn't said. Alright, let's go before the Lord.

Heavenly Father, thank you for the truth of your word. Thank you for this letter from Paul to Titus. Thank you that he was a bondservant, that he was a believer called by you as an apostle to carry on the truth and the message of the gospel. We pray for the things that we've looked at this morning that they would be brought up throughout the week and that we would also be lifting up our elders in prayer that we have in our lives. We thank you for them and we pray for their continued strengthening and encouraging and growth. And we just praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.