Today we are going to begin our
study of Titus by looking at the first four verses. In this greeting we will
see that Paul introduces himself, states his purpose for writing this letter,
and addresses the recipient. We will look at each of these one at a time.
Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus
Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the
truth, which accords with godliness, 2 in hope of eternal
life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began 3 and
at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I
have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior;
4 To Titus, my true child in a common faith: Grace
and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
Titus
1:1-4 (ESV)
The first thing that Paul writes
here is that he is a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. We lose
something in most of our English translations, because they typically translate
the Greek word doulos as servant or bond-servant, when in reality the word should be translated slave. Dr. Zodhiates writes that a doulos is:
A
slave, one who is in a permanent relation of servitude to another, his will
being altogether consumed in the will of the other. [1]
This is the word that Paul uses
in verse 1 when he writes that he is a servant of God. What Paul is saying here
is that as a servant of God he is in a permanent relation of servitude to Him and
that his personal will is altogether consumed by the will of God. This is
exactly the attitude that every Christian should have, remember that even when
Jesus taught us how we should pray one of the things He told us is that we
should pray, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done..." (Matt 6:10). We
also see in Romans 6 that as a follower of Jesus Christ we go from being a
slave of sin to being a slave of righteousness (Rom 6:17-18); in other words we
are no longer to live to fulfill our own sinful desires, we are now to live to
fulfill the will and desires of our Heavenly Father. John MacArthur here writes:
There
is a general sense in which every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has “been
freed from sin and enslaved to God,” a bondage that results “in
sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life” (Rom. 6:22). To be a
Christian is to be a bond-servant of
God. We are not our own but “have been bought with a price” (1 Cor.
6:20), being “redeemed [not] with perishable things like silver or gold, …
but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of
Christ” (1 Pet. 1:18–19). And because we no longer belong to ourselves, we
“should no longer live for [ourselves], but for Him who died and rose again on
[our] behalf” (2 Cor. 5:15).[2]
The next thing that Paul says
about himself is that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ. The Greek word that
Paul uses here is apostolos,
which literally means “one sent forth.” [3]
Daniel C. Arichea and Howard A. Hatton
expand on this when they writes that an apostle is "one who is sent with a
message and a mission and who can therefore act on behalf of the sender."[4]
And John MacArthur adds:
[The word apostle] carries the basic meaning of
“messenger” and was sometimes used of even the lowliest person who carried a
message on behalf of someone else. But the term was used most often of a
special messenger, a type of ambassador, who was sent with a specific message
and spoke with the authority of the one who sent him. The authority of the
message, therefore, did not derive from the messenger but from the sender.[5]
So in his greeting
Paul is letting us know that not only does he consider himself to be a slave of
God, he also recognizes that he is merely an ambassador - a messenger - of
Jesus Christ. He is not at all concerned
with his own will and desires; he is only concerned with the will of God. He is
not bringing us a message that is his own; he is bringing us the message of
Jesus Christ. And he goes on here to explain that he is a slave of God and
apostle of Jesus Christ not for his own benefit, but for the faith of God's
chosen people; to lead them in the knowledge of truth into godliness, the
result of which is the hope of eternal life. So let's break this down and look
at it in a little more detail.
The reason that Paul
is a doulos and an apostolos is for the sake of the faith of God's elect. The
word that Paul uses here is the Greek word eklektós, which means to choose or select. And note that the verse here says
that they are God's elect - in other words Paul is writing for the sake of the
faith of those who have been selected by God, and for their knowledge of the
truth. But what do the selected do to become God's elect? A
Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments says this:
This
election has its ground, not in anything belonging to those thus distinguished,
but in the purpose and will of God from everlasting (2Ti 1:9; Ro 8:30–33;
compare Lu 18:7; Eph 1:4; Col 3:12). Ac 13:48 shows that all faith on the part
of the elect, rests on the divine foreordination: they do not become elect
by their faith, but receive faith, and so become believers, because they
are elect. [6]
So we are talking
here about a group of people who are chosen by God to be His people purely
because He chose them. There is nothing within them that caused God to choose
them; they were not chosen because of their faith, Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us that faith is a gift from God.
Am I saying that the elect do not have faith? Absolutely not! What I am saying
is that, like the quote above states, they have faith because they are the elect,
they are not the elect because they have faith.
And Paul is telling
us here that he is a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake
of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords
with godliness. This means that what Paul is writing here is meant to strengthen
our faith and increase our knowledge of the truth leading us to be more godly. Why
then did I just say that faith is a gift from God and that we believe not because
we have faith but because God has given us the faith to do so? The answer is yes,
God gives us the faith to believe, and our salvation originates in Him, but
that does not nullify our responsibility to grow in our faith , which we do by
gaining more and more knowledge of who God is; as we study God's word and see
Him working in our lives we get to know Him and as a result we trust Him more and our faith increases. To
this end John MacArthur writes:
Godliness is the manifestation
of the Spirit’s work of sanctification. “For the grace of God has appeared,
bringing salvation to all men,” Paul later explains, “instructing us to deny
ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in
the present age” (Titus 2:11–12; 1 Tim. 4:7–8). Divine truth and godliness are inextricably related. No matter how sincere our
intentions might be, we cannot obey God’s will if we do not know what it is. We
cannot be godly if we do not know what God is like and what He expects of those
who belong to Him.[7]
And that is why Paul
is a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, and why he wrote this
letter. It is to help us grow in godliness by increasing our faith and our
knowledge of the truth.
I am going to stop
part 1 here and pick up with verse 2 & 3 next time because I want to try to keep
these posts short and there is a lot in these two verses that I want to take my time working through.
Until next time, may
God richly bless you in Christ Jesus.
[1] Zodhiates, Spiros: The
Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament. electronic ed. Chattanooga,
TN : AMG Publishers, 2000, c1992, c1993, S. G1401
[2] MacArthur, John: Titus.
Chicago : Moody Press, 1996, S. 2
[3]Vine, W. E. ; Unger,
Merrill F. ; White, William: Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old
and New Testament Words. Nashville : T. Nelson, 1996, S. 2:30-31
[4]Arichea, Daniel C. ;
Hatton, Howard: A Handbook on Paul's Letters to Timothy and to Titus.
New York : United Bible Societies, 1995 (UBS Handbook Series; Helps for
Translators), S. 8
[5]MacArthur, John: Titus.
Chicago : Moody Press, 1996, S. 3
[6]Jamieson, Robert ;
Fausset, A. R. ; Fausset, A. R. ; Brown, David ; Brown, David: A Commentary,
Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments. Oak Harbor, WA :
Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997, S. Tit 1:1
[7] MacArthur, John: Titus.
Chicago : Moody Press, 1996, S. 6
