Month: March 2010

Titus has been given the job of setting up leaders in the church in Crete. In Titus 1:5-9, Paul gives Titus the criteria for how to appoint those pastors. The striking thing as you read through the list is that character matters much more than competence. Does that mean you should look for incompetent people to be pastors in churches? No, it means you look for men with godly character before you look for men with gifts.

Titus 1:10-16 shows why it’s important for Titus to set up godly leaders. There are ungodly leaders around. “They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him” (verse 16). And so, godly leaders “must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that [they] can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it” (verse 10).

I think sometimes we jump too quickly from the requirements for elders, overseers and deacons in 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus and apply them to youth group leaders or Sunday school teachers. I think they are, indirectly, applicable to all people in God’s church. But first and foremost as you read these lists you need to be careful who you follow. Does their life & character match their doctrine? And if you aspire to leadership within the church, are you developing your own character?

Much of life is taken up with waiting. Waiting in traffic. Waiting for a friend. Waiting to see what the future holds. Waiting sometimes sucks. I think that’s because we’re impatient and want everything now. The Christians life could even be characterised by ‘waiting’. For the Christian, it matters what you do while you wait.

The play Waiting for Godot (by Samuel Beckett) is all about 2 dudes, Vladimir and Estragon, waiting for another dude named Godot. While they wait – they do nothing of any real value, they just keep cycling through the same stuff.

In Titus, the Christian is in between two significant events: the first coming of Jesus and the second coming of Jesus. During this period, it matters how the Christian is to wait. Christians aren’t to just cycle through the same monotony, but rather are to live godly lives, focussed on Jesus. In Titus, it speaks of salvation in the past and to come in the future, but the emphasis is really on the present and what it will mean to wait for Jesus.

An understanding and knowledge of the truth should, naturally, lead to godliness. Leaders in God’s church and the people in God’s church are to devote themselves to doing good, while they wait. In Titus, it repeatedly says that Christians are to give themselves to good works. Is this opposed to the gospel of Salvation by Grace not Works? No, not at all. The basis and motivation for godliness is firmly rooted in the gospel. See here and here. We’re saved by grace, then we continue to live by grace.