Titus
About the Author of Titus
The first verse of Titus says, ”Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ to further the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness (NIV).”
The letter itself claims Paul as the author. Although his authorship has been put into question regarding the pastoral epistles, the text’s authenticity is supported by the same arguments and cases that were made for 1 and 2 Timothy. The theology of this letter aligns with Paul’s other letters, too. The difference in style is conceivable due to the situation and possibly a secretary.
About the Audience and Background
Titus, the one receiving this letter from Paul, is mentioned fourteen times in the New Testament but only twice in the pastoral epistles. Once in the opening of his letter and once in 2 Timothy (1:4). Because of these references, we can infer that Titus played a role and was active in Paul’s ministry near the end of his life. We also know that Titus was involved with Paul as early as Galatians.
”Unlike Timothy, who was regarded as Jewish, Titus was not. And from this early period of his involvement with Paul, Titus had to contend with Jewish ”false believers” who understandably sought to force their hallowed rituals on non-Jews like himself (Gal 2:4). Who was Titus? If Paul’s Epistle to Titus is written late in Paul’s life (mid-60s), he was Pauline coworker with nearly two decades of ministry experience in various settings. He is not a novice but someone who, Paul thought, could readily put into practice and expand on the sketchy remarks that make up the short epistle that goes by his name. Paul and Titus’s long association and their shared background as native Hellenistic Greek speakers could help account for the workmanlike brevity of the Epistle to Titus, as well as the sometimes challenging vocabulary and unexplained allusions. They had been facing these things, sometimes together and sometimes at a distance, for many years. Paul could write idiomatically as one deeply committed and informed Jesus-follower to another because that is what both were and had been for a sizable share of their adult lives.”
Crete (where Titus was)
Crete, a large island south of Greece and southwest of Turkey, has a population of over 600,000. It was home to the ancient Minoan civilization and is associated with King Minos, the Labyrinth, Minotaur, and Theseus. Crete was conquered by Rome in the first century B.C. and was part of the Roman administrative district of Cyrene.
Large Jewish communities on Crete were influenced by Pilgrims who heard the gospel in their language during the Day of Pentecost.
These individuals could have been Jews, converts to Judaism, or a mixture. (meaning Churches might have begun by the early A.D. 30s.)
A mission to Crete could have been a logical project for early Jewish Christian missionaries, indicating the church’s date to the later 30s or 40s.
”Or perhaps in the late 50s ”Paul’s witness in Crete while on his way to Rome the first time (Acts 27) had formed an embryonic church, which he would naturally have wished to firmly establish upon his release” from Roman imprisonment. Paul was freed by A.D. 63 or so, visited the island and took stock of its needs, and left Titus there to extend the work (Titus 1:5) while Paul journeyed on to Nicopolis in western Greece (3:13). The fact is that we lack secure knowledge of the founding of churches on Crete. If Paul is writing to Titus in the 60s for the purpose of establishing pastors, it may seem unlikely that the church would have already been in existence for a decade or more; training and appointing elders is a first order of business when churches are planted (see Acts 14:23). So a founding by unknown means within not many years of Paul’s writing is plausible.”
The church may have been older but stagnated after its implantation, leading to a degeneration that required Paul to enlist Titus to revive it. By the 60s, the church was in its second generation and had become a problem with dead nominalism. Paul urged Titus to train pastors but also noted rebellion and deception within the church. Crete’s cultural setting is not fully understood, but classical references and ruins show vibrant towns and cities during Paul’s time.
Why did Paul write Titus?
”The occasion for writing Titus appears in 1:5. Paul had left Titus behind in order to appoint elders in a church younger and less organized than the Ephesian church. There are evidences of false teaching in the background, but the threat is less urgent and menacing than that in 1 Timothy. Paul described the errorists and their false teaching in 1:10–16 and in 3:9–11. Paul’s purpose in writing was to instruct Titus to appoint and train the newly appointed elders of the Cretan church to reprove the heretics of their error (1:9), but Titus was also to rebuke the false teachers himself (1:13). The less menacing nature of the false teaching is evident in that this letter lacks the urgent appeals that appeared in 1 Timothy, such as ”fight the good fight” (6:12) and ”what has been entrusted to your care” (6:20), which appeared in 1 Timothy. One antidote to the spread of the heresy in Crete was the demonstration of a godly life-style by the believers (2:2–10; 3:1, 2, 14). Paul’s words to Titus place a heavy emphasis on this feature (3:1, 8, 14). He reminded Titus that the aim of Christ’s death was to produce a ”people that are his very own, eager to do what is good” (2:14).”
When and where did Paul write it?
Some critics have raised concerns about the letter to Titus, suggesting that it may not seamlessly align with the narrative of Acts. They point out that there are no recorded instances of Paul engaging in mission work, specifically in Crete. However, it should be noted that Paul’s letters and Acts do not claim to be comprehensive. According to traditional understanding, Titus was believed to have been written during the mid-60s A.D., between Paul’s first and second imprisonments.
