Titus lesson 2 Question 4 review and on

All right, we are in Lesson 2, and we're getting through on Question 5. What does Paul anticipate when he calls Christ our Savior? And again, these are through verses 4 and 5 of Titus, Chapter 1. Let me go back up. I'll just read that section real quick. just because we get focused on one section and we forget the context. So I'll read verses 1-5 of Titus.

Paul, a bondservant of God and 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 ages ago, 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, in verses four and five, which we're focused on. To Titus, my true child in a common faith, grace and peace from God the Father in Christ Jesus our Savior. 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, getting back down to question four, and we hit most of it. What does Paul anticipate when he calls Christ our Savior? We looked at the hope of eternal life and what that hope means. Hope is not like the world sees it now. It's a sure thing, something that will happen. It's just going to be in the future. There's no doubt of that happening.

So again, the hope of eternal life. Then we focused on, in verse 4, Christ Jesus our Savior and what that means. Basically, I want to focus a little bit on the Savior part, and that's the anticipation of a Savior who is going to give us eternal life. So, the hope of eternal life is not an empty promise, for it is manifested in His Word. So we see that written about eternal life.

Paul plays a special role in the communication of this truth in that it was entrusted to him, according to and in harmony with, the commandment of God our Savior. So he was commanded to bring forth the gospel, the word of hope, and really pointing to God the Savior. And in this section where he's talking to Titus, he's really focusing on the hope for eternal life and Savior and what that means.

Christ is our Savior. He's the one who provides the salvation through His finished work and the gracious offering of salvation through faith in His finished work. So this places stress not on his person, but on his work. We know God who saves men and women. So it's really not focusing on him, but what his function was, was to be a Savior.

So any further comments on that or thoughts about Christ our Savior? You know, there are many titles when we do this, and sometimes it's just Lord, sometimes Jesus. This one is Lord Jesus, or Christ Jesus, our Savior. So again, this is focusing on the aspect of salvation, or Him being the Savior of humanity, or humans. So any other thoughts?

I don't know if this has a correlation or not, but Savior being son of God, and then he's talking about true child in a common faith. There's just kind of a slight connection there, it would seem, maybe. It just would be more specific to the child and mentor relationship in that, you know, the son and the father relationship that he's maybe comparing there to some degree, Christ Jesus and left it at that. And it still would have had the same impact. But adding Savior also speaks to that function, but also the relationship to his father. So, I don't know. Yeah, the same Paul and Titus where he says, my true child in the faith, that same mentoring, same. So the father son relationship. Yeah, that's good. I like that.

And again, you know, it is just some of these words, when you look at it, you may miss it. It's like, and Joanne, I did go back and look at that one where it did add mercy to that one. That's the only one that he adds mercy to. And it's really interesting when you look at just how a word can change it.

And this is Savior, where he puts in Christ Jesus, our Savior. And so that's just a little added to add emphasis to what Paul is bringing forth now. And he says earlier in there, the blessed hope of eternal life. Well, who is that through? It's through Christ our Savior.

So again, a lot of interesting when you get down to just some of the minor words in here that are changes, like adding mercy to the one ending. So, again, I think a special relationship between Paul and Titus that we see and now we see the relationship between the father and the son and what his purpose was to be the Savior. So, any others otherwise we can pull on here? So, question five, what special authority does Titus have? Does he have a special authority?

Yes. And? You know, I can't believe you can't just say yes. Well, Paul left him in Crete to the new American standards says to set in order what remains. In other words, the church has probably been established there, but They need to put it together, and as we found out, talked about, and we'll talk about, that threatens. Yeah. That's still funny that even today that laughs. I never, you know, until studying this, I never would have put that together that you're a Cretan. I didn't realize that because it was from Crete. They're liars. They're terrible people.

So. Yeah. So I think they, To give a guy like him the ability, or maybe the, I don't know if I was going to say ability, but it's not an ability, the authority to appoint elders. I would have thought that it would only be Paul himself that would do that job. Yeah, was Titus an elder? An elder? Yeah, I think so. You think he was? Yeah. Which church or where? Was he at every church? Crete, probably. I don't think he was.

I think he was a special position that Paul left him in. because elders are elders are for specific churches and we'll see that as it comes down that you know and and he'll get into the qualifications of an elder and I think he was just the the special one to come and set up the elders and then once the church is established it's you know then it basically elders arise from within that local body but I think to start it off Paul gave him the special authority to go and set up elders. He would look and go and meet in these churches and find out those people who were following Paul's teaching. And then he would set them up and say, okay, you are, and we'll get into overseer and bishop and those terms. But I think he was the one who set it up. I don't think he was an elder. I think he was in a special position because I think an elder is specific to a church. He may be categorized as the elder over all the churches of Crete.

Would you call him an apostolic agent? Yes, that's what he says. An apostolic agent. So Titus, like Timothy, served as an agent of the Apostle with apostolic authority. He was in a position of authority over the local Christians, including the elders. So Paul gave him the charge to do this. Like I said, I don't think he was an elder. I think he was in a special position, as gospel says, apostolic authority. The authority from Paul, an apostle, to be able to set up these churches and set up the elders.

Wasn't he kind of a troubleshooter too? Yeah. Didn't they have trouble down there and that's one reason why Paul sent him there? Yeah, and Paul will send him to other places, Dalmatia and others. He's kind of the guy who organizes and helps out. He's Paul's agent to go and help set up all these churches in Crete. Thanks, Paul.

I got set up in a bunch of churches with liars and creeps and terrible people and you sent me there. Well, that to me says how much Paul trusted Titus because that's not the best place to be thrown. You've got to have a backbone, you've got to have this solid word established in you to have Paul send you to this horrible, horrible place.

But yeah, he was the guy who kind of went in and was established, which we'll see. And he's the guy who sets up all the elders in these churches. Also, it says that, the gospel says, a public reading of this epistle would have helped the Christians recognize Titus' authority and submit to Paul's instructions. So him, you know, writing this letter, he could bring it to the churches and say, it's not just me, Paul has given me this authority.

So... You know, we're going to get into qualification for elders next. And based on the reputation that the Cretans had, it's a wonder they found anybody there qualified to be an elder. Yeah. And it's interesting that at the same time that probably the one guy that had all the qualifications was Titus himself. Yeah.

But you know, I, you know, you look back in scripture and you know, in, you know, places where I'm trying to think and it escapes me, you know, where, I don't know, Sodom and Gomorrah or, you know, there's like one or two or five people that are, you know, following the Lord.

So there's always some remnant or something that God uses. So even in the midst of, you know, a terrible place, there are people that he uses and who is, you know, he's worked in their heart, the Holy Spirit's worked in them, haven't fallen to the, you know, the calling of the local, you know, trash that is there.

So I see that, you know, the majority of Crete was terrible. But there had to be enough people in there that were following or had been led by the Spirit to follow Paul's teaching. And that was Titus's position was to identify those people. I like the fact that the Lord through Paul and Titus Silas and the rest of them, there's order in the church.

And there's a way that God would have the church organized and functioning. So that coming to the understanding of what it is to have God as your Father and the Lord Jesus as your Savior and all that goes into that. You know, I've always been kind of a, since I've been a believer, how much teaching goes on to just teach people what the church is and here's how it functions and here are the people that are involved in it. And so many churches don't pay attention to that kind of stuff, you know. Therefore, they are somewhat disorganized or at least going down a path of disorganization.

We'll touch on a little bit of that later. One of the things I think is kind of interesting is what they established. Are we supposed to keep that today? Elders? Yes. You know, what he's establishing in Crete is what we should be the local church today. Yes. And he's given us the qualifications for it. And that's where, Mike, I think a lot have gone astray. And I'll touch a little bit later on that, where on elders and where the one guy pastor who leads versus what is called out in what Paul wants set up is the church, the local body. and how that deviates and creates the problems.

He set up, and we'll see the qualification, that hasn't changed from what he was setting up in Crete. That hasn't changed. And Timothy's qualifications for elders, it hasn't changed. It didn't say, well, modify as you go along, or this is for today. No, this is the same requirements.

So it's interesting, like I said, that what he's setting up here in Crete is what we should be today. I was just going to say, I know that we're going to get into a lot more, but in terms of Titus's role and looking at it, I've got the luxury of all my software in front of me.

Titus is also referred to as brother, partner, fellow worker, and then also the true son-in-caw faith. And so, you know, Paul, he's working through, you know, through this evangelistic mission, right? And he's raising up Paul somewhere along the way, and he finds that he needs to not only evangelize, but start establishing. And Titus is the one trusted son in the common faith that can fellow work alongside him and partner with him to establish the authority of the church in terms of eldership and deacons and so forth. So Titus, I think that apostolic agent term really applies well to what we see of him in the scripture. Was he potentially an elder at some point? We don't know, but he would have been qualified, obviously. He was qualified to do the work of eldership. But was he an elder in a church? I mean, maybe there's 10 different churches in Crete. I don't know.

But that's kind of how I summarize it in my head, is that he's walking alongside as a partner to Paul. Paul is evangelizing and planting and watering, and others are doing as well. But he's establishing. Well, I was going to kind of go to the Corinthians, where Paul planted, Apollos watered, and God created the growth. And I think this is where Paul went through, and now Titus is coming through and doing the watering, so to speak. He's setting up the church, he's setting up all these things, setting up elders for God to create the growth in that body. So I think Paul went through, planted the seeds, and now Titus is coming through and doing the watering. He's making it grow by setting up and establishing the church. the local church bodies. So, and again, I think the apostolic agent is a good term for him.

So, from D. Edmund Hebert, Timothy was not the pastor of the church at Ephesus in the modern sense of the term, nor was Titus the bishop of Cretan churches, as is sometimes thought. Both men are addressed as the personal representatives of the Apostle Paul and had been left there at their stations to carry out the work assigned to them by the Apostle. So again, he's saying it really wasn't, Timothy wasn't a pastor or the elder at the church at Ephesus, nor was Titus an elder at any of the churches in Crete.

Mounce also says, Titus may have been older, more mature, and therefore less prone to depression and the need for encouragement than was Timothy. The Creighton situation was also less serious, and Titan was in less danger, I guess. Emphasis that, you know, they're chasing him out of town and doing everything. Titus just needed to deal with the liars, liars and all that. You think that Titus could be older than Paul?

No, Timothy. Oh, Timothy, okay. Yeah, Timothy. So Timothy, because in Paul's epistle to Timothy, there's a reference to about, you know, don't worry about your youth. And I think Titus was older than Timothy. So that's what, you know, and so Titus was thrown to Crete and Timothy to Ephesus at the church at Ephesus. So, um, Anyway, that was from Alex. He says Titus may have been older, more mature, less prone to depression, need for encouragement than was Timothy. Timothy, got it.

Any other thoughts? Go ahead Russ. I would say, I think it's kind of helpful to know that when Paul and Barnabas kind of had their parting of ways, Titus went on one of the missionary journeys with Paul. Yeah. And that's kind of shows the trust and value of Titus. Yeah, I think they show several trips that Titus took with Paul on his journeys. Yeah. Yeah, Mike.

I was going to say too that the autonomy of each individual church is evident. Granted, there are guys like Timothy and Titus around, but they're not You know, they're not the cardinal or the archbishop or anything like that. They set it up and then they leave.

And the Spirit of God runs the local church. I think it's cool how the Lord did it that way. And of course, you know, over 2,000 years of Christianity, weaves back and forth between chaos and denominations and all this other nonsense. But really, I'm convinced that a local church has the authority within the church to do what it does and act dependent on the Spirit of God to lead them and to focus on what is important, which is like learning the Word of God.

Yeah, and we'll get into a little bit, two different things. One on the last question, question eight, we'll talk a little bit about that with, there were hundreds of cities in Crete. So it wasn't just a few cities, so local churches were set up, we don't know how many, but lots. And then also, we'll touch about it a little bit now with question six.

Why do you think it's important to have qualified leaders over the affairs of a local church? So before looking at the importance of having qualified leaders in the local church, let's go over what Titus had in Crete. So from Kospel, it says, the churches in Crete needed organization.

The ones in Ephesus where Timothy was when Paul wrote 1 Timothy had been in existence longer and seemed to have been better organized. And evidence of this may be that in 1 Timothy, Paul wrote about removing bad elders. That's in 1 Timothy 5, 19 through 25. In Titus, we see no need of this.

Paul prescribed an organizational structure, but left it flexible. He did not dictate the details, but left these open for local leaders to determine. Consequently, the quality of the church's leaders was very important. Again, Titus had to set up churches in Crete, setting up the elders, and I think there's an incredibly important point here, and this is actually from my brethren background, is plurality of elders. plurality of elders was key in the Brethren Church, and I think it's backed up by scripture.

You never see that it says elder, like set up the elder. It is not one elder. It's always plural. And that is a totally misguided direction in a lot of churches. You know, well, the Joel Olsteen or the whoever, MacArthur, any of these guys who are the main one single guy, usually a pastor or a teacher, who is the one main guy, it's a dangerous situation and it's not biblical. The local church was meant to be, by design, what we see is plurality of elders for the leadership of the church. It's dangerous to have just one elder or one single teaching pastor who is in control. And there's a reason for that. If that guy goes astray, everybody goes down the tubes. And plurality gives you... I'm on the board of directors at Camp Elam. We have a plurality.

I enjoy that because we're not all Charlie Browns. We're not all the same. We all don't see it the same. And so we discuss and there's different aspects from each and every one of us that has a different aspect of when we discuss things. Same thing with elders.

Elders are to have, you know, different backgrounds, different, you know, growth, what different aspects of how they look at Scripture. Although Scripture is true, and there's only one, but they can bounce things off because, as elders know, all sorts of things come to you as an elder. It's not all perfectly clear on scripture, like what happens when somebody comes to you with a drug problem or a family issue. Sometimes there isn't a perfect scripture for it, so you have to rely on the elders for their wisdom to address that. It's better than having one guy. So plurality, you know, we have two, it'd be great if we had more elders in the local body, but it always has to be plural.

Yeah. Our daughter, excuse me, our daughter Ann in California is in a church that has one elder and it really bothers her. Yep. But they're getting a new pastor and she's hopeful that maybe he, and they've studied these books. They can't overlook what the scripture says, but they do. Yeah, no, it's very clear. It's never elder. It's never singular.

And why do they just want to maintain total control or what's their problem? Typically, it's personality and they want the control. Sometimes it's lack of, you know, people there who are qualified, but it's a very dangerous situation. It's never good. It's not how Paul you know, set up the local body. That's not how he and his Timothy and Titus qualifications. It's never about an individual. Usually the guy who is in control can explain it away. There's just nobody else here. There's just no one else who can step to the plate. But it's key.

I think that's one of the things that really leads churches astray now, is to have a single powerful pastor that is in control. And a lot of times we quote may have elders, but we have this guy who is like, you know, MacArthur or whoever is running the show. You know, the elders are kind of rubber stamping, whatever he does or something that that's an assumption I have to say. But if you have a singular powerful man in control of a local body, it's dangerous.

It's not how Paul set it up. And you'll get not only the qualifications of elders, but you also have deacons too. So not only do you have elders, but you have deacons. So Paul was very specific about it. And I think where churches go astray is when they get off of what Paul said, I prefer the local body. So that's my rant. Yeah.

Do you think elders are commissioned for life? Or are they term-limited, so to speak? What do you think? Well, you put me in an awkward spot. No, I know, because you were an elder, but the circumstances have changed. The Church isn't the same now as it was when you were an elder and that kind of thing.

I was just going to say, before we answer that question, can we set aside the qualifications and the character versus the function within a local body? Yeah, and that's good because that's coming next. My question is, I have men that are serving a three-year eldership. or a five-year eldership. Is that legitimate?

No, I'd counter that because typically it's you're voted in or you're, you know, whatever. And I don't think that's how you become an elder. I think what is done is you are led by the Lord. You know, Mike, I gave you this advice before you became an elder. I know you did. I should have listened to you. I just gave you some tips, I guess. You know, I think you are called.

The people who strive for the position are the elders that fail. God will put it on your heart and it'll be an overwhelming burden for you to lead the local body. And it's a burden that the Holy Spirit brings in you. If you seek the position, you'll fail. Everybody has stinky sheep. You're the shepherd, and there's stinky sheep, and it's tough. And if you are not led by the Spirit to be an elder, you'll fail.

And that's really the key, is that it's not a position that's voted on. Ultimately, you're brought before the body, but it's not a kind of voted-on position. The voted-on positions are for a three-year position or things like that, I think, where issues come up and problems.

You have to be called. You have to be an effective elder. You're called, and it'll be manifest. You just have a burden for the body. And that will allow you to go through all the things as an elder. And so I really think, and getting back to it, I don't think it's a lifetime appointment. I think you're led until the Lord lets you know. Or you become incapacitated. Yeah, I know what you're saying. Or, you know, like in my situation, the rest were going in a different direction that I really believed in, and I just, you know, step down, you know, before the body stepped down and didn't want to create division, didn't do anything, I just, you know, you're going a different direction, I'm stepping down as an elder. And it was just my heart wasn't in to where they were going. They didn't change your qualification or your characteristics, right? And that's kind of what... Well, I hope not. Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll go back to your question six here.

Why do you think it's important to have qualified leaders over the affairs of a local church? I think one of the things that at least is just clear we could pick on out of the verse five. is that he would set in order what remains. And so obviously the church is not designed to run in chaos. That's not how God organizes. And the ultimate answer is this is exactly how God wants to organize and order his churches locally and You know universally as well in the sense that there is order to the to the to the The church and there should be order to all of the individual local churches that mirrors The the way that the Lord has set up his relationship to his people. Yeah, no Order is key and he's and you know, we get into When you know grace and different things we've taught, you know, God designates authority to individuals and you know either individual elders and he's given that authority over the local body you know and and that's that's he he has set up that authority God is the ultimate authority but he is designated for the local church the elders are the authority and so you know he wants order and I might uh I might make a comment there yeah being an elder I know I recognize that uh It isn't that, well, you're designated to be over the church and so you're autonomous.

It's not like that. As a matter of fact, you're probably more dependent than anybody else in terms of how the Lord wants things to go. And you find a lot of times that what you initially thought was the direction wasn't the direction that the Lord wanted. He wanted something else or He wanted it slower or faster or, you know, that kind of thing.

Yeah. Well, you know, shoot, I want to get down. We're getting out of time, but I just want to, I wish I could get down. I'm not going anywhere, Courtney. I know. I'll be in Florida next week and Barbados the following, but we don't want to hear that. Yeah. Do you have permission from the elders to do that? Well, I'll try and teach from down in Florida next Sunday. I can do that. I'll do a virtual one because there are so many good things in here.

We'll get into that autonomy. One of my last ones is the autonomous church. I'll skip ahead just because I really want to hit that and give thought about that. The word in every city points to the autonomy of each local church. To be autonomous means self-directing. Each city was to have its own elder and elders. There was no central authority directing all of them. And I think that's a key is that, you know, look at the religions today that have, you know, just, you know, Catholic, Episcopalian, Baptist, whatever. They have central authorities. Was that ever in scripture laid out that way? No, you can't find it. And again, this is where we have deviated from what Paul set up. And that's where the trouble lies. You know, it's right now I see, what is it, Methodists? United Methodists, yeah. There are thousands of churches across the country that are leaving the United Methodist Church.

Right. Because of what the authority was doing. That's right. That's right. They never should have been under there anyway, but you know, this is where this central authority was never meant to be. And you know, it's interesting about that. If the United Methodist owned the church, the people who are leaving the United Methodist Church have to leave that church building structure. Even though they funded it. Even though they were in that building before. I mean, it's very interesting what's happening. Talk about centralized, you know, ownership or whatever. It clearly is not what Paul wanted. Clearly not what he wanted.

And again, we're all, you know, the Catholic Church, you know, we were in the Vatican. you know, go to the Vatican and see, you know, what the, you know, the central authority, you know, they are very gold-plated and lots of ornate and a lot of money went there, you know, and what is that, you know, as far as the gospel.

And so, no, it's, really we're looking at, I think it's a great example of setting up local churches, no central authority. Our authority is the Word of God. That's the authority. That's what we follow. It's not a central committee or central group that tells us what to do. We are run by elders who have the qualifications to lead local bodies. And that's what Paul set up. And that's what we're seeing here in Crete.

Go sing. Huh? You gotta go sing. Oh yeah. Alright. Alright. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you again just for this time. We thank you for your direction to give us authority for the local body, the qualifications for elders. It isn't just pick randomly from a group of men or those who just want the position. You have given qualifications and it's for those men who are drawn through the prodding of the Holy Spirit to be in that position of being an elder or leader over local body and again with the qualifications that you laid out. So we just thank you that it isn't just chaos that you have left the body. in that you have established these guidelines, these structures that will allow your word to be freely given out and taught to the body. So we thank you for that, that you just didn't leave us in random Order so we just we give you thanks again for your word and just what it means to us and again We just thank you for this time to open up your word and to see about this Structure of the body and we just thank you for all these things in Jesus name. We pray amen