Four Points Church

It is much easier to think about sin in terms of failure.  It is easy to see where the prodigal son went wrong.  He was greedy, selfish, and squandered every good gift his father had given him.  However, when we listen to Jesus we must recognize that even our best deeds can be as unrighteous as the sins of the prodigal son.

The sermon on the mount begins with Jesus showing us the virtues of those who are blessed by God. He then gives us two examples of how those virtues are to shine in our lives as examples to others.  Jesus wants to now show us the depth of sins subtle hold on our nature.  Jesus confirms that we can even do good things and still be unrighteous in the way we perform them.

In the last few weeks we have talked about order in the church – where Titus was told to establish elders and what those qualifications looked like. We looked at order in our Christian lives and now chapter 3 transitions us to look at what our lives should like as believes to those outside the church.

Paul is instructing Titus that he must rebuke and defend the truth, to combat the lies and deception that are spreading through Crete. Paul instructs Titus to do this by establishing a discipleship process for the people of the church. Titus, teach older men, older women, and younger men. Titus, instruct the older women to teach the younger women. Teach them all with sound doctrine, pure truth, to live lives that validate the gospel change in them, as believers. Knowledge of the truth in the gospel should change us, sanctify us, give us a heart and desire for godliness.

Titus' first task is appointing elders, who will assist him as he deals with false teachers and their infiltration into the local churches. Today’s passage deals with the character and role of elders in the local church. It further describes the false teachers and the disorder they leave when unchecked by godly leadership.

Along with First and Second Timothy, Titus is a Pastoral Epistle, which is a letter to one of Paul’s successors and gives insight into specific church leadership matters. Titus’s job was to ensure the establishment of qualified leaders in all of the churches in Crete to combat the false teaching that was prevalent among the people.