Bible Commentaries
Titus

A COMMENTARY

ON THE New Testament Epistles

BY

DAVID LIPSCOMB

EDITED, WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES,

BY

J. W. SHEPHERD

VOLUME V

I, II Thessalonians,

I, II Timothy,

Titus, and Philemon

GOSPEL ADVOCATE COMPANY

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE

1942

INTRODUCTION TO PAUL’S EPISTLE TO TITUS.

TITUS.

Titus is not mentioned by name in Acts of Apostles, but is frequently referred to in Paul’s Epistles. He was born of Gentile parents (Galatians 2:3), and was one of the company from Antioch (Acts 15:2) who accompanied Paul and Barnabas when they went to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about the question as to whether the Gentiles would be re­ceived into the church except they were circumcised after the custom of Moses (Acts 15:1). He was possibly a native of Antioch, and since Paul calls him “my true child after a common faith” (Titus 1:4), he may have led him to obey the gospel by his preaching to him. He was a much younger man than Paul. When at Jerusalem his presence gave offense to the Judaizers, but the church refused to compel him to be circumcised, thus standing with Paul in his advocacy of receiving the Gentiles into the church without compelling them to be circumcised and obeying the law of Moses. (Galatians 2:3-5.)

After this Titus remained Paul’s companion, being perhaps with him when he wrote the Galatian Epistle (Galatians 2:3; Galatians 1:2), and not mentioned again until the time of the incidents which caused the writing of the two Epistles to the Corinthians. At this time he paid three visits to Corinth and was one of the most active in spreading the gospel among the people that had hitherto sat in darkness and in the shadow of death. He was with Paul at Ephesus, thence sent on a special mission to Corinth, probably the bearer of the first Epistle to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 12:18); with Paul in Macedonia (2 Corinthians 7:6-15) and perhaps with him at Corinth. He had the superin­tendence of the work in Crete and was with Paul in Rome, thence sent by him to Dalmatia. (2 Timothy 4:10.) His missions of investigation and love, his arrangement for the famous collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem were apparently undertaken spontaneously. (2 Corinthians 8:6; 2 Corinthians 8:16-17.)

The appointment of Titus to the chief superintendence of the churches of Crete was one of singular fitness. There was a strong blending of races and religions in the island. There were many Jews, but the Gentile population outnumbered them. The congregations seem to have been numerous and full of life, but disorganized and troubled with disorders, mis­rule, and even dishonored with many excesses, utterly at variance with the doctrine of Christ. No one was so fitted to restore order and enforce a stern rule as Titus, who had already performed so great a work among the turbulent and licentious Christians at Corinth and had persuaded by his marvelous skill so many Gentile congregations to unite in helping with a generous liberality the pressing needs of their proud and haughty Jewish brethren who disdained them. (Titus 1:4.)

DESIGN OF THE EPISTLE.

The task which Paul committed to Titus when he left him in Crete was one of much difficulty. The character of the people was unsteady, insincere, and quarrelsome; they were given to greediness, licentiousness, falsehood, and drunkenness in no ordinary degree; and the Jews who had settled among them appear to have even gone beyond the natives in im­morality. Among such a people it was no easy work which Titus had to sustain when commissioned to carry forward that which Paul had begun, and to set in order the affairs of the churches which had arisen there, especially as heretical teachers had crept in among them. Hence, Paul addressed to him this Epistle, the main design of which was to direct how to discharge with success the duties to which he had been appointed. For this reason he speaks at some length on the qualification of elders and members and their functions with such local allusions as rendered these directions especially pertinent. Titus is enjoined to appoint suitable elders in every city, sound in doctrine and able to convict the gainsayers.

Paul then passes to a description of the coarse character of the Cretans as testified by their own writers and the mis­chief caused by the Judaizing among the Christians of the island. In opposition to this, Titus is to urge sound and prac­tical Christianity on all classes—on the elderly men, on the older women, and especially in regard to their influence over the younger women, on slaves, taking heed meanwhile that he himself is a pattern of good works. The grounds of all this are given in the free grace which trains the Christian to self-denying and active piety, in the glorified hope of Christ’s second coming, and in the atonement by which he has pur­chased us to be his people. AH these lessons Titus is to urge with fearless decision.

PLACE AND TIME OF WRITING.

The Epistle to Titus was evidently written very soon after Paul left Crete, and will most likely be dated from Asia Minor. Its own notices agree with this, for we find that he was on his way to winter at Nicopolis (Titus 3:12), by which it is most natural to understand the well-known city of that name in Epirus, and the notices of Second Timothy equally agree with such an hypothesis; for there we find that Paul had, since he last communicated with Timothy, been at Miletus and at Troas, probably also at Corinth (2 Timothy 4:13; 2 Timothy 4:20). That he again visited Ephesus is on every account likely; indeed the natural inference from 2 Timothy 1:18 that he spent some time in the companionship of Timothy, to whom he appeals to confirm what he there says of Onesiphorus.

The date of the Epistle cannot be determined with certainty, but it is usually believed, in the light of all the facts, that it was written in A.D. 67.