Bible Commentaries
Titus 1

Verses 1-16

Titus is not mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. From the letter we learn that he was a convert of the apostle. Moreover, we know that he was a Greek.

This letter reached him while he was in Crete, amid peculiar circumstances; his mission was to set the church in order. Therefore the apostle enjoined him to appoint elders. He defined the function of the elder as that of the steward of God, and showed that the function would be fulfilled by loyalty to "the faithful word which is according to the teaching." Only men of character were to be appointed to such office. The elder must be blameless as a family man, in personal character, and in his relation to truth.

There were Judaizing teachers in Crete, and the apostle laid down an important principle for dealing with them: "To the pure all things are pure, but to them that are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure." This cut clean across the teaching of those referred to, which consisted in insistence on certain ritualistic commandments. Titus was charged to "reprove them sharply." There are forms of evil which demand the surgeon's knife. The reason for the severity is that the highest purposes of love may be realized.