Titus

Titus is another pastoral epistle.  It is grouped with 1st and 2nd Timothy, all of which are the Pastoral Epistles.  So if this is a Pastoral epistle you might wonder why you need to study it.  True, it was written to the pastor to encourage him as a leader.  But it was also to the Church, to the body, to the other leaders so they might all grow together in the Lord.

 At the very same time Timothy was pastor in Ephesus, Titus was pastor in Crete.  These 2 are both pastors but they both very different and serving in very different places.  Timothy was in this thriving metropolis of Ephesus while Titus was on the island of Crete.  Crete is a large Island in the Mediterranean sea..  It's about 160 miles long by 35 miles wide at its widest point.  It's south of Greece toward the center of the Mediterranean Sea.  Crete wasn't like a deserted island or some backwoods location but it was a long way from the metropolis of Ephesus.  Ephesus was a blend of many cultures and religions.  Crete was a Greek island and most of the people there were Cretans.  Titus was preaching in a more rural setting to the native people.

Timothy was a young man, timid and maybe a little sickly.  There were some obvious problems there in Ephesus and he seemed reluctant to deal with them.  Titus, also a young man, wasn't timid but he was frustrated.  The people of Crete weren't easy to deal with and it took lots of patience and love.  Many of the same problems he faced were very much like what Timothy was dealing with in Ephesus.

As Paul writes to Titus you'll notice he doesn't focus on correcting or presenting doctrine but instead offers encouragement and counsel to this young pastor.  He trusts Titus's understanding of doctrine.  He trusts that Titus is faithful to that doctrine.  So this letter was to encourage and counsel Titus to enable him to minister in that setting.

The church there in Crete was young but established but there was also opposition.  As we study this I think you'll see they were present and established in structure but spiritually their foundation was a little shaky.  They just didn't have a strong established foundation that you could rapidly start building ministry on. 

Titus wasn't always on the island of Crete.  His life as a Christian and ministry started very early.  His name actually shows up first in the book of 2nd Corinthians while ministering with Paul.  But most bible scholars believe that Titus became a Christian when he first heard the gospel from Paul during his first missionary journey.  It is believed that Titus ministered with Paul during much of his second and third missionary journeys.  Titus was involved in the church a Corinth.  So we see him mentioned in the letter several times.  From this letter and the other places he is referred to, you can see Paul considers Titus a brother, a partner in ministry and a fellow worker.

On his voyage to Rome Paul visited the Island of Crete when the ship was essentially forced to stop because of weather.  There were probably already Christians there because we know that men of Crete were present at Pentecost.  Paul later returned to minister there and he left Titus to finish the ministry work.  That work was to establish churches with Godly leadership and teaching sound doctrine.

So, that gives you a little background and setting.  This letter was written by Paul to Titus.  Chronologically this letter was written between first and second Timothy.  That puts the year between 62 to 64 AD.