Summer series on the Pastoral Epistles
Titus 1, 2, 3
8 August 2010
Well, there it is. And I’m sort of disappointed.
We conclude our summer series on the Pastoral Epistles … 1st and 2nd Timothy, and Titus … with the letter to Titus. Sigh.
If you think it sounds a lot like a rehash of what we’ve heard before … and not the good stuff of 2nd Timothy, but the, at the least, boring stuff of 1st Timothy, and at worst, the awful, offensive stuff of that same book … well, yes, I’d agree with you.
Maybe we should have shifted things around, stuck Titus in the middle, between the two Timothies, and ended on the high note of 2nd Timothy … rather than slither away on this note.
And what a note it is!
“An appeal to the status quo” would be an apt summary.
Criticize, rebuke and belittle the non-Christians and the Jews in the area.
Organize the institutional church with bishops and elders.
Encourage moderation, temperance and above all, passionless living in and among the people of faith.
Keep the women in their place, and the slaves too.
And that’s pretty much the first two chapters of Titus.
Well, perhaps that’s a bit too flip, but you get the point.
