Recently our small house church started to study the book of Titus together. This week we went through chapter two and it was cool to note a few things. We started to read through this book together because we’ve been talking about all the false teachers and false prophets in our day. There are so many and yet if you take the time to read Titus, it’s pretty clear what the qualifications are for those in church leadership.
Paul wrote Titus and told him how to minister to the churches. Titus was a younger man than Paul and it’s interesting to note the following from Titus 2:1-8:
As for you, Titus, promote the kind of living that reflects wholesome teaching. 2Teach the older men to exercise self-control, to be worthy of respect, and to live wisely. They must have sound faith and be filled with love and patience.
3Similarly, teach the older women to live in a way that honors God. They must not slander others or be heavy drinkers.a Instead, they should teach others what is good. 4These older women must train the younger women to love their husbands and their children, 5to live wisely and be pure, to work in their homes,b to do good, and to be submissive to their husbands. Then they will not bring shame on the word of God.
6In the same way, encourage the young men to live wisely. 7And you yourself must be an example to them by doing good works of every kind. Let everything you do reflect the integrity and seriousness of your teaching. 8Teach the truth so that your teaching can’t be criticized. Then those who oppose us will be ashamed and have nothing bad to say about us.
There is a lot I can pull out of this passage of scripture, because there are a lot of lessons here, however, I want to just pull out a few simple things that are easily looked over, simply because it’s easy to miss it, if you’re reading fast.
First, Paul told Titus to teach the older men. I think this is significant because given who the people from Crete were (see chapter one for this) it’s apparent the men weren’t all that mature. So, just like Paul told Timothy in his letter to him, to not let people look down on him for his youth, that same idea is given here to Titus. Titus was told by Paul to teach the older men.
Second, Paul told Titus to teach the older women. Again, pretty significant because Titus was a younger man. Clearly there was an issue with the older women because he was told to teach them to not slander and to not be heavy drinkers.
Third, note that Titus was not told to teach the younger women. This is VERY important because if you think about it, there could have been all types of temptations for Titus in doing that. I’m sure the younger women could have also been tempted by Titus. Paul knew this, so he told Titus to instruct the older women to teach the younger women.
Lastly, Titus was told to encourage the younger men. Note that Titus wasn’t told to tell the older men to encourage the younger men, he was told to do it himself.
I think this is also a pretty good model for encouragement in the church and even though I’m tempted to write more on this subject, I will refrain for now and ask you to consider this. :)
I had not thought of the careful way Paul instructed Titus to instruct others, here. Thank you!