BIBLE STUDY WITH ME | Titus 1

hey guys welcome back to my channel and welcome back to our new bible study with me series we are finally starting a new one through the book of titus and titus is a shorter book in the new testament shorter both in terms of number of chapters and then also the length of those chapters so titus is three chapters long and they're all around 15 verses i believe chapter one is 16 verses and then chapters two and three are both 15. so definitely on the shorter side but packed full of so much good stuff because the book of titus actually contains a lot of god's instruction for the order he has designed for his church for the christian family or the home and then also just for the christian life in general and it is this order that god has designed that as the outside world looks at that and sees that it points them to truths about who god is and so this order that god has designed for the way that we are to live our lives and structure our churches and our families and our homes it is immensely important and that is what we are going to unpack in the book of titus anytime we do a new book of the bible whether that's in one of these series or just in your own study it is so important to get some of the context of that book just understanding who wrote it who it was written to the original historical and literary context of that book because it provides so much more understanding to what is going on in the book and so one of the resources i always love to recommend to help with that is the bible project because they do videos giving an overview of every single book of the bible and providing some of that context and so in preparation for this study i did watch the bible project video on titus and i also did some study through my study bible that's another great resource for bible study if you are able to get one i'll have the study bible that i use linked down below in the description along with all the other bible study tools and resources that i'll use in this video context so first of all the book of titus is a letter that the apostle paul wrote to a follower of jesus named titus and titus was a greek follower of jesus so he was not a jew he was a gentile and his name actually means honorable so titus means honorable and i think that's so cool especially as we get into the book and see some of the characteristics that god has designated as requirements for leaders within the church a lot of them go along that theme of honor or being above reproach and so the fact that this book was written to titus and his name actually means honorable i thought was just a cool little piece of information there but titus was again a greek follower of jesus who was a co-laborer in the gospel with paul and he was also one of his traveling companions in his missionary journeys paul actually writes to titus and calls him a child in the faith and one of the things i learned in my study of the context was that titus actually came to the faith through the ministry of paul and so it was likely through the preaching that paul did that titus came to know jesus and he was converted through the ministry of paul and so titus is actually mentioned very frequently throughout the new testament 13 times to be exact and then he's mentioned nine times in the book of second corinthians alone and the reason for that is that he shared in paul's ministry in corinth he helped him with his ministry there and paul speaks very highly of titus and so that's a little bit on the context of paul and titus's relationship and now as for this letter that paul is writing to titus so essentially paul through this letter is assigning to titus the task of going to crete which was an island and is an island off the coast of greece and restoring order to the network of house churches there so i want to read you guys a little bit about cretian culture to help understand this context that paul is instructing titus to do ministry in so christian culture first of all they were infamous for being treacherous and greedy and for being liars one of the things i found in my study is that the greek word for liar is actually critizo or one of the greek words for liar is critizo and this was actually taken from the creations and from the reputation they had and so this word critizo that the greeks would literally use to mean liar it meant to be creation and so there was such a reputation of these christian people to be liars that the very word for a liar in greek culture was derived from the cretes one of the things the bible project said is that we don't know the details but we do know that the churches in crete had come under the influence of corrupt creation leaders and titus's task was to set things straight was to bring order to these churches part of the problem is that they were beginning to assimilate their view of jesus to the greek gods particularly zeus so there was myth or legend that the greek god zeus was actually born on the island of crete and they loved to tell these stories about zeus about how he was infamous for seducing women and lying to get his way and that was praised right zeus was literally this greek god and so that type of behavior is literally what was praised yet we know that the one true god the god that is revealed to us through jesus christ that he is a god of faithfulness and truth and because of this the way of life for christians or those who would follow this god is also a lifestyle marked by truth and so this was going to stand in stark contrast to literally the very thing that the creations were known for this is essentially one of the big themes in the book of titus that is paul is relaying to titus the order that he is to implement in the christian church that this order would display to the people around these christian christians this value system that they were living on that was ultimately based on devotion to god and these values would actually reflect the character of god and reveal to the people around them who he is and so sort of this summary statement i got from the bible project video said that spirit empowered faithfulness to jesus will declare god's grace to the world and so that's a little bit on the context of this book that i found helpful in my study now as for how this video is going to be structured i've done it a little bit differently in my different bible study series depending on what works best for each book but for this book i think what we're going to do is go back to how i've done the structure for some of my other new testament studies and that is that we'll read through the entire chapter and i'll stop to share thoughts or notes from the commentary as we're going through it and then we will pick one or two verses to dig deeper into and study and meditate on and so without further ado if you have a bible go ahead and pull it out and turn to titus chapter one and then if not i will put it up on the screen so here we go first one paul a servant of god and an apostle of jesus christ for the sake of the faith of god's elect and their knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness in hope of eternal life which god who never lies promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which i have been entrusted by the command of god our savior so let's stop right there and kind of talk through a little bit about that so first of all paul is introducing himself as a servant of god and an apostle of jesus christ we talked about this in the philippians series as well how paul introduces himself as a servant of god and first of all i think that's just such a beautiful way to recognize our identity that we are servants of god and one of the things i read in the commentary let me pull it up is it was saying how in the first century a servant did not act on his own authority but on the authority of his master and so when paul is saying that he is a servant of god one he's just designating himself as that that he is here to serve god and he's also declaring the authority on which he writes these things because a servant isn't just you know trying to bring about their own will they're bringing about the will of the one they serve and so paul right off the bat is telling titus i am a servant of god this is his authority that i am writing these things on and he's also saying that i'm an apostle of jesus christ which further states the authority and then he is saying for the sake of the faith of god's elect he is writing this for the sake of the faith of god's people and for their knowledge of the truth and then he's saying truth which accords with godliness so truth will always accord with godliness if something is not producing a godliness in the way that we live then it is probably not aligned with truth and then in hope of eternal life which god who never lies again this is a contrast to christian culture that god never lies promised before the ages began essentially paul is saying there is this eternal life that god promised before time began and when the time was right he made known that eternal life through the preaching of his word which i paul have been entrusted with and so in this hope in this hope of this eternal life i in serving god i'm writing this to you titus so that god's people may be built up in their faith and their knowledge of the truth continuing on in verse 4 to titus my true child in a common faith grace and peace from god the father and jesus christ our savior this is why i left you in crete so that you might put what remained into order and appoint elders in every town as i directed you so pausing here this is getting in to the point of the letter why paul is writing to titus to give him this instruction to put into order the churches in crete and in order to do this in order to bring order to this church paul is instructing titus to appoint elders elders even now in today's church are the people that govern a church they are the leaders who are appointed over a church and so paul is saying appoint elders to bring this order and now going into verse six he is going to give some of the qualifications of what would make somebody qualified to be an elder if anyone is above reproach the husband of one wife and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination for an overseer as god steward must be above reproach he must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain but hospitable a lover of good self-controlled upright holy and disciplined he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it and so right off the bat paul is giving us these two lists of what an elder should not be and then here are the qualities that he should have and i want to kind of talk through some of these things but i think that i'm actually going to pick these verses to study a little bit more in depth because it's really sort of the main part of this chapter are what these qualifications should be so i want to break them out a little bit more in further study so we're going to put a pause there and come back to that he continues on in verse 10 saying for there are many who are insubordinate empty talkers and deceivers especially those of the circumcision party so if you watched my galatians bible study series we talked a lot about how there were these jewish church leaders who believed that in order to earn salvation you had to adhere to all these rules of the jewish torah and that was something that was necessary to earn salvation and so much of the book of galatians is paul condemning the church in galatia for believing these false teachings and imposing these unnecessary restrictions on the people and that is what is happening essentially here in crete as well because there are these people of the circumcision party which would have been the jewish christians who are now imposing these jewish religious regulations on the people and i suggest you watch that galatians bible study series if you want to dig more into what was going on there but to this paul is saying in verse 11 they must be silenced these false teachers they must be silenced since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach and so paul is saying we need to silence these false teachers because they are bringing confusion and upsetting whole families by teaching things that one aren't true they're false teachings and two they're motivated not by the good of the people but they're motivated by their own greed verse 12 he continues and says one of the creations a prophet of their own said cretians are always liars evil beasts lazy gluttons this testimony is true therefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith and so paul here does something brilliant because he is addressing the nature of the creation people but rather than paul himself saying this is how the creations are he basically quotes one of their own prophets somebody who they revere and who they respect and admire and saying this is what your own prophet said about your guys's culture and the quote there is that christians are always liars they're evil beasts lazy gluttons and i want to read a note from the commentary that talks on this so it says wisely paul does not criticize the decadence of christian society directly but he quotes accretion author instead and then quickly agrees with him like basically saying this is what one of your own christian people said about you guys and he's not wrong and then the commentary says of course paul means this as a generalization not necessarily true of every single inhabitant of crete the quotation seems to be from ep amenities of crete so this would have been the philosopher or the author the christian author who had made this quote about christian culture so paul here is basically reminding titus look this is what we know to be true about christian culture and here is how that is now affecting the church because this way of life this desire to lie and to want to scheme to get ahead is now allowing false teaching to infiltrate in to the church and then so paul is saying therefore rebuke them sharply call out this false teaching that they may be sound in the faith the point here isn't just to put down these people who are bringing about this false teaching the point here is purity of doctrine and soundness of doctrine and so paul is being harsh here much in the same way that he was being sort of harsh or firm in galatians but the point is never to just be harsh for the sake of being harsh the point here is to care deeply about the purity and the soundness of doctrine and to weed out and to call out that which is not sound continuing on in verse 14 not devoting themselves to jewish myths or the commands of people who turn away from the truth to the pure all things are pure but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure but both the minds and their consciences are defiled they profess to know god but they deny him by their works they are detestable disobedient unfit for any good work so these are some really harsh words that paul is saying here and honestly that first line really reminds me of a lot of what we talked about in the book of james that faith without works is dead because it's saying these false teachers they profess to know god because they're giving these great teachings but they deny him by their works and so basically it's saying they talk a good talk they sound good but the way they're living their life and their works or the fruit of their faith is betraying the very words that they're saying so i want to give kind of an overview of what we've talked about so far in chapter one paul is basically saying to titus you know here are these false teachings that have come in by way of the jewish christians and these false teachings are now creating all sorts of confusion and they're upsetting whole families creating disarray and disorder and so paul is addressing how these things are wrong he's not afraid to very bluntly say these things are detestable disobedient and these false teachers are unfit for any good work and now in response to this problem this issue of these false teachings that have crept in to the church paul is instructing titus on what to do to remedy this problem and the solution here is implementing these new leaders who are going to bring order to the church and these leaders have to display these different character qualities and we're going to get into more again on what those things are but the main thing again is a character that has been and is continually being transformed by jesus and a soundness in doctrine those are the two big kind of themes and all these qualifications that paul gives to titus okay so i wrote out those verses verse six through nine it's kind of small because it was a long passage and i already know we're gonna run out of room because there's just a lot to unpack here but we're gonna do the best we can and so again this is specifically referring to qualifications for an elder or one who would lead or govern a church but they should also be reflected in all of our lives as christians because these are marks of a heart being transformed by jesus so the first thing we see here is that if anyone is above reproach this is the first requirement and it's actually said twice it said here if anyone is above reproach and then it said down here again where paul says for an overseer so one who is going to look over the church as god steward this person is stewarding what is god's he must be above reproach and so i want to read a note from the commentary on this phrase right here it says right here in the commentary for verse 6 that there should be no legitimate accusation that could be brought against the elder that would bring disrepute on the gospel or the church his life should be seen as worthy of imitation so above reproach is basically saying that their manner of life is not going to disqualify them but rather they have a manner of life worthy of imitation so i'm going to write that down [Music] okay so this next idea here is the husband of one wife and his children are believers i was listening to a sermon that was basically saying that this is just getting at the idea of somebody being a one woman man so this isn't a man who is just going and trying to get with all these other women sort of like zeus who was praised in cretian culture but rather this is a man who is devoted to one woman and he is devoted to raising his family in the ways of the lord and so this is what these two things are referring to i'm just going to make a note on that next is not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination and so debauchery here is excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures and then insubordination as we talked about before is being defiant of authority and so i'm just going to make notes about those two as well i think this really gets at the simple principle that in order to be a good leader you first need to be a good follower you know how to follow and particularly as somebody who is going to lead in a church or in a ministry sense or in any sort of a spiritual capacity that person must first know how to be a follower of jesus as the true head and must be submissive to the word of god so then paul says he must not be arrogant or quick tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain and i think these two things in particular drunkard and greedy for gain those both fall under debauchery that excessive indulgence and sensual pleasures whether that be in wine or in this love of money being greedy for gain and then arrogant obviously deals with being prideful and quick tempered being driven by anger or emotions rather than ruled by the holy spirit and then he must not be violent which i think ties in to that quick temperedness not be given to anger but he must be hospitable and so i think we think of this word a lot as meaning somebody who has people over to their house a lot which is certainly it can mean that but i want to actually look at the definition of this word okay so it says friendly or welcoming to strangers or guests next it says he must love what is good and then next it says to be self-controlled and i think really here was self-controlled paul is describing the opposite of what he's describing in sort of this do not be this list so rather than being quick tempered or given to anger or ruled by that this person must rather be self-controlled and then it says he must be upright which i want to look at the definition of that okay it says a person or their behavior that is strictly honorable or honest and this is getting out what i was talking about before that titus actually means honorable next is holy and to be holy is to be dedicated to god and to be set apart so rather than blending in with the culture around them and looking like the cretes that were all around them this person would be set apart would look different than the people around them because they're abiding by a different set of values namely the values that god has laid out next is disciplined and so this one is showing a controlled form of behavior or way of working this one is really similar to self-controlled i'm going to write that down okay and then the final thing paul says here is that he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that there's two purposes in this one he may be able to give instruction and sound doctrine and two so that he may be able to rebuke those who contradict it and so this man simply put must be rooted in the word i'm sure a lot of you have heard that analogy that people sometimes give for counterfeit money of basically saying that when people are trained to be able to recognize a counterfeit bill they are not trained by studying everything there is to know about different fake bills because the reality is fake bills are changing all the time and the way that people produce counterfeit money is changing all the time and so if you want to be able to recognize whether something is counterfeit money you don't actually study the counterfeit money you study the real thing because when you are acquainted with and you are so familiar with what real money actually is you will quickly be able to spot when something is not and so this is the instruction that paul is giving to titus and the leaders that he's appointing saying that they must be rooted in the word they must know the word they must know sound doctrine one so that they can instruct others in that same sound doctrine and two so that they can recognize and rebuke anybody who contradicts it and so as there was this false teaching that was infiltrating its way into the creation church they needed men who were rooted in what the word of god says so that they would be able to recognize when false teaching was seeping in [Music] okay so i just wrote that here the only way to recognize false teaching is to be rooted in the true teaching of god's word that is all for titus chapter one comment down below letting me know what stood out to you most from this study or what your favorite verse was i love reading through that and just seeing the different things we're all learning as we go through the same book together i hope you enjoyed this video and found it helpful if you did please be sure to give it a thumbs up and then also hit the subscribe button if you haven't already and i will see you back here next week for titus chapter 2. bye

Channel: Kaci Nicole

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Keywords: titus 1, titus 1 bible study, titus 1 sermon, titus bible study series, sermon series on titus, titus 1 commentary, studies on titus 1, studies on titus, study the bible with me titus 1, bible study with me titus 1, bible study with me series titus 1, bible study, titus overview bible project, overview on titus, titus 1 in depth bible study, bible video, faith video, christian youtuber, bible study channel, bible study video, bible study with me, qualifications of an elder

Id: I0zixX06sHs

Length: 24min 46sec (1486 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 27 2020