Titus Chapter 1

(Tap footnote to read it.  Old Testament quotations are underlined.  "Love" with a caret ("^love") is agapé.¹"agapé" The Greek words ἀγάπη (agapé, noun), and ἀγαπάω (agapaó; verb) are typically translated "love".  However, unlike our English word "love" – which primarily speaks of affection and feelings – agapé centers on choice and behavior.  It’s the "love" based on will, choice, behavior, and action; not feelings.  (Feelings-based love is the Greek word φιλέω (phileó), which properly means "brotherly love/affection".)  Thus, you could hate someone passionately and still treat him with "agapé".  Agapé "love" is best understood as the pursuit of what is most beneficial to someone or something, regardless of the cost to yourself or the type of response received from the person or thing.  It can also indicate a preference for someone or something over other things. )

Greeting

1. Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus the Anointed according to the faith of God’s elect and the knowledge of the truth; the truth according to godliness,
2. in the hope of the life of ages¹“life of ages” is literal, and captures the duration as well as the quality of the life, which the traditional interpretation of “eternal life” doesn’t.  The word translated “ages” (αἰώνιον) is the adjective form of the Greek word “αἰών” (aion), which is used – for example – in Matthew 24:3 “what are the signs of your coming and the end of the age?” which God – who cannot lie – promised before the time²“time” literally: “times” of the ages,
3. and revealed His word in His own seasons by the proclamation with which I was entrusted, according to the commandment of God our savior.
4. To Titus, my true³“true” This Greek word more precisely means “legitimate” or “genuine”, sometimes with the sense of being dear because of this. It was used of a child born inside of wedlock who was thus a “legitimate” child. child in our common faith: grace and peace from God the Father and Jesus the Anointed, our savior.

Qualifications for Elders

5. For this reason I left you in Crete, so you might set in order the things that are lacking, and might appoint elders in every town as I instructed you.
6. If someone is blameless, a married man who isn’t promiscuous, ⁴“a married man who isn’t promiscuous” is more literally “a one woman man”.  Because the Greek word for “man” can also mean “husband”, and since “woman” can also mean “wife”, many take this to mean “husband of one wife”.  However, that’s impossible because of 1 Timothy 5:9, which (using the same words) speaks of widows “*being a one man woman”.  See note on that verse.  A widow by definition can’t be the “wife of one husband” because her husband is dead.  Others have suggested this is a prohibition on second marriages, but Paul explicitly allows remarriage in 1 Corinthians 7.  Still others have suggested this is a prohibition on polygamy, but this is extremely unlikely because polygamy was already a serious criminal offense in the Roman Empire (our word “romantic” originally meant “to be like the Romans”; i.e. monogamous.)  Despite the Roman aversion to more than one wife, they embraced the practice of extra-marital lovers for both men and women.  Thus the phrase “one woman man” was an idiom, probably borrowed from the Latin “univera” (“one man”, which was used on Roman gravestones to indicate a woman who’d never had sex outside of marriage) and applied to men.  Further: this list would contain no prohibition on sexual sins if “one woman man” isn’t an idiom.  The idiom implies the man is married, but doesn’t guarantee it; again, see footnote on 1 Timothy 5:9. having believing children, not under accusation of wasteful excess⁵“wasteful excess” this Greek word is comes from “ἀ”(a) as a negative prefix (like “amoral” meaning “not moral”) and the Greek word “σῴζω”(sozo) which means “to save”.  Thus it means “that which isn’t saved”, but not in a salvation sense.  Rather, it means things which are wasted (thrown out) because they aren’t saved for later use by the user.  It thus has the sense of “wasting” on useless things, and can refer to the consequences of such wasteful excess. or rebellious,
7. for an overseer is required to be blameless as God’s steward; not arrogantly willful, not inclined to anger, not given to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of dishonest gain,
8. but hospitable, a lover of good, of sound mind, righteous, holy, and self-controlled;
9. holding firmly to the faithful teaching according to the message, so he might be able to both encourage by teaching what’s sound, and to refute with evidence⁶“refute with evidence” is one word in Greek.  It means to correct or expose something (typically bad/wrong), which includes the idea of supporting evidence for the correction or exposé.  Also used in Matthew 18:15 when referring to church discipline. the men contradicting it.

False teachers

10. For there are many rebellious men; [both] empty talkers and deceivers, especially the men of the circumcision
11. whom it’s necessary to silence; who subversively overthrow whole households, teaching what’s not proper for the sake of sordid gain.
12. One of them – their own prophet – said: “Cretans are always liars, wicked beasts, and lazy gluttons.”
13. This testimony is true; and because of this reason, you must severely rebuke them with evidence⁷“rebuke… …with evidence” is one word in Greek.  It means to correct or expose something (typically bad/wrong), which includes the idea of supporting evidence for the correction or exposition.  Also used in Matthew 18:15 when referring to church discipline. (There translated “rebuke… …with evidence”) so they might be sound in the faith,
14. not turning to Jewish myths and commandments of men turning away from the truth.
15. All things are pure to the pure.  But to the men who have defiled themselves and to the unbelievers, nothing is pure.  Rather, they have defiled both their mind and conscience.
16. They openly profess to *know God but they deny Him in their works, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good work.

 

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