The book of Titus is one of the three Pastoral Epistles (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus) written by the Apostle Paul to trusted leaders who had the task of pastoring churches and appointing leaders.

Titus appears in the New Testament in the books of 2 Corinthians, Galatians and 2 Timothy. These books show how important Titus was to Paul’s ministry of evangelism and church planting amongst the Gentiles. The warmth of the opening greeting of the letter (1:4) shows the closeness of their relationship.

Chapter 1 gives the context of the letter: Paul and Titus had been involved in establishing a church in Crete, and Paul had instructed Titus to stay behind to provide teaching and leadership to these new Christians (1:5). The text indicates how unpromising Crete was for a church (1:12-13). Paul instructs Titus to select and appoint elders for the church (1:5-9). As ever, there was the threat of false teaching, which Titus must counter (1:10-16).

Chapter 2 contains practical teaching for various groups – an indication of just how young these believers were in their faith, and how different their behaviour and conduct as Gentiles would have been from Jews. Paul points to the grace of God at including these Gentile believers in salvation, and to the power of God to transform life (2:11-14).

Chapter 3 includes further instructions on what to teach, and how people should live. It contains a wonderful passage on the change that Christ makes.

The letter concludes with some personal instructions, which reveal something of the scope of the work that Paul was involved in, and the many trusted partners he had.

This set of studies covers the whole book of Titus, using the manuscript method.