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I. Address

Chapter 1

Greeting.[a] Paul, a slave of God and apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God’s chosen ones and the recognition of religious truth,(A) in the hope of eternal life that God, who does not lie, promised before time began,(B) who indeed at the proper time revealed his word in the proclamation with which I was entrusted by the command of God our savior,(C) to Titus, my true child in our common faith: grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our savior.(D)

II. Pastoral Charge

Titus in Crete. [b]For this reason I left you in Crete so that you might set right what remains to be done and appoint presbyters in every town, as I directed you, (E)on condition that a man be blameless, married only once, with believing children who are not accused of licentiousness or rebellious. For a bishop as God’s steward must be blameless, not arrogant, not irritable, not a drunkard, not aggressive, not greedy for sordid gain, but hospitable, a lover of goodness, temperate, just, holy, and self-controlled, holding fast to the true message as taught so that he will be able both to exhort with sound doctrine and to refute opponents.(F)

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Footnotes

  1. 1:1–4 On the epistolary form, see note on Rom 1:1–7. The apostolate is the divinely appointed mission to lead others to the true faith and through it to eternal salvation (Ti 1:1–3).
  2. 1:5–9 This instruction on the selection and appointment of presbyters, substantially identical with that in 1 Tm 3:1–7 on a bishop (see note there), was aimed at strengthening the authority of Titus by apostolic mandate; cf. Ti 2:15. In Ti 1:5, 7 and Acts 20:17, 28, the terms episkopos and presbyteros (“bishop” and “presbyter”) refer to the same persons. Deacons are not mentioned in Titus. See also note on Phil 1:1.