-
Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ to further the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness—
-
in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time,
-
and which now at his appointed season he has brought to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior,
-
To Titus, my true son in our common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
-
Appointing Elders Who Love What Is Good
The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you.
-
An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.
-
Since an overseer manages God’s household, he must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain.
-
Rather, he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined.
-
He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
-
Rebuking Those Who Fail to Do Good
For there are many rebellious people, full of meaningless talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision group.
-
They must be silenced, because they are disrupting whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach—and that for the sake of dishonest gain.
-
One of Crete’s own prophets has said it: “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.”
-
This saying is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith
-
and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the merely human commands of those who reject the truth.
-
To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.
-
They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.
-
Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.
-
Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good.
-
Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children,
-
to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.
-
Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled.
-
In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness
-
and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.
-
Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them,
-
and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.
