Titus1

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, greets Titus, his "own son" in the faith, explaining that he left him in Crete to establish order and ordain elders in every city. Paul then details the essential qualifications for these leaders, emphasizing blamelessness, moral uprightness, and adherence to sound doctrine. He warns Titus about unruly deceivers, particularly those of the circumcision, and instructs him to sharply rebuke them to ensure the purity of the faith among the Cretans.

Paul's Apostolic Authority and Greeting

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Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of the choice ones of God, and an acknowledging of truth that is according to piety,
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upon hope of life age-during, which God, who doth not lie, did promise before times of ages,
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(and He manifested in proper times His word,) in preaching, which I was entrusted with, according to a charge of God our Saviour,
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to Titus--true child according to a common faith: Grace, kindness, peace, from God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour!

The Purpose of Titus's Ministry

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For this cause left I thee in Crete, that the things lacking thou mayest arrange, and mayest set down in every city elders, as I did appoint to thee;
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if any one is blameless, of one wife a husband, having children stedfast, not under accusation of riotous living or insubordinate--
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for it behoveth the overseer to be blameless, as God's steward, not self-pleased, nor irascible, not given to wine, not a striker, not given to filthy lucre;
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but a lover of strangers, a lover of good men, sober-minded, righteous, kind, self-controlled,
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holding--according to the teaching--to the stedfast word, that he may be able also to exhort in the sound teaching, and the gainsayers to convict;

Dealing with False Teachers

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for there are many both insubordinate, vain-talkers, and mind-deceivers--especially they of the circumcision--
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whose mouth it behoveth to stop, who whole households do overturn, teaching what things it behoveth not, for filthy lucre's sake.
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A certain one of them, a prophet of their own, said--`Cretans! always liars, evil beasts, lazy bellies!'
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this testimony is true; for which cause convict them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith,
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not giving heed to Jewish fables and commands of men, turning themselves away from the truth;
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all things, indeed, are pure to the pure, and to the defiled and unstedfast is nothing pure, but of them defiled are even the mind and the conscience;
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God they profess to know, and in the works they deny Him , being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work disapproved.
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