Titus

This letter is from Paul, a servant of God and a messenger sent by Jesus Christ. My work is to build up the faith of the people God has chosen, and to help them know the truth that leads to a life devoted to God.

1Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness;

NoteKJV "servant" translates the Greek doulos, which means a slave, a person owned by another; Paul uses it as a title of belonging rather than an admission of low status. In "the acknowledging of the truth," acknowledging means coming to recognize or know something, and "after godliness" means according to, or leading to, a life turned toward God.

2That faith and knowledge rest on the hope of life that never ends. God, who cannot lie, promised this life before time began.

2In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

Note"Before the world began" renders a Greek phrase that reads literally "before times eternal," an idiom for the most remote past imaginable, before there was measured time at all.

3At the right time God made his message known through the preaching that was handed to me. God our Savior himself commanded me to do this work.

3But hath in due times manifested his word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Saviour;

Note"Preaching" here translates a word for the work of a herald: a public announcement delivered on someone else's authority. It does not mean a sermon in the modern sense, and the stress falls on the message being entrusted to Paul rather than invented by him.

4I am writing to Titus, my true son in the faith we share. May grace, mercy, and peace be yours from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.

4To Titus, mine own son after the common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour.

NoteTitus was a Greek convert who traveled and worked with Paul; he was not Paul's biological son. "Mine own son" renders a phrase meaning "genuine child," a normal way of describing a pupil a teacher had brought up himself. The greeting joins a play on the ordinary Greek salutation (chairein, "greetings," becomes charis, "grace") to the standard Hebrew greeting, shalom, "peace."

5I left you on the island of Crete for this reason: to straighten out the things still left undone, and to appoint elders in every town, just as I instructed you.

5For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee:

NoteCrete is a large island in the Mediterranean, south of mainland Greece, with many separate towns, which is why elders are needed in each. "Ordain" in 1611 English meant simply to appoint or install, without the ceremonial weight the word now carries. "Elders" translates presbyteroi, literally "older men," a title already in use for the men who governed Jewish synagogues and many Greek towns.

6An elder must be a man no one can bring a charge against. He must be the husband of one wife. His children must be believers, and no one should be able to accuse them of wild living or of refusing to obey.

6If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly.

Note"The husband of one wife" is literally "a one-woman man," and what it excludes was debated even in antiquity: having more than one wife at a time, remarrying after divorce or after a spouse's death, or simply being unfaithful. "Faithful children" is ambiguous in the same way, meaning either children who believe or children who are trustworthy. "Riot" does not mean a public disturbance; in 1611 it meant wild, dissolute living.

7A church overseer manages what belongs to God, so he must be a man no one can blame. He must not be stubborn about getting his own way, or quick to lose his temper, or a heavy drinker, or someone who hits people, or greedy for money gained in shameful ways.

7For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre;

Note"Bishop" translates episkopos, "overseer" or "supervisor," an everyday word for a manager or inspector; it did not yet mean a cleric set over many congregations. The letter shifts from "elders" in verse 5 to this word without signaling a change of subject. A "steward" was the manager of a large household, often a trusted slave, who ran the property and the accounts on the owner's behalf. "Not soon angry" means not quickly angered. "Filthy lucre" means shameful profit; lucre is an old word for money or gain.

8Instead he should welcome guests into his home and love what is good. He should be sensible, fair, devoted to God, and able to control himself.

8But a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate;

NoteSeveral of these words have shifted meaning. "Sober" in 1611 meant level-headed and sensible, not merely not drunk; "temperate" meant self-controlled; "just" meant upright and fair in dealings with others; "holy" here translates a word for devout or reverent. "A lover of good men" renders a single Greek word that can mean a lover of good people or a lover of what is good.

9He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message just as he was taught it. Then he will be able to encourage others with sound teaching, and also to show where those who argue against it are wrong.

9Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers.

Note"Sound" doctrine is a medical image: teaching that is healthy, as against teaching that is diseased. "Convince" in 1611 English meant to refute or prove wrong, not to win someone over. "Gainsayers" are people who speak against, who contradict.

10I say this because many people refuse to obey. They talk on and on about nothing, and they lead others astray. This is true above all of those of the circumcision.

10For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision:

Note"Vain talkers" means empty talkers, people whose speech carries no substance. "They of the circumcision" is shorthand for Jews, or for Jewish followers of Jesus, named for the cutting of the foreskin that marked Jewish males from infancy; in Paul's letters the phrase usually points to people pressing non-Jewish converts to take on Jewish law.

11They must be silenced. They are ruining whole families by teaching things they have no right to teach, and they do it to make money in a shameful way.

11Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.

Note"Houses" means households: the whole domestic unit of family, dependents and slaves under one roof, which was also the unit in which a church normally met. "Subvert" means to overturn or upend.

12One of their own people, a prophet from Crete itself, said, "The people of Crete are always liars, vicious animals, lazy gluttons."

12One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.

NoteThe line is credited to Epimenides, a Cretan poet and seer of roughly the sixth century BC. Cretans had a proverbial reputation for dishonesty across the Greek world; there was even a verb, "to cretize," meaning to lie. "Slow bellies" is a literal rendering of "idle stomachs," gluttons too lazy to work. "Cretians" is the King James spelling of Cretans.

13That statement is true. So correct them sharply, so that their faith will be healthy.

13This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;

Note"Witness" here means the testimony itself, the statement just quoted, not the person who made it. "Sound in the faith" carries on the medical image from verse 9: healthy rather than sick.

14Tell them to stop paying attention to Jewish myths and to rules made up by people who have turned away from the truth.

14Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth.

Note"Fables" translates mythoi, meaning stories or legends, probably speculative tales spun out of scripture rather than fiction as such. The clause "that turn from the truth" is grammatically ambiguous and can attach either to the men who make the rules or to the commandments themselves.

15To those who are pure, everything is pure. But to those who are corrupted and refuse to believe, nothing is pure. In fact, their minds and their sense of right and wrong have both been corrupted.

15Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.

NoteThe dispute behind this verse is about ritual purity: the rules marking certain foods, objects and contacts as clean or unclean. Calling all things pure to the pure is a claim about that system, not a statement about conduct in general. "Conscience" translates a word for a person's inward awareness of his own actions.

16They claim to know God, but the way they act denies him. They are disgusting and disobedient, and they are useless for doing anything good.

16They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.

Note"Abominable" means detestable, something to be recoiled from. "Reprobate" in 1611 English meant failed after testing, the word used of coins or metal assayed and rejected as false; the sense here is proved unfit for the purpose rather than condemned.