Commitments of a Faithful Leader

Paul, a bond-servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness, in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago, but at the proper time manifested, even His word, in the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior; to Titus, my true child in a common faith: grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior. (1:1-4)

The first four verses of this letter, which form the salutation, comprise one long, involved, and poignant sentence. The greeting is somewhat more formal than those in either letter to Timothy, but the purpose of all three letters was much the same—to encourage and strengthen a young pastor who had succeeded the apostle in a difficult ministry. As will become apparent throughout this epistle, the emphasis is on God's saving work (both God and Christ are repeatedly called Savior: 1:3,4; 2:10, 13; 3:4, 6). The opening greeting sets this theme by centering on the nature of gospel ministry.

Because Paul had spent much less time himself in founding and establishing the churches on the island of Crete than he had spent with the single congregation in Ephesus (where Timothy now pastored), it was particularly important that believers in the Cretan churches understood that Titus was not operating on his own but ministered with the designated authority of Paul. Titus was the direct legate, envoy, or ambassador of the apostle, sent to Crete to strengthen the churches for the purpose of effective evangelism in that pagan culture. Anyone, therefore, who attacked the authority and teaching of Titus would be attacking the divinely delegated authority and teaching of Paul himself.

But Paul's opening statement about himself (one of the clearest representations of his ministry anywhere in the New Testament) is much more than a dogmatic declaration of apostolic authority. Although he had deep personal feelings and even certain personal objectives in ministry—such as his desire to bring the gospel to Bithynia (Acts 16:7) and to Spain (Rom. 15:24)—he did not write under the impetus of emotion or personal desire, much less of impulse, but under the compulsion of divinely revealed absolutes from the Lord in the power of the Spirit. God, who desires to save sinners, wanted to prepare Titus for the building of congregations able to reach the lost.

In this rich salutation to Titus, Paul reveals five core features that guided his living and his service to the Lord, foundational principles on which the service of every dedicated leader in Christ's church must be built.

Committed to God's Mastery

Paul, a bond-servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, (1:1a)

The first feature is that of commitment to God's mastery. Above all else, the apostle saw himself as a man totally under divine authority, as expressed in the phrase a bond-servant of God.

As mentioned in the Introduction to this volume, the apostle's Hebrew name was Saul, after the first king of Israel. Soon after his miraculous conversion and calling by Christ, however, he came to be known exclusively by his Greek name, Paulos(Paul).

With full truthfulness, Paul could have identified himself as a brilliant scholar, a highly educated Jewish leader who also was learned in Greek literature and philosophy. He could have flaunted his inherited Roman citizenship, an extremely valuable advantage in that day. He could have boasted of his unique calling as apostle to the Gentiles, who was granted full privilege and authority alongside the Twelve. He could have boasted of being "caught up to the third heaven, ... into Paradise" (2 Cor. 12:2, 4), of his gift of miracles, and of being chosen as the human author of a great part of the Scriptures of the new covenant. He chose, rather, to identify himself foremost as a bond-servant of God.

Doulos(bond-servant) refers to the most servile person in the culture of Paul's day and is often translated "slave." Paul was in complete, but willing, bondage to God. He had no life that he called his own, no will of his own, purpose of his own, or plan of his own. All was subject to his Lord. In every thought, every breath, and every effort he was under the mastery of God.

Because Paul refers to himself as a bond-servant of God only here—at all other times referring to himself as a bond-servant of Christ (see, e.g., Rom. 1:1; Gal. 1:10; Phil. 1:1)—he may have intended to place himself alongside Old Testament men of God. John calls Moses "the bond-servant of God" (Rev. 15:3), and the Lord Himself spoke of "Moses My servant" (Josh. 1:2). His successor, Joshua, is called "the servant of the Lord" (Josh. 24:29). Amos declared, "Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets" (Amos 3:7). Through Jeremiah, God said, "Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My servants the prophets" (Jer. 7:25).

Because many of the false teachers in the churches on Crete were Judaizers, "those of the circumcision" (Titus 1:10; cf. v. 14), Paul may have desired to affirm his authority as the bond-servant of Yahweh (Jehovah), the covenant name of the God of Israel.

There is a general sense in which every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has "been freed from sin and enslaved to God," a bondage that results "in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life" (Rom. 6:22). To be a Christian is to be a bond-servant of God. We are not our own but "have been bought with a price" (1 Cor. 6:20), being "redeemed [not] with perishable things like silver or gold, ... but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ" (1 Pet. 1:18-19). And because we no longer belong to ourselves, we "should no longer live for [ourselves], but for Him who died and rose again on [our] behalf" (2 Cor. 5:15).

Paul's specific duty to God was to fulfill his servanthood by being an apostle of Jesus Christ (cf., e.g., Rom. 1:1; 1 Cor. 1:1; 2 Cor. 1:1; Eph. 1:1). Even as he neared the end of an extraordinarily blessed and fruitful life, he was still driven by the desire to be an obedient bond-servant. His apostleship, in fact, had brought increased duties of servanthood, demanding greater faithfulness, greater submission, and often greater sacrifice.

Nevertheless, Paul counted his bondage to God and his escalating suffering to be a blessing. He testified to believers at Philippi that "even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your...