Thoughts on Titus: All That God Has to Say to Men

The Bible does indeed tell us how to live life, but it is more than just a manual. It is the entirety of what God wants us to know about Himself, about us, and, yes, about how we are to live. In my last article about Paul’s letter to Titus in the New Testament, I explored the requirements (Titus 1:6-9) that God has put in his word for the overseers of His church, who in other places are called elders. I concluded that God wants to make all men who believe in Him eligible to be elders—by this, I mean that He wants all men to develop the character that He requires of elders. In this article, I explore the last of those requirements, which is found in 1:9. I intend to convince you that all Christians ought to meet this requirement, as God requires the elders to do.

“…holding fast the faithful word, which is according to the teaching, so that he will be able both
to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. (Titus 1:9)”

Paul first tells Titus in 1:9 that overseers must hold fast to the faithful word. To understand this necessity we must put it into context. Let’s start by understanding the “word.”
In Titus 1:2, God Himself promised eternal life long ago. In a previous article, I discussed that
the first promise of eternal life made in the Bible is in the judgment that God pronounces on the
serpent all the way back in Genesis 3. In Titus 1:3, it is recorded that God manifested this word
at the proper time. Now, the case can be made that this God manifested the word when Jesus’
first coming. I, however, think that it was not until Jesus was already up in heaven and sent down
the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, that the word was manifested. Lenski says that this word is “…all
that God has to say to men…”¹. All that God would say to men would not be written until John
pens Revelation, and not compiled until the Holy Spirit guides the Church to compile the New
Testament by the time of the Council of Carthage in 397AD². So, what exactly were the
overseers in Titus’ time to hold fast? They were to hold fast exactly what the Apostle Paul taught
them. In Titus 1:3, Paul says that he was entrusted with the proclamation of this word by God
Himself. As God’s word expanded and the books of the Bible were being written, the
overseers of the local churches had the Apostles themselves, and also their coworkers, to guide
them in the way of the Lord. In the beginning decades of the church, the word was the Apostles’
teachings. Now, for the overseers of today’s church, the word is the Bible, the whole counsel of
God.

To this word, then, the overseers are to hold fast. Grammatically, this requirement of the
overseers is distinct from the rest. The ten requirements that precede it are adjectives, yet this one is a participle. The other requirements describe the character that an overseer is to have, and this eleventh is what he is to do. He is to be interested in and to have a strong devotion to the word of God. In other words, he is to be well versed in “…all that God has to say to men…” The
participle indicates that this action is to be continual. Day in and day out, he should be bathing in
the “faithful word.” But shouldn’t all Christians be strongly devoted to the word? Since the Bible is “… all that God has to say to men…” there is nowhere else a Christian ought to go for the
knowledge of God. The expectation that some who do not know God have that if only he would
come down and show himself they would believe is bunk! He did show Himself. “And the Word
became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory,” records the apostle John in his
gospel. The Bible is God’s chosen medium for revealing Himself. Christians would do well to
devote themselves to the word.

Finally, Paul tells Titus why the overseer ought to hold fast to the faithful word: they must instruct
and correct people according to the teaching of the Bible, as the last part of 1:9 says. As the
shepherds of the people whom God Himself chose, they are to teach, “…all that God has to say
to men…” As we will see later, lying, over-eating, and deception were pervasive on the island of
Crete. If this springs up in a local church, then the overseers, habitually holding fast the faithful
word, are to address those problems. That takes courage; to see a wrong and to confront it is
harder to do than to live and let live. We see that courage in the prophets of the Old Testament.
Elijah sees the worship of another god in Israel, which God detests, and he alone confronts the
three hundred prophets of that god. If sin fills the pews of the local church, then the buck stops
with the overseers. It is they who are to have the character and the courage to stand up for “…all
that God has to say to men…” And we who are not overseers? Are we to wait until we are
confronted by our elders because we do not obey the word? God forbid! We should bathe in the
word as much as they do. We should hold fast to the word as they do. We should let the word
exhort us in our own time with God. Far be it from any Christian to stray from God’s all that
God has to say to men!

Matthew lives in Northern Virginia. He is a teacher by trade and loves to study the Scriptures and the history of the church. His wife Marina and he fellowship at Nokesville Bible Chapel.

_{1 R.C.H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistles to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon,
Lenski’s Commentary on the New Testament. Accordance electronic ed. (Minneapolis:
Augsburg Publishing House, 1961), 893.
2 Shelley, Bruce L., The Rule of Books, Church History in Plain Language. 4th ed. (Thomas
Nelson: Nashville, 2013), 73.}