Titus is in Crete (1:5), an island which was not easy to live on as a follower of Jesus. But he was there as a light in the darkness. Paul had left him there to complete the work. He writes to encourage him to do so.
“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— 2 in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, 3 and which now at his appointed season he has brought to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Saviour, 4 To Titus, my true son in our common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Saviour. 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.” (Titus 1 v 1-5)
Paul was a Jew and Titus was a Gentile and yet the common faith meant that the Gentile was the true son of the Jew. He writes to his son but he knows this letter will be read to the churches in Crete and so he lays down his credentials in the opening of the letter: a servant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ and preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Saviour.
Here he is his true son, Paul has at least another spiritual son, Timothy. But in the letters of Corinthians Paul describes him in other ways:-
My brother in 2 Corinthians 2:13 and my partner and co-worker in 2 Corinthians 8:23.
Paul’s visit to Crete is not mentioned by Luke in the book of Acts and so presumably his mission took place after his first imprisonment in Rome and after Luke had written his account to Theophilus. The task for Titus was to appoint elders/leaders for the churches that had been established in the mission of Paul.
The Church in 2024 needs more spiritual fathers (and mothers) who have spiritual sons (and daughters) but not that they lord it over them or suppress them, restricting them from fulfilling the call of God on their life. But these relationships should be seen also as brother (and sister), true family and even more than that, partners and co-workers. How can Titus a spiritual son be a partner and a co-worker of the Apostle Paul? Only if Paul understood the economics of God. The Church that has held back the younger generation and not released them to levels of authority looks around and wonders where that generation has gone to. The spiritual fathers and mothers who have acted with weak, immature and controlling parenting skills now have no one to pass the baton on to. The Church that is old and dying is the church that rejected its young.
I am excited going into this letter sent to a spiritual son and a brother, partner and co-worker, to someone who was given authority to lead when the spiritual father left him to do so.
Missions Paul 