THE LETTER TO TITUS
St. Paul's Letter to a Trusted and Beloved Colleague
Lesson 1
Introduction
Chapter 1: Greeting, Ordaining Qualified Pastors, Rebuking
False Teaching, and Teaching Sound Doctrine
Holy and Eternal Lord,
We thank You for providing faithful and hard-working leaders like Saints
Paul and Titus throughout the history of the Church. They gave their lives to serve
You and help Your Kingdom of the Church on earth to prosper and grow. Please
send Your Holy Spirit to guide us as we study St. Paul's letter of instruction
and encouragement to St. Titus as he built up Your Church on the island of Crete.
We pray in the name of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
+ + +
When he [Paul]
says: "An apostle of Jesus Christ," it seems to be as if he had said, "commanding
officer of the praetorian guard of Augustus Caesar, master of the army for Tiberius
Caesar." Just as secular judges are seen as more noble in accordance with the
kings whom they serve and are assigned a name from the dignity by which they
are elevated, so by establishing his great dignity among Christians as an
apostle, he has designated himself with the title of apostle of Christ, that he
might strike awe into his readers by the authority of the name. Thereby he
indicates that all who believe in Christ are to be in submission to him.
St. Jerome (347-420), Commentary on Titus
The New Testament Book of Acts of Apostles records St. Paul making three missionary journeys, each time setting out from his home church at Antioch in Syria during which he preached and founded churches in a dozen or more cities. On his first journey, he established churches on the island of Cyprus and in Anatolia (modern Turkey). On his second journey, Paul traveled into Macedonia and southern Greece, founding Christian faith communities. After revisiting many of the churches he founded, Paul ended his third journey by staying two and a half years with the Christians at Ephesus in Asia Minor. It was the second most important city in the Roman Empire and the third largest, according to the Greek historian Strabo, and widely visited by people from across the Roman Province of Asia.
In was probably in the spring of AD 58 that Paul returned to Jerusalem, carrying charitable contributions from several mixed congregations of Jewish and Gentile Christian churches. Paul considered the gifts of the united Jewish and Gentile Christians to be of great symbolic as well as financial value to support the Jewish-Christian Jerusalem church.
It was during that time that His visit to the Jerusalem Temple with a missionary colleague caused a Jewish riot and led to Paul's arrest by the Roman guards charged with keeping order in the city. When the Romans heard about a plot to murder Paul, for his safety, since he was a Roman citizen, they took him to the Roman governor Marcus Antonius Felix at his official residence at Caesarea Maritima on the Mediterranean coast. Paul spent two years there in "protective custody" until, as was his right as a citizen of Rome, he appealed to Caesar to hear his case. The new governor, Porcius Festus, sent Paul to Rome, where he spent another two years under "house arrest" until the Romans freed him when the charges against him were dismissed.
During his years as a prisoner in Caesarea and Rome, Paul had many visits from Christian brothers. He continually wrote letters advising faith communities (and those who visited him), sharing knowledge of the true nature of Jesus Christ and His message of salvation. While still in Caesarea, he also had the opportunity to share the Gospel with governor Felix and his wife, Jewish princess Drusilla (granddaughter of Herod the Great and sister of King Herod Agrippa II), Governor Festus, and King Herod Agrippa II and his sister Bernice (Acts 24:24-27; 25:13-26:32).
The Romans arrested Paul a second time after Emperor Nero began the Roman state's organized persecution of Christians in AD 64. After a trial, he was condemned to death and executed by beheading on the same day as St. Peter in AD 67. His Letter to Titus was probably written about the same time as Paul's First Letter to Timothy or shortly after his first release from prison in Rome (see the handout on St. Paul's life). Paul sent Titus to organize the Church in Crete, and wrote a letter with instructions on how Titus was to carry out his mission and to encourage him in his efforts.
Titus was a Gentile convert to Christianity (Gal 2:3). He accompanied Paul to Jerusalem for the Apostolic Council in circa AD 50 to determine the requirements for the admittance of Gentiles into the New Covenant Church (Gal 2:1-5). Bringing an uncircumcised Gentile Christian to the Jerusalem Council was a bold move on Paul's part since the issue facing the Apostles was whether or not Gentile converts should be required to submit to circumcision before baptism into the New Covenant Church, under the same requirement for acceptance in the Abrahamic and Sinai Covenants (Gen 17:9-14; Ex 13:43-49; Lev 12:3). Jewish Christians from Jerusalem had visited Paul's mixed Jewish and Gentile Christian faith community in Antioch (Syria), and were instructing the brothers, "Unless you are circumcised according to the Mosaic practice, you cannot be saved" (Acts 15:1-2). As Titus stood before the Council as an example of a faithful Gentile Christian who was not circumcised, he proved Paul's point. Paul taught that the Old Covenant ritual of circumcision of the flesh did not apply to Gentiles who received circumcised hearts by the gift of the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Baptism, as God foretold in Deuteronomy 30:6. As Paul wrote to the Romans, Again, if an uncircumcised man keeps the precepts of the law, will he not be considered circumcised? Indeed, those who are physically uncircumcised but carry out the law will pass judgment on you, with your written law and circumcision, who break the law. Rather, one is not a Jew outwardly. True circumcision is not outward, in the flesh. Rather, on is a Jew inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart, in the spirit, not the letter; his praise is not from human beings but from God (Rom 2:26-29).
Titus may be the same man as Titus Justus in Acts 18:7, who invited Paul to stay in his home in Corinth. Titus became one of the members of Paul's missionary team (2 Cor 8:23), and Paul later sent Titus as his representative to the Corinthian community (2 Cor 2:13; 7:6, 13-14; 8:6, 16, 23; 12:18). Paul tasked Titus with the mission to oversee the collection for the church in Jerusalem (2 Cor 8:6), and he became Paul's envoy to the church in Crete to organize the Christian communities there. Crete was the largest and most populated of the Greek islands strategically located near the convergence of three continents: Africa, Asia, and Europe. With its many ports, it was a center for the Mediterranean trade. It had a cosmopolitan population, and by the second century BC, there was such a large Jewish population that Roman historian Tacitus thought it was the original homeland of the Jews. Paul did not want to miss the opportunity to preach the Gospel to the many Cretan Jews and to proselytize the Gentile population.
After his mission in Crete, Paul sent Titus to Nicopolis (Tit 3:12). Later Titus was in Dalmatia, where he was serving the Church at the time Paul wrote his Second Letter to Timothy (2 Tim 4:10). According to Bishop Eusebius' fourth-century Church History, Titus returned to Crete and served as the presiding bishop over the churches there (Eusebius, Church History, 3.4.6).
| BIBLICAL PERIOD | # 12 The Kingdom of the Church | ||||
| FOCUS | Pastoral Charge | Teaching About Christian Life | |||
| COVENANT | New and Eternal Covenant | ||||
| SCRIPTURE | 1:1-----------1:10--------------------2:1-----------------2:15--------------------3:9-----------3:15 | ||||
| DIVISION | Greeting and ordaining qualified pastors | Rebuking false teachers and teaching sound doctrine |
Good Christian behavior |
Maintaining good works and obedience to leaders | Final words of advice and farewell |
| TOPIC | Protecting sound doctrine | Practicing sound doctrine | |||
| Organization | Offenders, operation, and obedience | ||||
| LOCATION | Titus received this letter from Paul while organizing the various Christian communities on the Island of Crete | ||||
| TIME | c. AD 63 after Paul's release from prison in Rome | ||||
The main divisions of Paul's Letter to Titus:
Paul probably evangelized in Crete with a missionary team after his release from Roman imprisonment. Crete is an island in the Mediterranean. It is 156 miles long and about 30 miles wide with the history of an ancient pagan culture. It is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands and bounds the southern border of the Aegean Sea. Crete is approximately 99 miles south of the Greek mainland. The Romans conquered Crete in 69 BC, making it a Roman province a little more than a century before Paul evangelized there. There were Jews from Crete present in Jerusalem for the pilgrim feast of Weeks/Pentecost in AD 30 when God the Holy Spirit filled and indwelled the 120 disciples of Jesus praying in the Upper Room ten days after Jesus' Ascension. They heard Peter's testimony of Jesus Christ as the promised Redeemer-Messiah sent to save humanity (Acts 2:11). Some of them may have carried Peter's message back to Crete and established the first Christian communities.
After a successful missionary effort in Crete, Paul dispatched Timothy to Ephesus to sort out problems in the community. He then turned the mission in Crete over to Titus as the bishop in authority to finish organizing the several Christian communities (Tit 1:5). Paul instructed Timothy to appoint qualified men to lead each community and to ensure the teaching of sound Christian doctrine. Not long after leaving Titus in charge, Paul realized he needed instructions on matters of organization and guidance, including how to counter the arguments of the Jews living on Crete. In his letter, Paul emphasizes that the Christian's response to God's gracious initiative must be that of virtuous living, and the community's leaders must work to avoid all contentiousness with humility but firmly refuting all heresy. He instills in Titus that all preaching derives its credibility precisely from these virtues, and it embodies the actions that touch the human heart to enable conversion.
Within Paul's instructions to Titus is the theme that Christ is building His Church, choosing the "living stones" that will make the Cretan Christian communities a dwelling place for God. Paul lovingly affirms the deity and redemptive work of Jesus (2:13, 14) and tells Titus that Christ's Second Advent is an incentive to holy living (2:12, 13). He stresses that the church leaders, the congregation, men and women, the young and the old all have vital roles to fulfill in the Church as living examples of the doctrine they profess by working out their salvation in their daily lives.
Chapter 1: Paul's Pastoral Charge:
Part I: Greeting and Ordaining Qualified Pastors
Titus 1:1-4 ~ Paul's Greeting to Titus
1 Paul, a slave of God and apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith of God's chosen ones and the recognition of religious truth,
2 in the hope of eternal life that God, who does not lie, promised before time began [eternal times],
3 who indeed at the proper time revealed his word in the proclamation with which I was entrusted by the command of God our savior,
4 to Titus, my true child in our common faith: grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our savior.
The first four verses that begin St. Paul's letter to Titus are one long sentence in the Greek text. As in Paul's other letters, once he is inspired by an idea, he runs with it, not bothering to shorten sentences. In the opening of his Letter to the Romans, for example, the first seven verses are one long sentence.
1 Paul, a slave of God and apostle of Jesus Christ
As in the greetings in most
of his letters, Paul identifies himself as an "apostle;" someone Jesus Christ personally
called to his mission to teach the Gospel of salvation (see
Rom 1:1;
1 Cor 1:1;
2 Cor 1:1; Gal 1:1;
Eph 1:1; Col 1:1;
1 and 2 Tim). Initially, only the Twelve
men selected by Jesus for leadership roles were called "Apostles" (in Greek "one
who is sent"). However, after Jesus' Ascension, the Apostles acting as the
Church's hierarchy extended the title to other men they charged with the
responsibility of going forth to teach the Gospel of salvation, men like
Barnabas and Paul (Acts 14:14). It is a title Paul vigorously defended since he,
like the first twelve, was also personally called by Christ in his conversion
experience described in Acts 9:1-19 (1 Cor 9:1-2; 15).
The exceptions when Paul did not call himself an "apostle" are the letters to the Philippians (that he co-authored with Timothy in which he calls the two of them "slaves of Christ" in Phil 1:1), the First and Second Letters to the Thessalonians (that he sends with Silvanus and Timothy; see 1:1); the Letter to Philemon, a private letter concerning a personal matter, and the Letter to the Hebrews. The Letter to the Hebrews has no greeting, and the writer is not identified. Some scholars believe it was a homily Paul delivered to the Jewish-Christian Church in Jerusalem on his last visit that was copied down and distributed to Jewish-Christian communities.
Paul also refers to himself as "a slave of God." The phrase does not appear in any other letters except for the similar phrase in the Letter to the Philippians where he writes that he and Timothy are "slaves of Christ," suggesting their loyalty and devotion to their divine Master (Phil 1:1), in his greeting in his letter to the faithful in Rome (Rom 1:1), and in the greeting of his Letter to the Galatians 1:10.
for the sake of the faith of God's chosen ones and the
recognition of religious truth,
The Greek word for "recognition" is epignosis and
refers not to general knowledge but to a perception of what one already knows.
Paul uses the word as an aspect of revealed truth that leads to a holy way of life
transformed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
2 in the hope of eternal life that God, who does not
lie, promised before time began [eternal times]
Paul's use of the word "hope," referring to God's plan or
His gifts, it becomes the assurance, in the present life, of what the God of
truth, who does not lie, promised to come that will last forever in our eternal
salvation (see
Rom 5:2-5;
Eph 1:4; 2;
Gal 5:5;
Col 1:5, 27;
1 Tim 2:13). It is a
hope generated by Christ's love that encourages the Christian to persistently
walk the "narrow path" in this life despite temptations and struggles
(Rom 5:5; 8:1-39,
see CCC 988 and 1020). The final goal of eternal life is both the soul's
union with the Most Holy Trinity and a share in the bodily resurrection in
Jesus' Second Advent.
promised before time began [eternal times]
What Paul means is that it was always God's plan to
provide humanity with the gift of eternal life. Adam and Eve possessed that
gift before their fall from grace in the Garden of Eden. Afterward, God
promised the defeat of the serpent, Satan, and humanity's redemption in
Genesis 3:15.
Paul wrote that God repeated His promises to Abraham and the other patriarchs (Rom 4:13; 15:8; Gal 3:16), the same promises made "before the foundation of the world" and from all eternity (Jn 17:24; Eph 1:4). God the Son made the promise of eternal life in His Bread of Life Discourse in John 6:54. Jesus also spoke of His own being with Him forever in His High Priestly Prayer to the Father in John 17:24.
Paul's point is that our "hope" is not based on presumptions but on trusting what God has promised and what He has done in the past. God determined from all eternity to give the gift of eternal life to those who received the "good news" of Christ. His plan for humanity's salvation was always in His heart.
The Greek text of verse 2 reads: "on hope of eternal life which the God that does not lie promised before the eternal times." There is a wordplay on the "eternal times" of the divine promise and the "eternal life" that is the goal (Catholic Commentary on Scripture, First and Second Timothy and Titus, page 214).
3 who indeed at the proper time revealed his word in
the proclamation with which I was entrusted by the command of God our savior
That God chose to reveal the promise "at the proper time"
suggests He waited until the right time in Salvation History by preparing His
covenant people despite the historical events surrounding an often unfaithful
covenant people and the actions of hostile empires.
4 to Titus, my true child in our common faith: grace and
peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our savior.
The sonship of Titus is in
relation to a common faith into which both Paul and his spiritual son, Titus,
have committed their lives. It is a sonship by choice rather than natural birth.
Titus is probably Paul's "true child" because Paul guided him to believe in
Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and baptized him into the faith.
Titus 1:5-9 ~ Paul's Pastoral Charge
5 For this reason I left you in Crete so that you might set right what remains to be done and appoint presbyters in every town,as I directed you,
6 on condition that a man be blameless, married only once, with believing children who are not accused of licentiousness or rebellious.
7 For a bishop [episkopos = overseer] as God's steward [oikonomos] must be blameless, not arrogant, not irritable, not a drunkard, not aggressive, not greedy for sordid gain,
8 but hospitable, a lover of goodness, temperate, just, holy, and self-controlled,
9 holding fast to the true message as taught so that he will be able both to exhort with sound doctrine and to refute opponents.
In the Second Letter of St. John, John identified himself as "the Chief Presbyter/Chief Elder" (sumpresbuteros), and the Apostle Peter also referred to himself as a presbyter/elder in 1 Peter 5:1. The word "presbyter" is from the Greek term presbuteros, meaning "older man" or "elder," referring to one in charge of a clan or tribe and a term familiar to Greek-speaking Gentile converts. Jewish Christians would also have found the term "elder" a familiar designation for a leader in a Jewish community.
In Hebrew, the word is zaqen. Elders had a leadership role in ancient Israel along with prophets, priests, and kings (Ex 24:1, 9-11; Num 11:16-25; 1 Kng 12:6; Ezra 6:7-8; Ez 8:1). The Jewish-Christian leader, St. Paul, established "elders" or "presbyters" in the churches he founded (e.g., Acts 14:23; 20:17; 1 Tim 5:17, 19; Titus 1:5). Presbyters were serving the Church at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:2-23), and St. James used the same term in his letter to the Church (Jam 5:14). It is a leadership term Greek-Christians understood and, at the same time, provided a link for Jewish Christians with a tradition of leadership in Israel from the Old Covenant Church.
In the first century of the Christian Church, presbyter came to identify a leader/pastor of a local Christian congregation. St. Peter identified himself as a primary or chief presbyter/elder in his Frist Letter: So I exhort the presbyters [presbuteroi] among you, as a fellow presbyter[Greek = sumpresbuteros = chief presbyter] and witness to the sufferings of Christ and one who has a share in the glory to be revealed (1 Pt 5:1; IBGE, vol. VI, page 631). And Peter used the lesser designation again a few verses later in the letter: Likewise, you younger members, be subject to the presbyters [presbuteroi] in 1 Peter 5:5. In the Church, presbyter came to be the term for an ordained shepherd of a community (1 Pt 5:10) or a priest (Acts 14:23). St. John identified himself as both an Apostle and an elder of a community. St. Jerome wrote: "Originally presbyters and bishops were the same. When later on, one was chosen to preside over the rest, this was done to avoid schism. For apart from ordination, what function is there which belongs to a bishop [episkopos] which does not also belong to a presbyter [presbuteros]?" (Jerome, Letters, 146).
The word episkopos in verse 7 and translated as "bishop," is literally "overseer," from epi ("over") and skopos ("one who watches or looks out"). In verses 6-9, Paul instructs Titus on the selection and appointment of presbyters and bishops. These instructions are almost identical to what Paul wrote to Timothy (see 1 Tim 3:1-7). The Greek terms episkopos (overseer) and presbuteros (elder) may at this time refer to the same office. However, the lesser office of deacons [diakonoi, literally "servants"] is not mentioned in the Letter to Titus as it was in Paul's First Letter to Timothy (1 Tim 3:8-13). Later, the term episkopos [episkospoi plural] came to identify bishops with apostolic authority, while presbuteros [presbuteroi = plural] meant the local church's priests who offered the sacraments, taught the Word of God, proclaimed sound doctrine, and governed the "flock" as the shepherds of the faith communities.
The "later" occurred by the time St. Ignatius served as the Bishop of Antioch in the early second century. St. Ignatius of Antioch was a disciple of St. John the Apostle and the Bishop of St. Paul's original faith community in Antioch (Syria). He was martyred in AD 107/110). St. Ignatius clearly defined the three offices of bishops, priests, and deacons in a letter written in on his way to martyrdom. He wrote: "Indeed, when you submit to the bishop [episkopos] as you would to Jesus Christ, it is clear to me that you are living not in the manner of men but as Jesus Christ, who died for us, that through faith in His death you might escape dying. It is necessary, therefore, and such is your practice, that you do nothing without the bishop [episkopos], and that you be subject also to the presbytery [presbuteroi], as to the Apostles of Jesus Christ our hope, in whom we shall be found, if we live in Him. It is necessary also that the deacons [diakonoi], the dispensers of the mysteries of Jesus Christ, be in every way pleasing to all men. For they are not the deacons of food and drink, but servants of the Church of God. They must, therefore, guard against blame as against fire." (Ignatius, Letter to the Trallians, 2:1-3). Our English word "priest" is a contraction of the Greek term presbuteros.
Question: In verses 6-9, what does Paul require of
the men Titus appoints as leaders of the Christian communities on Crete? Name
ten qualifications.
Answer: The men Titus appoints to be presbyters
must have these qualities:
The seven positive qualities Paul lists for a bishop are hospitable, a lover of goodness, temperate, just, holy, self-controlled, and his ability to transmit faithfully the apostolic Tradition that has been handed on to him.
The bishop's symbolic moral role extended to his marital status. The Greek text literally reads "a one-wife man," requiring the bishop to be married only once as Christ is married only once to His spouse, the Church. A bishop was expected not to remarry after the death of his wife (St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on Titus 1:6). This is an interesting requirement since it went against both Jewish and Gentile cultural traditions. Jews saw it as a duty to the covenant to remarry and have as many children as possible while living in celibately after the death of a wife was against the Roman Augustan laws. The lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus and other Roman laws penalized widowed men from the ages of twenty-five to sixty who did not remarry.(1)
The requirement for a celibate clergy in the Church was a few centuries away in the West. However, the Apostolic Constitutions 6.3.16 (circa AD 380) would require an unmarried candidate before ordination to remain celibate.(2)
7 For a bishop [episkopos = overseer] as God's steward [oikonomos] must be blameless, not arrogant, not irritable, not a drunkard, not aggressive, not greedy for sordid gain,
8 but hospitable, a lover of goodness, temperate, just, holy, and self-controlled,
9 holding fast to the true message [logos] as taught so that he will be able both to exhort with sound doctrine and to refute opponents.
The conjunction "for" that begins verse 7 ties this verse
to the preceding one. Verse 7 emphasizes that the Church is the household of
God. The bishop is God's overseer or steward (oikonomos) over every faith
community, and it is his responsibility is to manage God's household (Lk 12:42;
1 Cor 4:1-2; 1 Pt 4:10). To be "blameless," repeated from verse 6, does not
mean the candidate must be totally without sin. St. Augustine remarks if that
was the case, no one could ever be a presbyter. Paul is using the word to refer
to the absence of any public dishonor and to possess a spotless reputation that
embodies the Church's call to holiness.
The last trait, holding fast to the true message [logos] as taught so that he will be able both to exhort with sound doctrine and to refute opponents, identifies the bishop as the teacher and defender of true doctrine. The "true message [logos] as taught" probably refers to an early form of the Apostles' Creed since the word logos can mean "word," "message," or "pattern." In 1 Corinthians 15:1-2, Paul wrote: Now I am reminding you, brothers, of the Gospel I preached to you, which you indeed received and in which you also stand. Through it you are also being saved, if you hold fast to the word [logos] I preached to you, unless you believed in vain (bold added for emphasis).
Part II: Rebuking False Teachers and Teaching Sound Doctrine
Titus 1:10-16 ~ Silencing the Deceivers
10 For there are also many rebels, idle talkers and deceivers, especially the Jewish Christians.
11 It is imperative to silence them, as they are upsetting whole families by teaching for sordid gain what they should not.
12 One of them, a prophet of their own, once said, "Cretans have always been liars, vicious beasts, and lazy gluttons."
13 That testimony is true. Therefore, admonish them sharply, so that they may be sound in the faith,
14 instead of paying attention to Jewish myths and regulations of people who have repudiated the truth.
15 To the clean all things are clean, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is clean; in fact, both their minds and their consciences are tainted.
16 They claim to know God, but by their deeds they deny him. They are vile and disobedient and unqualified for any good deed.
Question: What was it that Jewish Christians were
probably teaching falsely that caused disharmony in the local mixed Jewish and
Gentile churches? See Acts 15:1.
Answer: It is possible that they were telling
Gentile Christians that they could not be saved unless they observed Mosaic law
completely, including circumcision for male converts and obedience to ritual
purity laws and the eating of certain animals. That being the case, Jewish Christians
would have avoided contact with Gentile Christians causing a split in the
community.
Verse 12 also suggests that Jewish Christians' prejudice
against the Gentile-Christian Cretans was causing division.
In verse 13, Paul writes that the criticism of Cretans as liars and gluttons was true, although probably before their conversion. This negative view of Cretans was widely held. Roman statesman and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC " 43 BC) wrote that Cretans had a reputation for greed and dishonesty (Republic 3.9.15). However, because of past defects, it was necessary to admonish any bad behavior of Cretan Christians "so that they may be sound in the faith."
14 instead of paying attention to Jewish myths and regulations of people who have repudiated the truth.
15 To the clean all things are clean, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is clean; in fact, both their minds and their consciences are tainted.
Paul is probably referring to the insistence of Jewish Christians
on the observance of Jewish ceremonial practices of ritual laws and other regulations
that Jesus condemned as "human precepts" in Mark 7:7 that they were trying to
impose on Gentile Christians. However, he might also be referring to the "myth"
that Jesus was not God enfleshed. In the First Letter of John, he refuted
false doctrines and encouraged Christians to walk in the Light of Christ and
the knowledge of Truth by avoiding false teachers who denied the reality of the
Incarnation by saying that Jesus only appeared to have a human body
(1 Jn 4:1-6).
The Greek word translated as "clean" can also mean "pure" and recalls Jesus' sixth Beatitude that blessed the "pure in heart" (Mt 5:8), those who "attuned their intellects and wills to the demands of God's holiness" (CCC 2518).
Question: Why does Paul write that these teachings
are wrong? See Acts 15:7-10,
Answer: For Jewish Christians to attempt to impose
Jewish ritual requirements as necessary for salvation was to deny the freedom
from the ritual laws Christ brought to Christians as reborn sons and daughters
of God. It is the purity of minds and hearts that matters for the Christian,
not abstaining from certain foods labeled as "unclean" or other ritual practices.
Question for reflection or discussion:
Should the virtues Paul listed in verses 6-9 be limited
to bishops and pastors, or are they virtues that should be evident in the lives
of all Christians in the domestic Church? Why are those virtues especially
necessary for parents and those involved in ministries in the local church? How
do you fare in the list of Paul's essential virtues?
Endnotes:
1. In 18-17 BC, the Roman Empire instituted a series of laws
intended to promote morals and increase population by encouraging marriage and
having children. Anyone who chose celibacy over marriage was forbidden to
receive inheritances or attend public games.
2. Today in many Eastern Rite churches, including those united with the Roman Church, married men may be ordained as priests. However, unmarried priests may not marry after their ordination, and celibacy is required of bishops and monks.
Catechism references for this lesson (* indicates
Scripture quoted or paraphrased in the citation):
Titus 1:5-9 (CCC 1577*);
1:5 (CCC 1590);
1:15 (CCC 2518)
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