Paul writes to his missionary friend Titus in Crete to address a problem that has arisen in the local church. Some people on the Greek island are probably running small house churches with the wrong motivations.

The letter suggests that they are only interested in money, have lots of weird theological ideas, and behave badly.

So Paul sets out some criteria for elders in the church.

Does Paul meet his own criteria?

In Acts, we read about Paul’s pre-conversion behaviour. In those days, he clearly failed to live up to the criteria that he now sets in his letter to Titus. Paul says that elders should be “blameless, not arrogant, not hot-tempered … not a bully.”

Instead, the apostle says that elders should be “loving what is good, sensible, righteous, holy, self-controlled, holding to the faithful message as taught”.

Of course, Paul would be the first to admit that he had been bad. He had been hubristic and arrogant in his persecution of Christians. That was despite having the opportunity to see first-hand evidence of the work God was delivering through the disciples.

Elsewhere, in 1 Timothy 1:15 (CSB), he describes himself as “the worst” of sinners.

John Piper surmises that Paul described himself as the “worst” because:

Jesus revealed this to him. And this seems right, because this very “firstness” in sin was part of the inspired writing with which God intended to encourage others who despaired that they could never be saved because they were that insolent (almost).

Yet, there is no hypocrisy in Paul’s criteria because he is not arguing for perfect pasts. Instead, he wants elders to show fruits of the transforming work of the Holy Spirit.

Fruits of the spirit

Paul’s criteria in Titus 1 overlaps nicely with his description of the fruits of the Holy Spirit in Galatians 5 (CSB). There, he contrasts “works of the flesh” with “fruits of the Spirit. He says:

Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar…

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,gentleness, and self-control.

Paul’s ‘thorn in the flesh’

In 2 Corinthians, Paul write about being afflicted with some form of “thorn in the flesh” – a problem that he struggled with. He describes it as “a messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself.”

He adds:

Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.

The thorn is not explained, but we might deduce it is some kind of inclination to sin in a particular direction that Paul finds frustrating. But God, knowing that Paul has great authority in the early church and that he had a propensity during his days persecuting Christians towards arrogance, thinks it is no bad thing that he struggles with it.

So Paul is not perfect, and he has a history of with something he now warns against in elders. His point, though, in Titus 1 is not that elders need to be in the impossible situation of being perfect.

His objection to those he calls “rebellious people” and “full of empty talk and deception” is that they are not letting the fruits of the Holy Spirit work in their lives. “They claim to know God,” Paul says, “but by their actions they deny him”.

Photo: Basilica of Titus, Gortyn, Crete by Andy Montgomery. Licensed under a Creative Commons Licence