Ezekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - Titus 1:1 - 1:1

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Ezekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - Titus 1:1 - 1:1


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

The Epistle of Paul to Titus

The precise period of St. Paul’s visit to Crete for the purpose of preaching the gospel and organizing Christians, as already stated in the INTRODUCTION, is not certainly known. But from the great similarity between certain parts of this epistle and the First Epistle to Timothy, the probability is, that the visit took place some time during the later operations of the apostle in Asia Minor and Greece, and that consequently this epistle to Titus, who had been left behind to complete the work begun by the apostle, must have proceeded from his pen at no great interval from the time when he indited the first to Timothy. The Second Epistle to Timothy belongs to a period considerably later, and presents us with the last record we have of the apostle’s thoughts and experiences. In a consecutive exposition, therefore, the Epistle to Titus fitly takes precedence of the Second to Timothy.

Chapter I

Ver. 1. Paul, a servant of God, also and apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of God’s elect, and full knowledge of the truth that is according to godliness; 2. in hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before eternal times; 3. but in its own seasons manifested His ward in preaching, which was entrusted to me, according to the commandment of our Saviour God; 4. to Titus, [my] true son in respect to the common faith: Grace and peace from God our Father, and Christ Jesus our Saviour.

St. Paul’s mode of designating himself here does not exactly coincide with his form of expression in any other epistle. Elsewhere he calls himself a servant, or bondman of Christ (Rom_1:1; Gal_1:10; Php_1:1; Col_4:12), but here only of God: a noteworthy variation, not on its own account, but as a mark of genuineness; for it is impossible to conceive what motive could have induced any imitator to depart in such a manner from the apostle’s usual phraseology. The äὲ coupling his calling as an apostle of Christ with his relation to God as a servant, cannot be taken in an adversative sense, for there is really no opposition; but it is used, as not unfrequently, “to subjoin something new, different, and distinct from what precedes, though not strictly opposed to it” (Winer, Gr. § 53, 7). The rendering of Ellicott, and further, while giving the proper shade of meaning, seems somewhat too formal, broadening more than is natural in a brief introductory description, the difference between God’s servant and Christ’s apostle. But what is to be understood by this apostolical calling being êáôὰ ðßóôéí ἐêëåêôῶí Èåïῦ ? If one were to render, with the A.V., after the Ital., Vulg., and many modern commentators, “according to the faith of God’s elect,” it is difficult to understand why this should have presented itself to the apostle’s mind as anyhow the measure or rule of his apostleship. It appears, indeed, so understood, to invert the proper order of things; for there can be no doubt that he received his apostleship with a view to promote or bring into exercise the faith of God’s elect, and in connection therewith the knowledge of the truth, and not inversely. The preposition, therefore, must here (with Winer, Gr. § 49, d. c, and many of the best commentators,—Theodoret, ù ̔́ óôå ðéóôõ ͂ óáé ôç ͂ ò å ̓ êëãç ͂ ò á ̓ îé ́ ïõò ,—Huther, Ellicott, Alford, etc.) be taken in the sense of destination for or to—as, in classical Greek, êáô ʼ á ̓ ôéìé ́ áí ëå ́ ãù means, I speak for dishonour—with a view thereto (Her. ii. 152; Thuc. 5:7, vi. 31). The apostle indicates the faith of God’s elect and the special knowledge of divine truth, on which it is grounded, as that with respect to which he had been made an apostle, and toward which, therefore, all he did in this character must be mainly directed. For the elect’s sake, he elsewhere tells us (2Ti_2:10), he endured all things, and for their sake too he held his commission as a divinely authorized teacher of the gospel, that God’s purpose concerning them might reach its end. As the elect, or genuine people of God, not only have a knowledge, but a special or peculiar knowledge of the truth, so the word used is ἐðßãíùóéí —knowledge intensified, or in the fuller sense (see at 1Ti_2:4). And it is said to be êáô ʼ åὐóÝâåéáí —knowledge that has respect to, or tends in the direction of, godliness. So that the sense of the preposition here is much the same as in the preceding clause. True Christian or saving knowledge is thus sharply distinguished from all that is of a merely speculative kind, or is without any moral aim; this throughout bears on the cultivation and exercise of holy principle. And the fact is of importance for the preachers of the gospel now, as well as for the apostle then; their preaching is not what it should be, except and in so far as it aims at the same practical result.