Titus 1:4 Titus my genuine child.

To Titus, a genuine child according to the common faith…

The Titus letter that we are now looking at is, like the two letters to Timothy, a personal letter. Written to one person. The letter to Philemon is not, by the way. Compared to Paul’s letters to Timothy (and certainly the latter), the tone is less confidential and the emphasis is on the task for which Titus is being instructed.

We regularly encounter the figure of Titus in Paul’s letters. His name is mainly mentioned in the second Corinthian letter (9x) because he worked in Corinth for a while and played an authoritative and valued role there (2Cor.7:13-15). In the Galatian letter he is also mentioned twice (2:1 and 2:3) because Paul had taken him to the Jerusalem assembly as a test case since Titus was an uncircumcised Greek. Until the end, Titus remained a close associate of the apostle (2 Tim. 4:10), but remarkably enough his name is missing from the book of Acts. Is that perhaps because “Acts” was written with a view to Israel’s conversion (Acts 1:6) and Titus’ (Gentile) ministry falls outside that realm?

We do not know much about Titus’ background, except that he, like the Jewish Timothy, was “begotten” as a believer by Paul’s preaching (1Tim.1:2, 2Tim.1:2). For Paul, Titus is more than a co-worker, he is his “genuine child according to common faith”.

Delen: