by Karen Pusey

Created on: August 04, 2009   Last Updated: August 09, 2009

Walter J Ong wrote a provocative essay, The Writer's audience is Always a Fiction, If you think about it, the statement is true. I am sitting here at my computer preparing to write a short commentary on Titus. If it is to make any sense, I must fictionalise you. I must imagine you out there with your interest in this short Biblical book. Are you an audience that like to be provoked? Or shall I make you an audience that likes just to be informed, or to mull over Bible passages to understand more about this sometimes puzzling, but always rewarding book?

I can never make up my mind about the authorship of the Pastorals. Were they written by Paul? Were they written later by one of his close disciples? Does it really matter?

However, there is a bit of a conundrum in that 2 Timothy seems rather different from 1 Timothy and Titus.. I can easily be persuaded that Paul wrote 2 Timothy. It reads like the writing of a man in prison telling his beloved child to hold firmly to the faith. Paul knows it won't be long before he will be executed.

But I digress. Let's get back to Titus. It fits with 1 Timothy because it's about how people who have signed up to church membership should behave and to go back to Ong's essay I can imagine the author, whoever he (or dare I say it she?) was fictionalising his audience- a group of Christians who were living after Paul had been beheaded and thinking about what Paul might have said about the organisation of the church, because questions were being asked as the church went into its second generation. Who can be Bishops or Deacons? How are widows to be treated?

You'll need to read 1 Timothy through before you approach Titus to get the flavour of what I mean.

Chapter 1

1-4 Greeting

You need to read verses 1-3 slowly and carefully. They form one long Greek sentence and they answer the question, What was the purpose of Paul's apostleship? He wasn't in the job for self aggrandisement, he was there to bring the truth to God's people. It was a trust.

Titus shared Paul's faith.

5-16 Problems and how to deal with them

Every town in Crete is to have its own Elder/Bishop and verses 5-9 tell us what sort of people they must be. Their behaviour comes first, then their faith. They must have a firm grasp of the faith to be able to teach and to deal with problems that were arising in the island.

Why does the writer use elder in v.5 and switch to bishop in v. 7? I think that at this time the words were interchangeable. Perhaps

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