Thanks for visiting Bible Mountain. This is the 12th lesson in a series of lessons on the book of Titus. In this lesson we'll look at Titus 1:1 and talk about faith.
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Transcript:
Thanks for visiting Bible Mountain. This is the 12th lesson in a series of lessons on the book of Titus. In this lesson I'm going to look at the first verse and talk about faith.
Let's start by reading Titus 1:1.
Titus 1:1 Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of the elect of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to Godliness,
Let me diagram the sentence so we understand what's being stated here. The first word is Paul. That’s who wrote this.
Then Paul identified himself with two terms. He identified himself as a slave of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ.
Then we see the word for. The word for tells us he's about to tell us the reason or the end goal of him being a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus.
There are two items after the word for. There's the faith of the elect of God, and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness.
Paul was a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the sake of the faith and knowledge of the truth. In other words, Paul was a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus in order to build up the faith of the elect and knowledge of the truth.
Now let's talk about faith.
Faith is used a couple different ways in the New Testament. Sometimes the word faith is a synonym for Christianity. We see that in Acts six.
Acts 6:7 The word of God kept on spreading; and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith.
The end of this verse could read obedient to Christianity.
Sometimes the word faith refers to the belief an individual has in Jesus. We see that in Matthew nine, starting in verse 20.
Matt. 9:20 And a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years, came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak; 21 for she was saying to herself, “If I only touch His garment, I will get well.” 22 But Jesus turning and seeing her said, “Daughter, take courage; your faith has made you well.” At once the woman was made well.
In this case the word faith refers to the belief this woman had that Jesus could heal her.
Now let me talk a little bit about what faith is not. There's a common misconception in Christianity about faith. Here is an explanation of faith from crosswalk.com.
Faith. It’s a word we hear thrown around all the time. Keep the faith. Walking in faith. Having faith. So what is faith? Faith has several different definitions.
1. Complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
2. Strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than truth.
3. A system of religious belief.
4. A firmly held belief or theory
I want to focus on number two. Look at the last phrase: rather than truth. That's the part that I disagree with. A lot of people think faith is something that you just kind of have. They think of it as a mystical thing. In this case, it says spiritual apprehension rather than truth. I disagree with the phrase rather than truth. Faith is based on truth.
Let’s think about faith being a synonym for Christianity. Christianity is based on truth; therefore, faith is based on truth.
Let’s think about the belief individuals have in Jesus. That is also based on truth. We see this several ways in the New Testament. Let's look at Acts 17.
Acts 17:30 “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, 31 because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”
Look at the word proof. The Greek word that is used there is the same word that is translated faith. God furnished faith to all men by raising Jesus from the dead. Raising Jesus from the dead is the proof leading to faith.
We also see this in Hebrews 11 which is the faith chapter. Let's start with verse one.
Heb. 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Notice the second phrase, the conviction of things not seen. The key to faith is not that there's no truth behind it. The key to faith is that it's something you believe in even though you haven't seen it with your own eyes.
Let's go down to verse 30.
Heb. 11:30 By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days.
God told the Israelites to circle the walls of Jericho for seven days and then the walls of Jericho would fall down. The Israelites believed that God would bring the walls down and did what God told them to do. Their belief was not an irrational belief. It wasn't the sort of thing where they just had a hunch that God would do this. They knew from experience that God could and would do what He said He would do. When God said the walls would fall down, they believed that based on their past experience with God. Their belief that God would bring the walls down was based on truth. They had seen God’s power and believed God would exercise His power again.
We have seen that faith is either a synonym for Christianity, or it's the belief that an individual has in God. Faith is based on truth.
Now let's look at Titus 1:1 again.
Titus 1:1 Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of the elect of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to Godliness,
Paul was a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. The reason he was a slave and an apostle was to build up the faith of the elect of God. We can understand that in two ways. If you think about faith as a synonym for Christianity, then you can say that Paul was a slave and an apostle in order to build up Christianity, to build up the church. He communicated truth that builds up the church. Or, if you look at faith as the belief that an individual has, you can say Paul was a slave and an apostle in order to build up the faith of individual Christians. Paul communicated truth that builds up individual Christians.
How does this affect us? Paul, as a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, in order to build up the faith of the elect, wrote multiple books of the New Testament. Titus is one of them. You could say that part of the purpose of Titus is to build up the faith of the elect of God. As we go through our lives as Christians and want to increase our faith and strengthen our faith, one of the ways we can do that is to study the book of Titus, as well as the rest of the Bible, because Titus includes truth that builds up our faith.
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Scripture quotations from Titus taken from a translation by Bible Mountain.
“All other Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®,
Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973,
1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation
Used by permission." (www.Lockman.org)