Genuine Christianity: A Study of Paul’S Letter to Titus

By Justin Miller

Have you ever been sitting in a church service and pondered, Is this Christianity? In our modern landscape there may be no better question to ask. In Genuine Christianity we look at Pauls epistle to Titus to uncover what Christianity was like in the first century. In this short yet powerful epistle, Paul described what a Christian is and does and how the church is to operate. He tells us for all time what genuine Christianity is and how it works.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Dec 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781973612032

Justin Miller

Justin is a husband, father, pastor and most importantly a follower of the Lord Jesus. He holds a Master of Divinity from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and a Master of Accounting from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. After many years in the business world as an auditor Justin left to begin full-time ministry as the Lead Pastor of First Baptist Church in Puxico, Missouri. He and his wife JoDawn are blessed to be the parents of four children.

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Copyright © 2018 Justin Miller.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-1202-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-1204-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-1203-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017919672

Print information available on the last page.

WestBow Press rev. date: 12/27/2017

Acknowledgements

To Jesus

My King, Savior, and Hope in life. You are the treasure worth living and dying for.

To JoDawn

My beautiful bride and best friend, I love you.

To Kaleb, Ella, Isaac, and Eden

My heart’s hope is you pick up your cross and follow the Lord Jesus. He is worthy. I love you.

To my Mom, Roberta

No son had a better mother. Thank you and I love you.

To Kenny

Your investment in me changed my life forever for God’s glory.

To my Dad, Sister, and beloved Brother

I love you.

To Scotty and Dusty

Your friendship made this book happen.

To Carol, Francie, and Gary

Your help with this work made the final product possible.

Contents

1.   Owned

Titus 1:1

2.   Sent

Titus 1:1-4

3.   The Church

Titus 1:5-16

4.   A Healthy Church

Titus 2:1-10

5.   Amazing Grace

Titus 2:11-15

6.   It Matters

Titus 3:1-15

Owned

Titus 1:1

1 Paul, a bond-servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness,¹

Is this really Christianity? I remember reading through the first Bible given to me as a young boy, trying to understand God and my true standing before Him. I read from Genesis 1 through Revelation 22 and it was clear that God punishes sinners. It was clear God is righteous and He is just. I memorized the Ten Commandments and it was crystal clear I was a doomed person before a God who was all together separate from me and eternally unreachable. The thought of standing before God caused me intense dread and debilitating fear. Night and day I was troubled and anxious to the point I went to the pastor of the youth group I was occasionally attending on Wednesday nights and told him about my state before God. I knew I stood condemned before God. I wanted to be saved. His response was something like invite Jesus into your life and be baptized to wash away your sins. He told me that baptism was the means by which I would be saved. He proceeded to talk with my parents, who were not at that time Christians, and scheduled my baptism. The day of my baptism, my first one, I will never forget coming out of the water and then walking away with the mindset I have to go and sin no more. The despair, anxiety, and fear ceased for all but ten minutes until on the ride to my grandma’s house I broke one of those pesky Ten Commandments. The despair, fear, and dread returned with even greater force. I asked how can I possibly go and sin no more? I walked out of that car utterly undone, not knowing what to do. I had lied. I had read in James that if you break one of the commandments before God you are guilty of them all. I stood condemned again. I could not go back to get re-baptized, the church was closed now. I eventually did what any religious person does when faced with guilt; I tried to atone for my sin. I began by asking Jesus to pardon just this one sin and come back into my heart and life. The next several years I would ask Jesus to forgive me and come back into my heart every time I consciously sinned. Is this really Christianity? Is Christianity my sins being washed away by a work I did and living life trying my best not to lose my salvation by being on my best behavior. Christianity, is it just a decision I made, a card I filled out, a hand I raised to procure for myself an eternity of bliss away from the fires of hell? As a young boy I was told it was, and when I entered adulthood Christianity was something I no longer wanted anything serious to do with. After all, this type of Christian God was impossible to please. He was a demanding and tyrannical deity holding my failure over me. I could not escape His wrath and judgment. I could not atone for my sin. The real problem was what I thought was Christianity was in reality a counterfeit. It was not Genuine Christianity.

What is Genuine Christianity? One of the greatest places in the Bible to define Genuine Christianity is Paul’s letter to Titus. Paul wrote this epistle to Titus around 63–64 A.D., as Paul and Titus traveled to Crete after leaving their fellow laborer in the faith, Timothy, at Ephesus. Paul stays briefly at Crete and leaves Titus behind to teach and organize the church at Crete (Titus 1:5). Paul cared deeply for these people and wrote this epistle to Titus not long after leaving him behind. He writes with clear instructions concerning the infant church in Crete.² Paul instructs Titus how to organize the church, how to raise up pastors, as well as what the church is to be and look like. This letter is, in essence, a manual for the church and its operation at its origin. Throughout this letter we are presented with genuine Christianity and will be compelled to compare it with our own experience.

Genuine Christianity…. Where do we begin?

Where do you begin? Perhaps you are like me, and you come home to your wife who lovingly hands you a to do list of sorts that seems more like a lengthy job description with a high degree of difficulty and a guarantee of many hours of labor. In those instances what we often do is tackle each item one at a time, systematically addressing each item in a logical sequence. That is what we are going to do here. In Titus 1:1, we will unpack what a Genuine Christian is. In the first verse it is clear what a Genuine Christian is, and what their life really is all about. I’m convinced; there is no greater question in modern Christendom than what is a Christian? Paul defined a Christian precisely and profoundly in verse one. Let us start chipping away at genuine Christianity by answering what is a genuine Christian?

A Genuine Christian = A Doulos of Christ

Paul, a bond-servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness,³

Paul began by identifying himself and describing who he really was. Paul, before his conversion, was a Pharisee. A Pharisee was a Jewish person who was dedicated to the Law of God and all the traditions that their people had accumulated to keep themselves from breaking the Law. God had gotten this Pharisee of Pharisees attention on Paul’s journey to Damascus when he saw the resurrected, glorified Christ. It was in that moment Paul met Jesus and received his commission as an apostle. Paul came to know the Lord Jesus as Master and was sent by Jesus as an apostle. Notice in Titus 1:1, before Paul called himself an apostle the term he used to define himself is the word bondservant. Paul called himself a bondservant of God. The New Testament was written in Koine Greek and the Greek word translated bondservant is doulos which means slave.⁴ Doulos is someone who is utterly and completely owned by another. Paul opened up this letter describing himself as a slave of God, someone who is owned by God. Paul’s whole identity revolved around being God’s property. His entire life was owned by God.

It is interesting if you look throughout all of the New Testament writings, the apostles and associates of the apostles loved to identify themselves as a doulos of God and the Lord Jesus. Jude the half-brother of Jesus stated in Jude 1, "Jude, a bond-servant (doulos) of Jesus Christ."⁵ James, the other half brother of Jesus, opens his epistle and stated, "James, a bond-servant (doulos) of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ."⁶

Simon Peter, the chief apostle and the head of early church, in 2 Peter introduced himself as, Simon Peter, a bond-servant (doulos) and apostle of Jesus Christ.⁷ The beloved disciple, the apostle John, called himself in Revelation 1:1 a doulos and was writing to his fellow Christians who he also referred to with the word doulos. What is clear from this is that all the New Testament saints saw themselves primarily as a doulos of the Lord Jesus. Every single person who called themselves a Christian understood they were owned by the Lord Jesus Christ. They were now God’s because of the Gospel, which is the good news that the Lord Jesus lived a perfect life which culminated in His perfect obedience on the cross for sinners, rose from the dead on the third day, and ascended to heaven forty days later. They embraced the good news with what we call repentance, which involved a submission to God in Jesus Christ, and looked to Him alone in faith. To clarify at the forefront, a doulos of Christ does not mean you are perfect or pure it means that you are owned by God. Your life is submitted to God. It conveys He has bought you, and you are His.

So Much Confusion about a Doulos of Christ

I remember hearing a preacher talk about how he often struggled with doubts concerning his salvation. He told the audience that in those moments he would always go to the place he made the decision to ask Jesus into his life. He would go to the place where he prayed a prayer of acceptance, as he stated it, Where he nailed it down. I was a new convert and was trying to process this as one who struggled with assurance that God really had saved me. I remember sitting there thinking: So all I need to do is sincerely ask Jesus to come into my heart? Is my assurance really to rest in my sincerity in making a decision to invite Jesus into my life at some specific time and place? Is not the focus entirely on me and what I did? I did not realize it then but my doubts about what this preacher proclaimed were warranted. For example, in Scripture none of the apostles or associates of the apostles deal with doubt about a person’s salvation with the