Titus 3:15 - Benediction

Calvin (10/26/03)

3:15: No comments.

Matthew Henry (10/26/03)

3:15: It is possible, perhaps likely, that many of those with Paul did not know Titus, yet by this greeting, they show that he is counted as one of their own number. "Great comfort and encouragement it is to have the heart and prayers of other Christians with and for us." Holiness is the best and strongest of bonds between us. The final blessing shows that this letter was intended for the church, and not Titus alone. It is 'with you all.' In that word 'grace' Paul wraps a great deal of meaning: "the love and favor of God, with the fruits and effects thereof, according to need, spiritual ones especially, and the increase and feeling of them more and more in your souls." "Grace is the chief thing to be wished and begged for, with respect to ourselves or others; it is, summarily, all good."

Adam Clarke (10/26/03)

3:15: Those working with Paul in ministry wish well to Titus, hoping in turn to be well-remembered by him. They whose greetings are sought are they who love the ministers for the sake of the Christ they minister, showing themselves genuine Christians. Grace, divine favor, is sought as Titus' eternal portion, along with all those genuine Christians he serves. Only one manuscript makes this final blessing applicable to Titus alone. All the rest make it out to be a plural application. A variety of subscripts can be found in the manuscripts, several indicating that the letter was written from Nicopolis (one indicating the Nicopolis in Macedonia.) The bearers of the letter, where indicated at all, are either Zenas and Apollos, or Artemas. One variant identifies Titus as the first bishop of the Cretan church. None of these various appendages carry any authority. It is quite doubtful that Titus was a bishop, let alone an appointed bishop. While the letter may well have been written near Nicopolis, its own contents make it unlikely that it was written from there, and that the 'there' was not Macedonian Nicopolis also seems likely.

Barnes' Notes (10/26/03)

3:15: (Ro 16:3 - Greet my coworkers Prisca and Aquila.) Generally, we see mention of who is with Paul, but here there is nobody specified, suggesting Titus already knew who was with him, and that Titus had been traveling with Paul, himself, quite recently. Barnes further suggests that those with Paul were with him in Crete, and had departed from there, leaving Titus to labor on. As with the greeters, so with the greeted: no names are specified. (1Th 5:26 - Greet all with a holy kiss. Col 4:15 - Greet the brothers in Laodicea. Greet also Nympha, along with those meeting in her house. Ro 1:7 - Grace to all the saints in Rome. Peace, also, from God our Father, and Jesus our Christ and Lord. Ro 16:20 - The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of Lord Jesus be with you.) The subscripts found to this letter are neither authoritative, nor particularly accurate. Claims in them that Titus was ordained bishop of the Cretan church are clearly wrong. There is no evidence that there even was a church which could bear that name, there being many churches on the island. Further, even if he were bishop in the Scriptural sense, rather than the sense given that office now, he could not be the first, for he was left to finish what Paul began. Far from being a bishop as such office is understood, it seems Titus was not even a 'settled pastor,' doing the work of an evangelist instead - planting and moving on. (Ti 3:1 - Remind them to obey their rulers and every other authority, to obey and remain ready for every good deed. Ti 3:5 - He did not save us because we had done some righteous act, but only because of His own mercy. This, he did, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Spirit.) [What these have to do with his point, I have no idea.] As to being written from Nicopolis, there is no conclusive evidence for this, however probable it may be. Further, were it Nicopolis, it was probably not the Macedonian Nicopolis. It is only upon the evidence of these subscripts that claims of a bishopric are made for Titus and Timothy, and clearly, these subscripts are not suitable as evidence of anything.

Wycliffe (10/26/03)

3:15: The conclusion of this letter is typical of those found in all Paul's letters. (1Ti 6:21b - Grace be with you.)

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown (10/26/03)

3:15: Not all in Crete had any love founded upon faith, thus had not the 'true bond of fellowship.' Paul's greeting is limited to those who do. That he so bounds his greeting shows his knowledge of that church's situation and makes clear that this letter is no forgery. While the letter is addressed to Titus alone, the greeting is sent to the church at large [at least the true church], for Paul could be certain that Titus would share the letter with the church.

New Thoughts (10/26/03-10/27/03)

Is it possible to find too much significance in the words of Scripture? Absolutely! This is exactly what Paul has dealt with in this letter; the tendency to get caught up in insignificant debates, the exalting of vain imaginations over sound doctrine. Scripture is always useful for establishing sound doctrine, but it requires a degree of devotion and effort to properly distinguish doctrine from fancy. With all due care and consideration, then, I still find an incredible amount packed in to the simple request Paul closes his letter with, "Greet those who love us in faith."

I noted prior to this that there was a chain of events here, but I hadn't realized quite how firmly the linkage was established. That small word 'in' bears far more significance than we would suppose. It speaks of a fixed position, the instrumentality of that which we are 'in' in producing that which we are. "A relation of rest," says Strong's dictionary. Do you sense the power of that? The lovers Paul greets are those whose love is resting upon faith, and resting upon it in such fashion that it is affixed to faith. It cannot be separated from faith. Indeed, it cannot exist except faith has its instrumental role in producing love in us.

Faith is the means by which we are empowered to love. I noted this in my last pass through the end of this letter. But, there is something more. Faith is the motivation. There are always these two things to deal with in our actions: there is the ability to achieve the action, and then there is the desire to do so. Without ability, our desires will quickly sour into the poison of broken dreams. Without desire, our ability to act will remain only a potential, which we will never exercise. Faith gives us both the ability and the desire! It is God who is at work in us both to will and to work (Php 2:13)! He is working in us that we might evidence the love which is in turn the evidence of Him working in us! If we are going to bear testimony to the goodness of God in this life, it will not be in the speeches, the diatribes, the harangues we may deliver. It will not be in the tracts we hand out nonchalantly, or in passing 'shotgun' evangelism. It will be in the evidence of God's love in us - love for each other in the community of faith, love in action for those in need, be they part of the family, or still strangers to us. It will be in the social gospel carried out without the twisting of the message which that movement suffered.

It becomes of interest to me, then, that Paul sees fit to distinguish so precisely who it was he was greeting. It was not simply those who loved him, but it was limited to those whose love for him was founded upon this matter of faith. Is it possible, Paul, to love for the wrong reasons? Most assuredly! We must recognize that this is not the agape love of God we are considering here, it is not the love of which God speaks when commanding us to love one another. This is a love which cannot be commanded, but must be chosen. It is an emotional matter. As such, it is ever at risk of being misguided. We have all experienced that misguided love, love directed towards something or somebody who is clearly [to all but us] bad for us. It is that very love that has had us bound in sin. Even now, we are doubtless familiar with any number of 'loveable' folks who are utterly devoid of faith. Nor are we who are of the faith unique in our ability to feel this emotion of love. The key is in that matter of 'in.'

Paul is not interested in those who may feel kindly towards him because of his eloquence or his selflessness. Neither is he interested in those who claim to have faith, but whose actions deny any such claim. It is those whose love is in faith, founded upon faith, inseparably attached to faith to whom his greetings go out. Emotions are dangerous things. We all know it. It is only when we anchor our emotions to the faith God has blessed us with that we can trust them. Even then, Scripture warns us not to be led by them. Never does it say to abandon them, mind you. We are not told not to feel. Indeed, we are told to feel to the full extent of feeling.

Emotional love, in and of itself, may lead us to praise this one, or to feel sorry for that one. Emotional love fastened to the bedrock of sound faith will go beyond this and take action. If there is that which is worthy of our praise, it is worthy of our tangible support. If there is that which sparks the cry of compassion in us, crying will not suffice. We must find and provide all we can to ease and end the suffering. Prayers are a wonderful thing, a necessary thing in such cases, but prayers must not be thought the whole of our responsibility! The love which is in faith must act where action is possible. It must do all that it can do to make itself tangible.

Doubtless, not every member of the church in Crete had a love for Paul, especially those whom he has been correcting in this letter. Doubtless, among those who did feel a degree of love for him, there were those whose love was not founded upon faith. As the Jamieson, Fausset & Brown commentary notes, these people, though they had love, did not have the 'true bond of fellowship.' They were, for whatever reasons, still outside the fold, although they hung out at the fence, looking with longing at those within. I really don't think Paul was trying to snub these onlookers. There was nothing in them which required the turning away which is the due of the heretic. They weren't actively trying to push fallacy into the church, they simply didn't get it yet. If God had chosen them, He had not yet made this clear to them. The renewing work of the Spirit was perhaps begun, but not yet reached the boiling point in their soul.

Now, I want to come back to that distinction which is to be made between the phileo love of this verse, and the agape love we are more familiar with. It's that matter of choice which is, I think, the moral implication we must take away from this verse. We are commanded to show the agape love of God to one another. I suspect, however, that we in large part fail at this for the simple reason that our concept of love is still caught up in the emotional. Agape love is, in many cases, tough love. It will do what it knows to be best for you even when you don't particular want what's best for you. It will look after your best interest even when you are busy pursuing your worst. When you are caught up in emotional love which has drifted from the mooring of faith, the higher love will act to draw you back, even though being drawn back is the farthest thing from your mind, even though you will doubtless lash out in frustration, even though you may be lost for a time as a friend. Higher love will do this because the lover knows that to restore a brother is a far greater thing than to have a friend for a time. Family is forever in the family of God. Friendship may not last the week.

It is that higher love which is commanded of us. That is what we are called to display. Are we willing to die for the ones around us. That is the love God showed us. For the very people who reviled Him, who spat upon His perfection and preferred our own corruption, God died. He died to bring life to us, to us who were determined to pursue death. This is the love we are commanded to display for one another - a love that won't allow us to stray, that will do whatever it takes to see us safely returned to the fold.

This other love of which Paul speaks, this phileo love remains a matter of choice for us. It must be chosen, because emotions will not be commanded, cannot be commanded. Interesting to come across this love, then, on the heels of the exhortation to excel in doing good deeds. Interesting to find this phileo love in a letter so concerned with truth; Truth in doctrine, Truth in faith. If our faith is truly faith, it must flow in the fruits of faith. If our faith is truly faith, we will be exercising ourselves to excel in good works. If our faith is truly faith, we will not only manifest the commanded love of God for each other, we will also choose to love one another as family. We cannot choose our siblings, but we can assuredly choose to love them.

It is not uncommon to hear it said in the church that we have to love each other but we don't have to like each other. Oh, but this is a lie! It sounds cute. Indeed, we'd really like it to be this way because it takes away the conviction that wiser conscience imposes upon us. We most certainly are commanded to love each other. And if our faith is real, if we're not simply fooling ourselves, we will find it impossible not to actually like each other as well. Don't get me wrong. It won't be a simple, one shot deal. It won't be as easy as waking up one morning and just deciding to like everybody today. It's going to take work, constant work. It takes constant work for us to love our physical families. Face it, siblings, parents, children, they can all get on our nerves pretty easily. Familiarity breeds contempt, and all that. It takes work to remain in like. Saying 'I love you' is the easy thing. Living 'I like you,' that takes effort.

With each day, with each member of this community of faith, we are given a choice to make. Believe me, however conscientious we may be in starting out, there are going to come challenges to our resolve. Somebody in the family is going to grate on our nerves, and in that moment comes the crisis of choice. How will we react? Will we dwell on the shortcomings of this annoying one, or will we dwell on the likeable? If it is the seeds of sin that we are seeing and reacting to, then by all means pursue the commandment of agape! Admonish this one in hope! But, don't dare admonish in anger, to this you were not called. If there is the love of agape in action, it should ever be accompanied by the friendship of phileo.

I want to close this study with two thoughts, one from Matthew Henry, and the other from myself some seven months ago. Between the two I think, I hope, we will see the difference between what fleshly emotion will choose, and what spirit-led emotion will choose. In a prayerful moment during my studies of this passage, I wrote the following: "If I need to look upon the remaining work, surely I have enough to see in my own life!" Now, I know this happens with me, and I'm sure it happens with others as well. It's real easy to latch onto the faults in those around us. In raising children, there is, it seems, always so much that needs correcting that it's easy to just stop there, to remain in correction mode and never get around to praising what's right. It's not far different amongst the church family. It's real easy to get caught up on a brother's shortcomings, or a sister's need to change. It's far easier than looking to our own condition. God calls us to something better.

If we've got to find fault, let it be with ourselves. As to these others, consider Mr. Henry's words. "Great comfort and encouragement it is to have the heart and prayers of other Christians with and for us." You know, when we see somebody going through a trial, going through sickness, going through loss, it's quite probable that we'll let them know our prayers are with them. It's quite possible that those words will be the end of our thoughts for them, but hopefully this is not the case. If we say we're praying for somebody, we ought to take that as a vow before God, a commitment to which we've signed up, an agreement to die to our own pursuits that they might live.

But, the point I want to consider right now is this: If, no, when there are those who bug us in the family of God, how can we give them that same comfort and encouragement? I must say that going up to them, pointing out the thing that we find irritating, and then saying, 'but I'm praying for you,' probably isn't going to count as comfort and encouragement! Yet, it is the knowing that others are interceding for you that brings comfort. It is knowing that prayers are being offered up on your behalf that encourages. How, then? Listen. Every one of us needs the support of prayer from our family. Every one of us knows this to be true in our own case. You will never, ever crush the spark out of a member of this family of Christ by letting them know you're praying for them. Never! You need not specify what or why. It's unlikely that the question will come up if you leave it at that. "You're in my prayers. God's grace be with you." Then pursue your promise with vigor!

I would seriously doubt that there are any who are not quite aware of their own shortcomings, especially in the family of faith. People outside the church know their own quirks, know that there are things about them that people generally find irritating, and yet they feel either powerless to change, or that there is no particular reason to change. Remember, you and I were just like them. It is only the grace of God, the Holy Spirit working within us, pointing out not only what needs changing but how to change it, that has made a difference in us. We all know that there is plenty of work left to do in us. We all have a pretty good idea of what that work is. Yet, until the Holy Spirit begins to work on that aspect of our lives, we are as powerless as the most faithless of men to change ourselves. The leopard cannot change his spots, and we are equally powerless to change apart from God (Jer 13:23). "With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible" (Mt 19:26). It is possible, because of the faith of God in us, upon which our choice to love will stand, to make that choice. It is possible, because of the faith of God in us, to take our eyes of our brother's failures, and choose to like him anyway, knowing he is as much a creation of the Father as are we, knowing that the same Spirit which indwells us is in him also. It is possible, as our pastor reminded us yesterday, to remember that God considers that one - with all his shortcomi