Titus 1:1-4 Introduction • While We Wait // Women of the Word Bible Study

Summary

In this introduction to the Bible study on the book of Titus, titled 'While We Wait,' Pastor Paul discusses the challenges and importance of waiting, especially in the context of Christian living while anticipating Jesus' return. The focus is on how believers should live during this waiting period, rejecting ungodliness and embracing self-control and godliness. The study aims to equip Christians to live intentionally and evangelize effectively, mirroring qualities such as righteousness and godliness amidst cultural challenges. This session explores the origins and purpose of Paul's letter to Titus, emphasizing the relationship between Paul and Titus, as well as the culture and challenges faced by early Christians in Crete. The study also highlights the importance of mentoring and community in spiritual growth. Participants are encouraged to actively engage with the Bible study, allowing spiritual truths to manifest in their lives as they embrace their roles within the community and wait for the return of Jesus.

Highlights

• Waiting doesn't need to be tedious if we're prepared and purposeful. 📚
• The heart of Titus is about living righteously while waiting for Jesus. 🌟
• Paul encourages believers to reject worldly passions for godliness. 💪
• The letter to Titus was originally meant to guide a young pastor in Crete. 🏝️
• Trust and hope in God provide a solid foundation amidst life's uncertainties. 🙌

Key Takeaways

• Waiting can be tough, but it's an opportunity for growth and self-reflection. ⏳
• Embrace self-control and godliness while waiting for Jesus' return. 🙏
• Paul's letter to Titus offers a roadmap for intentional living and evangelism. 🗺️
• Understanding cultural contexts can help in spreading the gospel. 🌍
• Christian communities thrive on mentorship and mutual support. 🤝

Overview

Pastor Paul introduces a Bible study focused on the book of Titus, aptly titled 'While We Wait.' The theme revolves around the challenges of waiting, a common human experience. In true biblical fashion, this study asks how believers should conduct themselves as they await the return of Jesus. Pastor Paul emphasizes living a life characterized by self-control, righteousness, and godliness, which aligns with the teachings in Titus Chapter 2. The session kicks off conversations on being prepared while you wait, highlighting that even though waiting is unavoidable, it can be filled with purpose and intentionality.

Exploring the historical and cultural significance of Paul's letter to Titus, the study sheds light on the challenges faced by early Christians in Crete. Titus, a young pastor, received guidance from Paul on how to lead amidst a morally complex and challenging environment. This message, although centuries old, resonates with today's cultural landscape, serving as a timeless roadmap for living out the Christian faith in a way that is compelling and convincing to non-believers. By understanding the background and intent of this letter, participants gain a richer perspective on its application today.

The Bible study also delves into the importance of mentorship and relationships within the Christian community. Observing the deep relationship between Paul and Titus, the session underscores the impact of supportive, faith-building relationships. Participants are encouraged to engage deeply with the Bible study, seeking the Holy Spirit's guidance and allowing the scripture to transform their lives. This community-centric approach fosters an environment where believers can build each other up, preparing collectively for Jesus' return while navigating life's many waiting periods.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 10:00: Introduction to the Study This chapter sets the stage for a Bible study focused on the book of Titus, with the theme 'While We Wait.' Waiting is introduced as a central motif, characterized as a challenging and often tiresome experience. The introduction hints at exploring how the duration and certainty of waiting impacts our perception and experience of it.
• 10:00 - 20:00: Paul's Message and Motivation Paul's message focuses on the theme of 'while we wait.' This refers to how we conduct ourselves during periods of waiting, using distractions or preparations as we anticipate future events.
• 20:00 - 30:00: Titus's Role and Mentorship The chapter "Titus's Role and Mentorship" delves into the core message of the Book of Titus—how believers should live their lives while awaiting the return of Jesus. The focus is on the implications of accepting Christ and what it means for a believer's daily conduct and citizenship. Aimed at a young pastor, the teachings extend to the Christian community under his influence, emphasizing the principles and lifestyle expected from them.
• 30:00 - 40:00: Guidance for Bible Study The chapter discusses the concept of dual citizenship for believers, where although they live on Earth, their true citizenship is in heaven. Believers are encouraged to live their lives in anticipation, either for the return of Christ or their journey to heaven. The chapter references Titus 2:12-13, prompting a discussion on how to live a righteous and godly life while waiting for these events.

Titus 1:1-4 Introduction • While We Wait // Women of the Word Bible Study Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 welcome to our bible study in the book of titus i've titled this bible study while we wait waiting is a tricky thing isn't it at best it's tedious and uh usually it is taxing on us to wait for anything if i asked you to raise your hands who loves to wait no one would ever say oh i just love that it's not so bad if we know how long we have to wait it's maybe not so bad
• 00:30 - 01:00 if we have something to do while we wait if we have a distraction if we have our phone or if we have a book or if we're prepared to wait but i chose the title while we wait for this bible study and i want to tell you right away why i chose the title and i want to take us right into the inner workings of titus chapter 2 verse 12 and 13. unless you have an niv you don't need to open your bible to it yet i'm going to put the uh scripture on in just a moment not yet
• 01:00 - 01:30 but um but if i could summarize it first for you this the heart of titus is how should we then live while we wait for jesus to return how should we then live because this is what we would might call a believer's bible study this book was written to a young pastor and therefore to the christians in his world and when we accept christ our citizenship
• 01:30 - 02:00 has moved to heaven while our residency stays right here our citizenship is no longer on this earth it is now in heaven but yet we stay here we wait here we wait for his return or we wait to go to heaven so how should we live okay now let's look at the middle of titus chapter 2 verse 12 and 13 and i'm reading this out
• 02:00 - 02:30 of the niv because that's where we got the title for this bible study and i like it it sums up the point of this book well what type of people should we be those who say no to ungodliness and worldly passions and live self-controlled upright and godly lives in this present age while we wait for the blessed hope the glorious appearing of our god and savior jesus christ
• 02:30 - 03:00 that's what we should do while we wait we should be characterized in those ways that is the core message of this bible study i've kind of given you the bullseye right off if you never make it back to another bible study there you go you have the whole summary uh there but i know that you will come back most of us are waiting we might have a list if i asked you what are the top three things that you're waiting for you might not have
• 03:00 - 03:30 the return of jesus christ on the top of your list in fact you might have felt a twinge of guilt while i was talking about that and thinking ah that's not what i've been waiting for i've been waiting for other things like i have a lot of things in my life i've been waiting for and we do we have things in our life that were waiting to be made right maybe you're waiting
• 03:30 - 04:00 for some relief from chronic pain maybe you are waiting for children or grandchildren to turn to the lord or return to the lord maybe you are waiting for an end to the division in your home or in your family maybe you're waiting for the right job to come along or a job to come along for you or for your husband maybe you're waiting to conceive and
• 04:00 - 04:30 have a child maybe you're waiting to have a husband these are real life okay this is honestly what's on our list these are the things we're waiting for maybe we're waiting for the election to be over maybe we're waiting for covet to go away right what sort of people ought we to be while we wait even for those things all the things that we're waiting for well we have choices while we wait we can wait wisely or we
• 04:30 - 05:00 can wait foolishly we can um let circumstances carry us along or we can be very intentional about our lives while we wait we can crab and complain we can trust and obey or as paul said in this text we have a choice to become entangled in worldly passions or to live self-controlled upright
• 05:00 - 05:30 and godly lives so this short letter will show us how to be intentional while we wait it is a road map for us and it gives us hope while we wait now we always point out when we do an introduction to one of our bible studies that before the bible was written to me written to you it was written to someone else first and that's what we want to discover in the introduction of a bible study who was this written to
• 05:30 - 06:00 and why because we know that it is alive and it is living and it has something to say to us but it was written to somebody else first so that's what we're going to investigate here this book was originally a letter from the apostle paul to a young pastor named titus things weren't perfect in their worlds either things were out of order they were not moving along as planned they had things that they were waiting for because there were things that were broken confusing paul and titus had spent time
• 06:00 - 06:30 together on missionary journeys traveling ministering they faced difficulties the churches weren't perfect the people were a challenge ministry for them if you've read about paul's missionary journeys ministry was one step forward and three steps backward often into jail and so there were things as well that they were waiting for the location that this letter was sent
• 06:30 - 07:00 to where titus was is very important to us he was on crete and then when you begin your bible stay next week verse 5 is going to tell you that right away and there's a map on page six in your study guide that shows you the mediterranean world and you can see that crete is the largest island there in the mediterranean but still even though it's the largest island it's only about 160 miles long and about 35 miles wide at its widest point so it's a pretty small little
• 07:00 - 07:30 space and that's where titus was when paul wrote this letter now paul had visited this place it tells us dr luke tells us in acts chapter 27 on his way to rome he had spent some time in crete and maybe he evangelized the people maybe he shared the gospel well the apostle paul shared the gospel all the time wherever he was but maybe that is where they heard the gospel but i think and this is just my opinion
• 07:30 - 08:00 because the bible doesn't tell me so i think that when paul landed there at that missionary journey he found those that had already an understanding of the messiah and you know i think that in acts chapter 2 the day of pentecost in jerusalem it tells us there was cretans there and of course when the holy spirit fell and everyone shared the gospel in all the tongues known probably known to the world at that time they were informed that jesus
• 08:00 - 08:30 was the messiah and they probably traveled back and my guess is that when paul landed there he found people who already knew about jesus as messiah and he probably further illuminated their understanding during that trip but anyway the point of it all is that here's titus this young pastor living on crete among both christians and the pagans and i think that the intention of this letter
• 08:30 - 09:00 is to inspire titus to equip the christians to evangelize those that don't yet know that's what he's trying to accomplish here so i want to ask a few questions about crete what were the cretans like what was the culture like the cretans were the thugs of the mediterranean okay they were known for lying they were known for their britishness
• 09:00 - 09:30 they were true barbarians and when you start your study next week and you get down to verse 12 you're gonna see that the apostle paul didn't name call he didn't say oh this is what you're like he used one of their own people and just regurgitated what they themselves say about themselves which is they're liars evil beasts and lazy cluttons that was the characteristic of the people that lived there and i thought wow that would be a really
• 09:30 - 10:00 tough culture to live among and try and evangelize until events of like recent uh months and i'm seeing oh we have a lot of that too we are becoming more and more characterized by those things in our own culture so see we read through something written in the first century how much it applies to what we're looking at today how could the christians gain the attention
• 10:00 - 10:30 of and the respect of those people in order to make inroads to share the gospel well they're not going to gain the attention by being just like them that's for sure their lives are going to have to look very differently in order for there to be um you know to gain their attention their lives would need to be characterized by righteousness and by godliness selfless by loving
• 10:30 - 11:00 and so their churches would need to be united and orderly their homes would need to express the created order of god and they would need to behave toward unbelievers and government authorities with respect and in fact those that's really the outline of this book and in your study guide if you're kind of filling in the blanks there on page four um there's a little outline in chapter
• 11:00 - 11:30 one in church life paul's going to show us order in the church and then in chapter two in home life paul is going to show us love and order in the home and when we get to chapter 3 in public life how we relate to those outside of our circle those who desperately need to see christ in us so that they will say whatever you got that's what i want so
• 11:30 - 12:00 that's a brief outline of this book i always love books that when you open your bible the whole thing just sits right there i love doing these short little books so open your bible to titus chapter one we are going to study verses one through four this morning as a way to get you inspired in the next five weeks of your bible study i'm teaching from the esv even though our title is from the niv i figure that's okay to do so we're gonna read through verses one through four which says paul
• 12:00 - 12:30 a servant of god and an apostle of jesus christ for the sake of the faith of god's elect and their knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness in hope of eternal life which god who never lies promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which i have been entrusted by the command of god our savior to titus my true child in a common faith grace and peace from god the father
• 12:30 - 13:00 and christ jesus our savior so the first four verses tell us in verse one this letter was clearly written by the apostle paul it was written to titus and what did those two men have in common well obviously they both had come to a knowledge of christ so they were brothers in christ they had a ministry relationship as well as a deep friendship titus was the younger and paul called him my true
• 13:00 - 13:30 child in the common faith and these men were both ministry-minded they had dedicated their lives to the gospel wherever the holy spirit would lead them to go whatever he wanted them to do that is what they did and so they shared that in common what i want to do is look at paul titus and then their relationship together so what do we discover in these verses about paul how did he describe himself in verse 1 as a servant of
• 13:30 - 14:00 god the apostle paul lived the exchanged life which means he totally understood that jesus had sacrificed himself to pay the debt that paul owed and he exchanged that he said i will receive that payment of debt and in exchange i now belong to god i am a servant of god this word is due lost which means which is translated slave in many
• 14:00 - 14:30 places in the bible a voluntary slave and so paul is saying that he's a servant of god and he also says he's an apostle of jesus christ we know that apostle is one who is sent forth one who is an ambassador of the message and if we look at those two descriptions that he gives about himself servant and apostle the way i see it one is general and one is specific and here's what i mean
• 14:30 - 15:00 many people in the bible are described as a servant of god moses was a servant of god joshua was a servant of god david was a servant of god mary was a servant of god you are a servant of god i am a servant of god if we live the exchanged life if we are born again we no longer own ourselves we are now owned by the lord we are a servant of god it is a general description that should fit each and every believer but the other
• 15:00 - 15:30 one is specific when he says he is an apostle of jesus christ because not every one of us is an apostle in fact i have not one friend who is an apostle but every one of us has a specific ministry calling and it is important that we see that and that we walk that out in our life our ministry callings may have a lot to do with natural or spiritual gifts that
• 15:30 - 16:00 god has given us our ministry callings our specific ministry might have something to do with our season of life and it comes and goes for example one of my ministries right now is that of a wife if i become a widow well that ministry calling will be overshadowed by other ones and so our specific ministries may come and go many of you in this room are in a specific ministry of motherhood
• 16:00 - 16:30 taking care of the little ones raising them in the lord many of you are out of the hands on and you have moved into a whole different realm which we thought was going to be the easy part and now we know is the hard part right i can always get a recognizing laugh out of that um so in your discussion the first question in your discussion is going to relate to how are you walking out your specific calling and that's an important thing
• 16:30 - 17:00 for us to face once they're all in the mirror and say can people tell by looking at my life that i am walking out a specific ministry calling well what was paul's motivation what was his purpose he also tells us that and the next two words fill in the blanks in your study guide are faith and knowledge because he said for the sake of the faith of god's elect and their knowledge of the truth which accords with godliness paul's motivation was the faith of god's
• 17:00 - 17:30 people their faith in god the faith of the elect meaning those who belong to the lord and his motivation was their knowledge not just knowing stuff but their recognition and their discernment of the truth how do we know truth well it tells us in here that it accords with godliness truth is god like and that is one way we know the
• 17:30 - 18:00 truth any doctrine or any practice that promotes that does not promote godliness is heading down the wrong path okay so that's what truth is and then he also his third important purpose was to promote their hope of eternal life everyone needs hope i don't know who said it i can't give credit maybe you've heard it before that
• 18:00 - 18:30 we can live about 14 days without food we can live about three days without water we can live about eight minutes without air but we can't live a minute without hope it is a terrible thing when people lose hope and you all probably know someone who has lost hope and hope of eternal there's all kinds of hopes in the world but hope of eternal life is the bedrock it is the foundation of all of them it
• 18:30 - 19:00 is the most important thing and so paul opens with this in chapter one and he'll close again with it in uh chapter three so let's break down what he said about this hope in the second half of this run-on sentence that's three verses long where it starts hope of eternal life he says which god who never lies promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which i
• 19:00 - 19:30 have been entrusted by the command of god our savior all right so god promised he promised the hope of eternal life before the ages began and so we learned that this was all organized and pre-thought out by the lord this life that we live god had intended from the beginning before he even created humans that we would have this fellowship with him and enjoy him forever and i love how paul says in there god who never lies by the way remember who
• 19:30 - 20:00 he's talking to a culture of liars so he wanted to use a contrast and say god who by the way never lies has shared this information with us and then it says that it was manifested in his word we can't get very far i didn't use the word manifest at all this week maybe you didn't either so we need to find out what does that mean okay it means to make clear to prove to show
• 20:00 - 20:30 for everybody to notice okay so again i'm gonna take us back to the niv which gives us a very uh conversational way of that verse three he brought his word to light through the preaching entrusted to me okay now paul was entrusted that was his specific ministry and he did it in a powerful way much of our new testament is the words of paul however
• 20:30 - 21:00 it should be our aim to bring to manifest the word of god to bring it to light to make it clear for everyone to see i want to show you what paul said to the romans in romans chapter 10 verses 14 15. i love this how then will they call on him and whom they have not believed and how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard and how are they to hear without someone
• 21:00 - 21:30 preaching and how are they to preach unless they are sent as it is written how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news i love this verse because it reminds me that making clear the word of god makes us beautiful at least in god's eyes it does how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news so even though paul is describing himself and his mission let's ask ourselves a
• 21:30 - 22:00 couple questions right here do i make my hope of eternity clear for people around me to see do i make that clear do i make it simple do i bring it to light can people sense in me that i live at peace or do they see me bound up and fearful about things is it obvious that i am resting in the knowledge that god is in control
• 22:00 - 22:30 and i am not those things manifest the word of god and so we have the ability to do that too just to recap paul's motivation here we see he was motivated by the faith of god's elect their knowledge of the truth and their hope of eternal life so let's turn our attention to titus now titus in verse 4 is described as my true child in the common faith
• 22:30 - 23:00 who was titus well on verse on page six in your study guide i give you a short bio of titus you can read it later we won't read through the whole thing the first bullet point on that page tells us that in galatians chapter 2 we find out that titus is greek that means he was not a hebrew he was not a jew he was born outside of israel he was uncircumcised because of that he was basically just a
• 23:00 - 23:30 regular guy and nothing special about him except that he came to faith in christ probably through paul's ministry because paul calls him my true child in the common faith and so our guess is that he came to know christ through paul's ministry and then down at the bottom of that page the second to the bottom one informs us the titus at some point had been left on crete in their ministry together
• 23:30 - 24:00 paul went forward and titus stayed behind he was left on crete and so that's why this letter is being sent to him because he was left behind to carry on all the things that we are about to study in here when you read through that bio one thing you're going to notice is it speaks of relationship between paul and titus i love the letters in the new testament that are written to pastors because they are heavy with
• 24:00 - 24:30 relationship you see that i'll call it mentoring in this context and mentoring in your mind might you might think of it as a very a formal thing i'm not talking about that kind of mentoring okay i'm just talking about a real organic and natural and spiritual mentoring when we get to chapter two we are going to discuss mentoring between women but i want to mention it here
• 24:30 - 25:00 because of what we see with paul and titus and i think it is so sweet we live in community life in the body of christ okay and we are very often shaped in important ways by the community that we engage with i always like to say we are discipling each other for better or for worse because we we rub shoulders you know with each other it's not
• 25:00 - 25:30 something you can plan god brings it about although i will tell you i did try to plan it once when i was a young pastor's wife about 28 years ago i thought we need some of these mentoring relationships so we started a whole program called heart to heart and we had ladies sign up and we paired him up and we matched him up it's like you will be with you and we you know and it was kind of funny um because you can't plan and you can't force and you can't push things like that although i will say this
• 25:30 - 26:00 god's bigger than our fleshly efforts because some of those relationships carried on to this day even though but the point of it is god puts people together as he desires when he desires and we should be open to that we should watch for that so when i was young just rededicating my life to the lord there were women that i would say
• 26:00 - 26:30 definitely mentored me not one of them knew it that happens i just watched them i was 22 i was impressionable and i watched those relationships are credible also another foundation in my life is elizabeth elliott i devoured her books she was
• 26:30 - 27:00 my mentor in many ways i did meet her once i stood in a book signing line for a long time have a book signed by her um but so there are some relationships that people don't know that you have discipled them but then there are those beautiful relationships where you actually do life together you spend time together you're in the same space together and maybe you have had the privilege of being in
• 27:00 - 27:30 one of those relationships where someone has mentored you they have been a mother figure to you or maybe you have been the one doing the mentoring or both of those things but what i see in this opening the tender language that paul uses is certainly he and titus experienced that doing life together so either way that it goes whether it's from a distance or whether it's very close it is part of
• 27:30 - 28:00 our christian existence and it's important for us um to watch for and it's important for us to know that everything that we uh say and do is going to have an effect so i want to show us first thessalonians 5 11 as a reminder that says therefore encourage one another and build one another up as you are doing this should be our focus in all of our
• 28:00 - 28:30 relationships to encourage and to build up okay so as we close i just want to give a little info uh information for how instruction and how to do this bible study this study guide is written in a four day a week format so you're going to need four days to unless you're one of those that just sits down and does the whole thing that's okay whoever you are you just go with your personality nothing right and wrong here but i do want to say one thing
• 28:30 - 29:00 there is one wrong thing and that is approaching it without prayer whenever you do do your bible study please just pause it doesn't have to be long but say holy spirit i invite you to show me what you want to show me as i am going through here and then the first thing that you're going to see is uh write read a passage write it in your journal so grab a notebook grab a journal write out it's just a few verses each day so it doesn't take long but like we've said often boys slowing down
• 29:00 - 29:30 to write that verse by verse gives the holy spirit time to speak to you since you asked that he do it it's like then you need to give time and it is a great great way to do it then you can answer the directed questions in uh the that day and then the last page of each week is what we call the questions for thought and discussion and that lifts the scripture out and brings it into our culture and into our world a little bit
• 29:30 - 30:00 more and some of those questions may be great for your discussion groups and then lastly you need to make it to your discussion group so i just want to close by saying if you guys will endeavor to do those things that i just listed and be faithful and i just want to say there's only five more of these weeks make this the top priority okay put this to the top and other things can't be done because you have to go to bible study you can do that for six weeks if you
• 30:00 - 30:30 will endeavor to do that i promise you that i will do my best to just prayerfully look at each passage and ask the holy spirit to guide us what does he want to speak to us today in 2020 about this passage and allow just invite him to breathe prophetically into the passage that we're studying because we're waiting for a lot of
• 30:30 - 31:00 things in life but we are waiting for jesus to return what sort of people ought we to be while we wait i think he'll refine us through this book so let's pray about that lord we invite you into those places in our heart to remind us that there's so many things on the horizontal level that just grab our attention and and uh uh take up so much of our real estate in
• 31:00 - 31:30 our brain but lord we really do want to be the type of people that you are growing us to be while we wait for your return whether you come to get us or whether you take us home to be with you lord make our days useful make them profitable lord help us to be impassioned to let your word be manifested in us either through the words that we
• 31:30 - 32:00 say are just how we live our life lord that's our invitation as a as a whole group we invite you to do this work in our lives in jesus name amen
• 32:00 - 32:30 you