Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.

We finished the 18th book in our New Testament plan and the 57th book in our whole Bible plan.

Paul wrote this letter today to his friend and co-worker who had been assigned to do ministry on a Greek island.

Tough job, but for real it wasn't exactly a cakewalk.

The people on the island of Crete have a challenging culture that goes against the

grain of Christ's teachings, and all of this is being reinforced by some

local leaders who are apparently on a power trip.

So it's not all sunsets and suvlocki for our friend Titus.

Let's see how Paul encourages him to handle things. In chapter one, Paul reminds Titus that he's positioned

him over the church in Crete so that he can get things running in ship shape. But when you're dropped

down at a relatively new church in the middle of a bunch of bad leaders and false

teachers it's not exactly an easy task. This is a lot like the problems Timothy

was facing yesterday so we'll see some overlap in Paul's advice. It's interesting to

know what advice makes both books because that gives

us an idea of what things are situational and what things are universal. First, Paul gives Titus

guidelines for how to choose elders, the people who will be the governing board of

leaders over the church and its decisions. It's vital that they reflect Christ

not just in their doctrine but in their lives as well because people are going to be

looking to them for guidance and truth.

In addition to that, an elder not only has to know the truth and teach it, but he has to be

willing to correct those in the church who teach it wrongly.

This is a big problem in the church at Crete.

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