Bible Diary - Titus 2:11-15

March 22, 2008

This passage might be titled “The Christian World-view.” In four pithy verses, Paul mentions grace, salvation, life-styles to reject and adopt, hope for the future, the substitutionary atonement, and the glorious return of the Christ. This constitutes an “Executive Summary” of Paul’s teaching. He tells Titus, in effect, “You know these things, so work hard to communicate them with authority.” Titus cannot complain that he received no clear charter from the Apostle!

2:11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people. 2:12 It trains us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 2:13 as we wait for the happy fulfillment of our hope in the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. 2:14 He gave himself for us to set us free from every kind of lawlessness and to purify for himself a people who are truly his, who are eager to do good. 2:15 So communicate these things with the sort of exhortation or rebuke that carries full authority. Don’t let anyone look down on you.

I think of all the ways the gospel is communicated, starting with the Holy Bible itself. The giants of the faith who followed Paul and the other Apostles wrote thousands of words of exposition for the benefit of believers in succeeding generations; men like Augustine of Hippo, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, R.C. Sproul, and many, many others. I might expect that the gospel would suffer much distortion as it is passed down from generation to generation, but I would be wrong. To any objective observer, the essentials of the Christian faith today are the same as when Jesus walked the earth.

Of special note, at least for this Reformed believer, is the Westminster Assembly of 1643, made up of 10 lords, 20 commoners, and 121 clergymen, who met over a thousand times over 6 years to codify Scripture and create teaching aids for the church. The result was the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, documents still of great value to the church. If you are looking for well-attested miracles, the approval of those documents by Parliament must be on your short list.

Dave, Puritan at heart.

-sdg-

Posted by Dave | Filed Under Bible