Saturday, February 21, 2015
Titus 3: 1-15
“But when the goodness and kindness of God our Saviour appeared, [God] saved us…through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.”
Alicia Batten gave a wonderful introduction to Titus in her post (February 19), so I won’t duplicate that information here. Titus and the other Pastoral Epistles show a concern for decorum and institutionalization in the emerging Jesus Movement. As Christianity spread around the Mediterranean basin, local churches sought to accommodate and assimilate to the surrounding culture by absorbing the Household Code, the underlying political and social philosophy of the ancient world (men rule over women, parents over children, masters over slaves). We see the Household Code most evidently in Titus chapter 2.
From our perspective, do we find this ancient code quaint, at best, or unjust, at worst? Meditating on these texts today holds up a mirror to our own, often implicit assumptions about the church and our relationship to the wider culture. Have we adopted and adapted any unhealthy or unjust societal norms? Or, are we constantly renewed by God’s Holy Spirit, as our text in Titus 3 promises?
- David Shumaker
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