Return

Over the last few days I have looked over this short letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to a young pastor that he mentored named Titus. Paul, like he did everywhere he went, planted churches when he passed through the island of Crete. His partner in the gospel and friend, Titus, was left behind and charged with the task of pastoring these churches and nurturing them along to health and maturity. Though all indicators suggest that Titus was a capable leader and pastor, he had a rough time in the early going, not unlike so many church planters in our day.  

For Titus, the biggest problem was bad doctrine and false teachers. The churches seemed to have attracted people of various backgrounds and they brought in with them other influences and ideas apart from the gospel which they were propagating among the congregation. While we don't know all that was being taught erroneously, we can see that religious, legalistic ideas had crept in from those of the "circumcision party" (which sounds like a kind of party I don't want to attend). Paul's letter was a sharp rebuke of these false teachers and a prescribed remedy to the situation for Titus which was to equip and put in place qualified leadership.  

New churches are planted... young pastors... people who don't know Jesus come... cultural influences and ideologies invade the church... false teachers preach false gospels... need for qualified, mature leadership... need to be taught sound doctrine... hmm... glad none of this is applies to us today.

I was studying 1 Corinthians recently too. Turns out that was a church community who had people getting sloshed on the communion wine like they were tailgating; they had someone sleeping with a relative; sexual immorality of all kinds was rampant; they had people suing each other in the church; there was massive division; they had people speaking in tongues and prophesying but trying to talk over each other and interrupt each other; they educated and intellectual so they were these immature Christians who thought they had it all figured out; they had idolaters; they were promoting themselves instead of Christ; they were concerned for their own glory and their own way much more than the gospel. That was the church in Corinth.  

I was just thinking, after studying through Corinthians and then Titus how funny it is that there is a major push to "get back to the way things were in the early church." My generation is the primary demographic pushing for this nostalgic return to the good old days when the church was really doing things... when the church made a difference... when the church knew how love and live in community... when the church really was the church. We are so quick to criticize the church, both local and universal. We are so quick to pass judgment on the church and dismiss the church as having failed miserably, corrupting what the early church and passed down to us, generation by generation. It's as if, in our estimation, for the first time the church is made up of sinners.  

Sometimes, I don't know what bible people are reading, particularly people in my age range. When I read the letters Paul, Peter, John and James all write to churches, I can't help but think we are mirroring the early church quite well. We are too easily influenced by our culture. We talk about many things and do far too little of them. Some affirm the gospel but are functional moralists. Others affirm the gospel but are functional relativists. Some affirm a gospel that honors prosperity as the highest ideal. Others affirm any and every gospel that you are comfortable with. Denominations and churches wrestle over issues of sexuality, doctrine, leadership, justice and many more.  

The Bible, both OT and NT, has never been more timely than right now. I am in awe of the timeless and relevance of the scriptures, even as I read the words inspired by the Holy Spirit so many generations later. It's as if God knew what He was doing. It's as if he had a plan of some kind. It's as if he wanted to have some way of speaking with us and communicating with us. It's as if he wanted to reveal something about himself and something about us. It's as if he knew he could help.  

It is my joy to place myself under the authority of the scriptures. After all this is the book that so clearly lays out the real and true Gospel: "For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." (Titus 3:3-7) 

Our sin is met by His kindness, not because we're good, but because he is good, and we are made new by the Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection, offering us hope for a new life now and eternal life with him. That is truly good news in and of itself. It is in fact, the best news. We like to add to that gospel, like a an amendment to a bill, and in so doing we empty the gospel of it's power. 

There are other letters to other churches about other problems and if you read them, it seems we are actually too much like the early church. Maybe Paul's letter to Titus and his effort to bring order to the confusion caused in those churches in Crete has some value for you and me and the churches around us today. Tim Keller rightly says, "the gospel is not the ABC's of our faith, it's the A through Z of our faith." Rather than returning to the idea of the early church which we have constructed in our imaginations, perhaps we should instead return to the message of those who planted the early churches... the message entrusted to them by the one who is reconciling everything back to God... the transforming message of the Gospel.