Paul greets Titus
1I, Paul, am a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. God has chosen people to belong to Him and He has sent me to help them so that their faith in God can grow and so that they will know the truth and serve God. 2If we believe in God, we know that He will give us eternal_life because God promised this to us before time started, and God does not lie. 3God our Saviour sent his message at the right time and He said I must tell it to everyone. 4I, Paul, write this letter to you, Titus. You are like my own child, because you came to believe through me. I pray that God the Father and Christ Jesus our Saviour will give their grace and peace to you.
The work that Titus must do on the Island of Crete
5I asked you to stay on the Island of Crete so that you could do all the things that I did not do. You must also choose elders in each town and tell them what they must do, as I told you. 6An elder must be a good man, he must have only one wife and his children must believe in God. His children must listen to their parents and they must not live just as they want to. 7An elder works for God. He must live as God says so that there is nothing bad that people can say about him. He must not think he is better than other people, he must not become angry, he must not drink too much wine, he must not like to fight, and he must not always want to have more and more money and things.
8No, an elder must be good to strangers, he must love doing good things, he must know how to live in the right way, he must do what is right, he must serve God and please Him, and he must not become angry quickly. 9An elder must not stop believing the message of God that is true, which the apostles have taught him. Then he will be able to help people and encourage them and tell them when they are wrong.
Titus must beware of people who say bad things
10There are many people who do not want to listen to anyone. They talk about things that are worthless and they want people to believe their false stories. Some of them are Jews who now believe in Christ, but they want people to keep all the Jewish laws. 11You must stop them from teaching those things that are wrong because they break down the faith of families who believe in Christ. They are not honest and they do these things to get money from people. 12One of the teachers of Crete said:
‘The people of Crete always tell lies.
They are like dangerous animals.
They always want to eat and never want to work.’
13What that man said is true. So tell those people that they are wrong. Do it so that they can believe the true message of God. 14They must stop listening to false stories that the Jews teach. They must also stop listening to other people who tell them things that are not_true. Those people do not want to listen to the truth.
15Everything is pure for people who serve God. But if you are full of sin and don't believe in Christ, then the laws that try to make you better can not make you pure, and you will always be full of sin. Therefore, these people can not think right. They do not know what is right or wrong, because sin has made them impure. 16They tell everyone that they know God, but the things they do show that they do not love God. God is very angry with those people because they do not listen to Him. They can never do anything that is good.
