Epistle to Titus

The Epistle to Titus - is one of the epistles of the New Testament. It is part of so-called pastoral epistles, one of the pauline epistles, the group of epistles written by the Apostle Paul.

Authorship
The Pastoral Epistles were possibly written during the end of life of the apostle Paul. Some controversy exists regarding the authorship of the pastoral epistles. Some scholars think that the heresies attacked in books reflect a period subsequent to the apostolic age. But some of them admit the authorship of Paul in such passages as and. However, the same style characteristics of these passages appear in the rest. Evidence of the Church Fathers in favor of Pauline authorship is very strong and conclusive: Clement, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Theophilus and the Muratorian canon. Despite all the attacks, there remains a complete absence of any positive external evidence against Pauline authorship, while the number of personal references in the pastoral letters sound in a different genuine way.

Structure
a. Address and Greetings to Titus (1:1-4)

b. Instructions to Titus (1:5—3:11)
 * i. Qualifications of elders/bishops on crete (1:5—8)


 * ii. Duty of supervisors to counter and rebuke false teachers (1:9-16)


 * iii.Duty of the supervisors regarding their congregations (2:1-10)


 * iv. Preach about God's grace and salvation; Duty of the supervisors in the face of Christ's Return (2:11-15)


 * v. Christian conduct in relation to the pagan world (3:1-8a)


 * vi. Insist that believers do good works; ideal Christian behavior must be demonstrated in the works.(3:8b-11)

c. Concluding instructions, greetings, and prayer (3:12-15)

Commentary
This epistle along with the epistles of Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Phylemon and the other two pastoral epistles, is one of the seven epistles of Paul called "the prison epistles", since they were written while Paul was imprisoned.