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00:00How are you, dear friends?
00:29Hello dear brothers and sisters! Welcome back to the Active Evangelization virtual classroom for this interesting course on the Pauline epistles. We are looking at the letters of Saint Paul to his disciples. We are talking about the Pastoral Epistles. Well, we have already finished the first two Pastoral Epistles, which are those to Timothy, First and Second. And we are now going to talk about the letter that the apostle wrote to Titus.
00:55And briefly we will say on the subject of the author and the date that the data again point to the fact that, as we have already said previously in the study of the letters preceding Timothy, the author would therefore be Saint Paul himself.
01:12We already saw all of this in the introduction to the pastoral letters and we saw all the references to why we, in our study, is a study that we have based, as I said in our previous class, not on doing a critical analysis looking for the why not, but rather a critical analysis looking for the why yes.
01:32Trying rather to validate what the holy fathers believed during the first seven centuries and not what in recent years, focused more on a rationalist vision, have come to deconstruct.
01:47So, based on all this, we continue to believe that these letters were written by the apostle Paul, although as I mentioned, and as has been told to me, very possibly with some revisions and additions by some of his disciples who later, with the letter already written, developed the different manuscripts that finally reach us as the canonical version of these letters, right?
02:14As for the date of composition, most scholars who accept the authority of Saint Paul, right?, this must be said, right?, admit that this letter must have been written between the year 62 and 64, that is, having already left prison, the first prison in Rome, that is, while Paul was evangelizing the churches of Macedonia between his first and second imprisonment.
02:43Which could have happened either from Corinth or from Nicopolis, right?
02:49It is very likely that Titus served on both the second and third missionary journeys, and that this encouraged Paul to write him this letter later on.
03:03Titus, like Timothy, had become a beloved disciple of St. Paul and a collaborator in the Gospel, as he clearly states in his second letter to the Corinthians.
03:15The last mention we have of this disciple by Paul is in 2 Timothy, chapter 4, where he reports that he had gone to work apostolically in Dalmatia, the former Yugoslavia.
03:30It is very possible that this letter was delivered by Ceneas or perhaps by Apollo, as he mentions or makes a reference to this in chapter 3.
03:41So, this is more or less the story of where, when, and who wrote the letter.
03:51As for the motivation, the purpose of writing this letter, although Luke did not mention Titus by name in the book of Acts, it seems likely that Titus, a Gentile, as presented in Galatians 2:3, knew Paul and could have been brought to faith in Christ by Paul, before or during the apostle's first missionary journey.
04:18Later, Titus evangelized for a period of time with Paul on the island of Crete and was left there to continue and strengthen the work.
04:29After Artemas and Otychicus arrived to lead the church there, Paul wanted Titus to join him in the city of Nicopolis, in the province of Achaia, Greece, and stay with him throughout the winter, as he mentions in his letter in this chapter 3.
04:46Because of his connection to the church in Corinth, during Paul's third missionary journey, Titus is mentioned nine times in 2 Corinthians, where Paul refers to him as my brother Titus, my partner and collaborator.
05:03This meant that Paul's disciple was already familiar with the Judaizers, his false teachers in the church, who, among other things, as we have already discussed and seen, insisted that all Christians, Gentiles as well as Jews, were under the authority of the Mosaic law and therefore had to be circumcised.
05:26Titus, having accompanied Paul and Barnabas years before to the Council of Jerusalem, had full knowledge of this heresy and therefore knew very well what the church had thought about this matter.
05:38Therefore, it was easy for Paul to entrust him with staying to fight the heresy, knowing that he had already assimilated and was very clear on this issue that had to be continually combated by the Judaizers.
05:56As regards the place of Titus' ministry, the references in Holy Scripture place it in Crete, one of the largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea.
06:07It measured about 256 kilometers long by about 56 kilometers at its widest point.
06:14This island is located in the southern Aegean Sea and had been briefly visited by Paul on his journey to Rome, as already recounted in the book of Acts of the Apostles.
06:24A little later, he returned there to continue the apostolic work and then left Titus to continue the work in a manner similar to how he left Timothy in Ephesus, while he went to Macedonia.
06:40It is very likely that Paul wrote this letter in response to a letter from Titus or to a report from Crete of which we have no knowledge.
06:50However, the way Paul writes it seems more like he is responding to a letter either written directly by Timothy or probably written by someone from Crete, in which he points out all the particularities of what is happening there.
07:09Let's look at some of the theological themes in the letters.
07:14I remind you again that as such they are not properly theological topics.
07:20Remember that these are letters.
07:22So they deal more with particular issues of the communities than with large treaties.
07:28Actually, the great treatises are more in Corinthians, Romans, and Galatians, but they are letters.
07:38So it's important because otherwise, well, what happened to theology and everything else we do based on the elements that Saint Paul proposes?
07:47And obviously, by combining all the other elements of Sacred Scripture.
07:53Just as in Paul's two letters to Timothy, in this one the apostle gives encouragement and personal advice to a young pastor, who, although well-trained and faithful, faced continuous opposition from ungodly men within the church where he carried out his apostolic work.
08:13In contrast to several of Paul's other letters, such as those to the churches of Rome and Galatia, as I mentioned a moment ago, the letter to Titus does not focus on explaining or defending doctrine.
08:26Paul had complete confidence in Titus's understanding and theological convictions to demonstrate that he could carry out the demanding ministry he had entrusted to him.
08:41With the exception of the warning about false teachers and Judaizers, the letter does not provide theological correction, and may therefore be a strong indicator that Paul also had confidence in the doctrinal preparation of most of the church members there, despite the fact that most of them were new believers.
09:02Some of the doctrinal themes included in the letter could be summarized as follows.
09:10It would be God's sovereign choice, the choice of believers. God has chosen us.
09:16Another important theme that appears there would be saving grace, that is, it is grace that saves us.
09:22A third element that we could also develop would be the deity and the second coming of Christ, which is very clear in chapter 2.
09:32Also in chapter 2 comes the substitutionary atonement of Christ, that is, Christ substituted himself for us.
09:39We would deserve death, and Christ comes and takes our place. That is why it is called the substitutionary death of Christ.
09:48Christ takes our place, and it is we who must die. He is the one who dies. And this is made clear in chapter 2.
09:55In chapter 3 he talks about the regeneration or renewal of believers by the Holy Spirit.
10:01And well, to expand a little on what we just said, God and Christ are regularly referred to as the Savior,
10:10which is so emphasized in chapter 2 of God's plan, indicating that the main focus of the epistle is to prepare the churches of Crete for effective evangelism.
10:27And this seems interesting to me because we need our evangelization to not only be evangelization, but to be effective, that is, to produce conversion, understanding, and internalization.
10:44And let it be clear, this vision of Christ, because it facilitates a personal acceptance of the Christian.
10:54From the person to Christ so that he can truly become an authentic Christian.
11:02This preparation required godly leaders who would not only shepherd the believers, but also prepare those Christians to evangelize their pagan neighbors.
11:15As we said in the previous letter, Paul said, now prepare people who can in turn prepare others.
11:24So the church in Crete had to be well prepared so that they could now also evangelize their pagan neighbors.
11:32who had been characterized by one of their own compatriots as liars, evil, beasts, gluttons, idlers.
11:42To win an audience for the gospel among such people, the primary preparation of believers for a gospel-based life,
11:52It was to live among themselves with an irreproachable testimony and a just, loving, selfless and pious life.
12:02This is clearly stated in chapter 2, in stark contrast to the unrestrained life of the false teachers.
12:12How they conducted themselves in relation to government authorities and unbelievers as well,
12:19A good testimony was crucial for them.
12:23And this always applies.
12:25If we don't have a good testimony, brothers, what are we going to say?
12:31People don't believe us.
12:33In other words, because we, like the people Titus had to evangelize there among the Cretans,
12:40Well, that's the reality of our communities now.
12:43That is why we also need to pay attention, especially to this second chapter of the letter to Titus,
12:49because it refers us to all these important elements.
12:53Okay, let's pause for a moment to rest and for our review of the topic
13:01And we'll be back in a moment with our next capsule.
13:04Until then.
13:23Thank you.
13:24Thank you.
13:25Thank you.
13:26Thank you.