Crete

Crete, Summer

I love to travel.  For me, it gives a greater sense of the grandeur of God's creation.  More than that, though, it helps me process how very grand He is through His workings in people's lives, and how small I am, in comparison.  This held true in my recent trip to Israel, to my 2015 trip to Peru and, I imagine, should I be granted the privilege of traveling further, it will hold true wherever He leads me.

One of the places I would enjoy seeing is the Greek islands, for the sheer beauty and culture of the place.  That was not the primary reason I visited Israel two months ago, yet I was stunned by both in that beautiful land.

I mention my desire to visit Greece because Crete is the setting of the book of Titus, which we have begun to explore together.  Crete is the largest of the Greek islands, and the fifth-largest island in the beautiful Mediterranean Sea.  From 2700-1400 B.C., Crete was the center of the Minoan civilization, the earliest known civilization in Europe.1

What was Crete like in the first century A.D., though?
In his commentary Ellicott describes the culture as highly diverse, with a strange blending of both races and religions.  The primary ethnic group was Gentile; Jews were a small minority.  There was a great deal of idol worship, as Crete was deemed the "birthplace of Zeus".  The newly-formed Christian church there was large and lively, but plagued with disorder, confusion and excessively carnal behavior.  Tradition holds that Titus ministered on this island, to these churches, for the rest of his long life.  He was not a flashy New Testament character.  He simply fulfilled his calling with humility and faithfulness.  Because of this, Christianity gained a strong foothold in the region.

Do you love to organize?  I don't LOVE it, but must admit it brings a certain satisfaction.  Now, my younger son . . . he LOVES to organize!  (Honestly, if he did not look like me and I remembered - - for sure - - how I birthed him, I'd question if he were mine...)  My younger one is a beginning accountant.  He loves to see those numbers line up obediently.  Even here at home, he is very organized.  His bedroom and adjacent areas are "neat as a pin" on a regular basis.  There are even times when he gets perturbed with disorganization in other parts of the house and sets those in order.

I imagine Titus must have been a gifted organizer, a talented administrator, in addition to his other spiritual gifts.  Perhaps this explains why Paul chose him for the task of leading the highly-disorganized church of Crete.

Let's now begin to examine how this overhaul took place.  Paul helped Titus with the first step:
to define the problem.

10For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, 11who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain. 12One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” 13This testimony is true. For this reason reprove them severely so that they may be sound in the faith, 14not paying attention to Jewish myths and commandments of men who turn away from the truth. 15To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.16They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.

Every municipality has some sort of "reputation", whether good or bad...and it is usually a mixture of both.  According to Paul's understanding of "common knowledge", it was widely known that the Cretan people were colossal liars.  Maybe this is because they loved a "tall tale" and to exaggerate the truth.  Maybe it was because they merely believed that "the end justified the means" - - that lying was justified to achieve their personal desires.  The Cretans were also "famous" for being lazy, gluttonous and just plain "evil".  Well then!  Not a pleasant bunch of characteristics.

Keep in mind this was a generalized description of the people as a whole, not necessarily the young Cretan church.  However, we cannot help but be somewhat influenced by our surrounding culture, and it is plain that some of these behaviors had bled over into the local church to the point that Paul saw a need for severe correction ("reprove them severely").

However, the carnal behavior of the native peoples was only one facet of the problem facing this young church.  The other facet was the false teaching of the Judaizers.  These folks were not only stirring up problems in Crete.  We find Judaizers at work all through the New Testament, and in the next post we are going to explore who these men were and why they were so zealous.

Sources:

1    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crete

2    http://biblehub.com/commentaries/ellicott/titus/1.htm