All right, so today we are starting a new study in Sunday School, and of course, as you can see from the slide, we're going to be studying the little book of Titus. So if you'll turn in your Bibles, go to the New Testament, past 1st and 2nd Timothy. If you get to Hebrews, you've gone too far. And then find the little book of Titus right after 1 and 2 Timothy. Titus is three chapters long. It's 46 verses. Very small, very small little book. The theme of the book of Titus is Christians should maintain good works. The key verse would be Titus 3.8. Titus 3.8 says, I just went too far. I was in Hebrews 3.8. Sorry. Okay, yeah, this is a faithful saying and these things I will that thou affirm constantly that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men. Okay, so let's give some, today I just wanted, we may end Sunday school a little early today. I hate saying that because every time I do, I end up not, Yeah. But today I just wanted to do an introduction lesson and sort of give some background to the book so we can have some context whenever we get into this of what's going on. First of all, the author. Who wrote the book of Titus? Of course, the obvious answer is God did, exactly. Okay, the Holy Spirit inspired the author to write these words, but the actual author was the Apostle Paul. the apostle Paul who wrote the majority of the New Testament, this is one of his letters. When we say the word epistle, not apostle, epistle with the letter E in front of it, that's just a fancy word for letter. So this is one of Paul's epistles, one of Paul's letters. It's considered in the realm of his pastoral epistles, meaning these are letters that sort of line out the ministry of pastoral ministry. Why are we covering that if it's for you? All right, number one, because we cover all of the Bible, because all scripture is profitable for doctrine and for reproof and for correction and instruction and righteousness, okay? So we're gonna cover all of scripture. Even one day, we're gonna cover the uncomfortable book of Leviticus, okay? And try to not sleep our way through that, okay? So we have another reason why we will cover this book, even though it's considered a pastoral epistle, is there's a lot The first chapter, really, in Titus is two pastors. The rest of the book, chapters two and three, really are towards the church, everybody in the church, very different groups in the church. It's really interesting how he breaks it down because he talks about the young men, the older men, the younger women, the older women, and those types of things within the church. The letter was written sometime between 63 and 65 AD, okay? So, give you a timeline with Paul. The book of Acts ends with Paul's first arrest, okay? So, you remember in the book of Acts, you have Acts chapter 27, and he's on that shipwreck, and then after the shipwreck, they go to the island, he gets bit by the snake out of the fire and shakes it off, it doesn't kill him, and the people are amazed. Then they end up taking him later on all the way to Rome. And that's his first Roman imprisonment. From there, he writes a couple of letters like Philemon, Colossians, Ephesians. He eventually is released, and then somehow he gets arrested again. This is his second imprisonment. Now, in between the time of his first imprisonment and his second imprisonment, he writes 1 Timothy. And he writes Titus. So these two first letters he writes to two men that he brought up, he mentored, he discipled. he led to Jesus in the church, and he writes two letters to them while they're in their own ministry. So the first one is, of course, Timothy, in 1 Timothy, and the second one is to Titus. Then he gets arrested again, and from prison, he writes his final letter that we have in Scripture, and that is 2 Timothy. Of course, that's the where we have the verses, I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith, I have run my race, okay? So that is sort of the timeline of when Paul wrote this letter. He wrote it around 63 to 65 A.D. in between his first and second imprisonment. Of course, the second imprisonment is where Nero eventually has him beheaded and he is killed. Let's see, now who did he write it to? Of course, this is pretty obvious too. Who did he write the letter to? Titus, okay, the title of the book is the recipient of the letter, Titus. Now, it wasn't just a personal, it was addressed to Titus personally, and we'll see language in the letter that shows us this. It was intended, as was 1 and 2 Timothy, as was even the letter to Philemon, that little short letter to Philemon about accepting the slave Onesimus back. All of those were written personally to these individuals with the intentions of being read to the church openly. So Titus received this letter, saw specific instructions to himself, and then saw that this letter needed to be read and taught to the congregation there in the area that he is. So we're going to get to that in just a second. What's going on with this? Who is Titus? Who is Titus? Now this is an interesting thing. We see in Paul's first missionary journey, Paul is converted and eventually after that he receives his commission from God, from the Holy Spirit, that he is going to go to the Gentiles, to the non-Jews. So he starts taking the gospel to the non-Jews and so he goes on his first missionary journey. It's believed during this first missionary journey that he comes past Crete, or maybe some other area, and he meets Titus. Now, let me go back a little further real quick and give you a parenthetical. Acts 2 is what we call the Day of Pentecost. Jesus Christ died, rose again, spent 40 days with the disciples, and then ascended to heaven. And then they waited. They waited, was it 120 days? Or a period of time, and then the Holy Spirit came came upon the disciples, Peter stands up and he preaches to a group of people. As he's preaching to this group of people, almost 2,000 to 3,000 people get saved in that one event. So that's called the Day of Pentecost. Now we are told in the book of Acts in chapter 2 that there were people from Crete there during that time. So it's understood and believed that there were some that took the gospel back to the island of Crete. That's where Titus is whenever he receives this letter to the island of Crete. All right, so now let's bring it up to where we were just talking. Paul goes on his first missionary journey, meets Titus, Titus gets saved. Paul calls him in one of the verses here. I don't have which number. He calls him my true child and a common faith. This suggests that Titus, like Timothy, was actually led to saving faith by Paul. So he's a direct convert from Paul. In Acts 15 we have an interesting situation that happens. Acts chapter 15. You have the Jews. Think about the cultural just shell shock that took place with the Jewish culture. So you have these Jews that for thousands of years, thousands of years, have been in this sort of religious frame. Hey, Austin. Sam, you're good. Thank you. Austin can take over from there. Also, this is pretty simple. This one's pretty basic. I'm not even... Yeah, I'm there. I'm on number two. Recipient. I don't know where I'm at. So, the shell shock of the Jewish culture with now the gospel. So, you have Jews getting saved by the abundance, but what are they doing? They're pretty much just worshiping God. Nothing has really changed in their worship. They're still worshiping God like the Jews did. But then, Peter gets a message that the gospel can go to the Gentiles and Cornelius gets saved. And then all of a sudden it starts breaking wide open and you have more Gentiles and more Greeks and more Romans starting to get saved. And these heathens are now coming to worship. And they're not doing what we Jews do in the temple. And there's tension. There's problems. To where a group of Jews get up and say, we just need to kick them out. I mean this is a serious situation because this is right at the start of the church. And you have people that are both believers at such odds with each other they don't even want to stay in the same room with each other. So they hold what's called now by scholars the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. So you have on one side Peter. pretty famous guy, right? I mean, if he was around today, he would be the Christian celebrity. Peter. And next to Peter, you had sort of the pastor in Jerusalem, which was James. So Peter and James, that are sort of leading this sort of campaign of, we need to have separate church for the Gentiles and separate church for the Jews. We need to segregate. They invite, at this time, Paul has already established himself in the church. Paul comes to defend the fact, because this is who Paul's been working with. This is Paul's people. Paul's a Jew among Jews. He was the guy that was going around killing the new Christians for the Jewish cause. But now he is the apostle to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles are his people. That's who he spends all of his time with now, because that's who he's ministering to. So, Paul comes to represent the Gentiles, and Paul brings along with him couple of others, and along with him he brings a guy named Titus. He brings Titus along to show that even though somebody is a Gentile and is not following the Jewish customs or the Jewish laws, can still be a Christian and be in right standing with God. So they have this, in fact in Galatians, let me just read Galatians 2-3 where he refers to this situation, Paul does. Galatians 2 verse number 3 says, and I went up by revelation and communicated unto them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run or had run in vain. Verse 3, but neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised, and that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privately to spy out our liberty. See, what they were saying was, is, okay, you're saved, you accept Jesus Christ, but you need to start following what we teach in the Jewish temple. I mean, and these guys were like, slow down there on your circumcision horse, guys. I mean, they didn't want to do it. And so they had this issue. And so Paul brings Titus to show that this was not a necessary thing. So you have Titus involved here. As Paul has gone through a couple missionary journeys and set churches up, you had a situation happen in the church of Corinth. Now, you know the church of Corinth. Have you ever seen a sign that's called Corinth Baptist Church? Why? Why would they call their church Corinth Baptist Church? That's the worst church in the Bible. I mean, this is the church that had a situation where Paul had to write a letter to them and say, you've got one guy walking around in the church who's having an open sexual relationship with his mother-in-law. Or not his mother-in-law. What was it? Stepmom. It was his stepmom. And you're not doing anything about it. And he land blasted him. And he says, listen, I'm not there yet. I'm coming. But you need to go ahead and take care of this before I get there. I mean, he was pretty strong about it. This was the church that he just let him have it. He called him a carnal church. So I'm pretty glad when you guys started this church, you did not pick Corinth Baptist Church, OK? So Paul is working with this church at Corinth. And he writes that letter. He sends Titus later to go check on him. He talks about this in 2 Corinthians. Let me turn to 2 Corinthians and show you a little bit more about Titus. 2 Corinthians 2. 2 Corinthians 2.12 and 13 says, Again, I'm in the wrong book. I'm in 1 Corinthians. Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord, I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother, but taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia. There he talks about how Titus was a close companion of his, and he needed him there for encouragement. Then in chapter 7, verse number 13, he mentions Titus again. What he's saying to him is he's right. There's understood that there was a third letter to the Corinthian church that we don't have. And that's okay, because if God wanted us to have it, we would have had it. But the second Corinthian letter is understood to be the third letter that was actually sent to this church. So Paul sends Titus there. He trusted Titus at this point so much that he was alright with Titus to go and stand in for Paul to help them with these issues. And then Titus, this is how much of a drastic situation this church went through. Titus comes back and gives a good report, and Paul is telling them he was refreshed by Titus' report. In chapter 8, verse 23, whether any do inquire of Titus, he is my partner and fellow helper concerning you, or our brethren be inquired of. They are the messengers of the church and the glory of Christ. He held Titus. and a high esteem. So, what happens next with this timeline of Paul and relationship with Titus? Brother Steve did a great job going through the book of Acts on Wednesday night, two years ago. I don't know, time just runs together now. But he talked about how Paul sort of broke that. They arrested him wrongly, but anyways, he ended up having to go to Rome. They put him on a ship like we just referred to. While they're going through that ship, they're in the ship trying to get to Rome, they stop off in a place. In fact, go to Acts 27. I want to show you this. Acts 27, verse number 2. Paul is under arrest on this boat. He's under arrest. He says in chapter 27, verse number 1, So here's what he's saying. Paul was a prisoner. And then whenever they got to Italy, he was then put under this guy named, a centurion named Augustus. So now Augustus's responsibility is Paul as a prisoner. Paul as a prisoner getting to Rome is now Augustus's responsibility. If that doesn't happen, it's on Augustus's head. He is like the Roman soldier that's charged with keeping this prisoner. Verse 2, and entering into a ship of Adriminium we launched, meaning to sail by the coast of Asia, one Aristarchus, a Macedonian of Thessalonica, being with us. And the next day we touched Sidon, and Julius," watch this, "...courteously entreated Paul and gave him liberty to go unto his friends to refresh himself." Apparently Paul had made such an impact with his Christian character on this Roman Saturnian that he felt confident enough when they docked at some of these little places that Paul had already been with the gospel on his missionary journey and set churches up, to let Paul go check with his friends in the church and he was confident that Paul would return as his obligation as a prisoner and not take off. Isn't that amazing? that Paul had such the Christian character that that guard felt the confidence to trust him with that. So later on, if you read through the chapter, you find out that on their journey through the sea, because of storms and different things, they stop in Crete. And I think it's entirely possible and plausible to think that Paul probably was given leave to go check on the churches in Crete. Remember those churches that most likely were started from the day of Pentecost and asked when those Cretans were there and got the gospel and were converted. And so Paul goes through there, he ends up going to Rome and I think, and this is not just me, many that have studied this, think that churches, when Paul saw the churches in Crete, they were in a bad shape. So Paul decided to ask his convert Titus to go to Crete and help the churches in Crete. Austin, if you would hit the next slide. All right. This is not a biblical times map. This is a modern-day map. I don't have the laser pointer. But, yes, it's not up here. Turkey, there's Greece, Athens, that's Crete. That little island of Crete is where Titus was sent to become the pastor, and watch over these churches. While Timothy was laboring in metropolitan Ephesus, Titus had his hands full on the island of Crete. Titus was a Greek believer. When we look at the letters of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, these pastoral epistles, you see that Paul is writing instructions to the pastor at the church of Ephesus, which was Timothy, that's where he was pastoring, and pastor of Crete there on the island. Though Newt Larson said in his commentary, though written specifically to Titus, the letter was intended to be read before the gathered church. The church probably consisted of several house churches throughout the major cities of Crete. The setting, what's this island like? What is Crete like? Crete is a fertile agricultural island located south of Greece in the southern Aegean Sea. Ethnically, Cretans were linked to ancient Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations. I like that term Cretan. That's actually a term that's used later on in the book of Titus. I said that to Mary, and Mary was like, sounds like an alien race, Cretans. Sounds like something you find in a book or something or a movie. The island is some 160 miles long, and get this, varies in width from seven to 35 miles wide. Not very wide. Because of its strategic location, Crete had long been exposed to Greek and Roman civilizations. All right, so that is the background to the book of Titus. What is the message of the book of Titus? What's the message? The letter to Titus is much like Paul's two letters to Timothy and was written for much the same purpose, to encourage and strengthen a young pastor whom he has discipled. This letter was designed to instruct Titus, to instruct the other elders on Crete who ministered under his leadership, and to instruct members in the various congregations. I mean, think about it. You have people who are converted at the Day of Pentecost, decide to go back to their island and share the gospel, more get saved, and then they start churches. What do you think a few churches run by just new converts would look like. Okay? Let me give you a practical illustration of this. What would a daycare be like with no workers? You laugh. Why? Because you have just a bunch of babies and toddlers just running around creating chaos, right? That's what it would be like in these churches. when you have just new converts running the show. Because that's what they're referred to sometimes in Scripture as infants, babes, and Christ. And even it refers to later as getting off the milk like a baby and getting onto the meat. But you have the whole thing and Paul gets off in Crete probably in Acts 27 and realizes, okay, they need some help. And so he sends Titus there. Now there is a difference. When you read 1 and 2 Timothy, you find some things out about Timothy. Timothy was a mild man. He also suffered from a lot of health issues, a lot of sickness, some different things. Paul had to encourage him some to strengthen up, to be bold. We don't get that in Titus. So I don't think Titus struggled with those things. Titus was different than Timothy. Titus is an evangelistic letter whose ultimate purpose was to prepare the church for more effective witness to unbelievers on the island of Crete. Okay, so the next slide I have is just an outline of what we're going to follow in this series. Okay, so first in chapter one you have church organization broke down. you have church organization, chapter 1. So, if I gotta get back over there, you're probably into the book of Titus. What I want to do this morning, since it's only 46 verses, is let's read the book of Titus. Chapter one, church organization, we see the preach God's word, ordain qualified elders, and then silence false teachers. So this would be the instruction to elders. Okay, I know I'm younger than 90% of you in here, but biblically I'm considered an elder, okay. That's what you have voted for me in the past and appointed me as an elder of this church. Brother Steve is an elder, okay? So this is the message to them. Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness. And hope of eternal life which God that cannot lie promised before the world began. but hath in due times manifested his word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Savior, to Titus, mine own son after the common faith. Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior. For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee." If any being blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly. For a bishop must be blameless as the steward of God, not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre, but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, tiberate." holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able to, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, especially they of the circumcision." Who's that? He's talking about the Jews. whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake. One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, quote, The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. Just letting them have it, I guess. Stinking cretins. This witness is true. Wherefore, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men that turn from the truth. Unto the pure all things are pure. but unto them that are defiled, and unbelieving is nothing pure. But even their mind and conscience is defiled. They profess that they know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate." Now, when we cover Chapter 1, there's a lot of words, especially in the King James English, that probably are not used today. We will break those down. We're going to explain those. And in the list of elder qualifications, pastor qualifications, we'll explain those, what they mean, and what should be expected of a pastor or elder. But I think the thing to point out right here is just the strong language. This is not the... Of course, this is the same apostle that wrote 1 Corinthians 13 on love. But he was telling Titus, I mean, what message do you get from Paul and his instructions to Titus about the church? The church is not a free for all for sin. It's a church full of sinners, most definitely. But the church that must be guarded by sin, to help those, not to just let it abound like the world. Then if that's the case, what's the difference between the world and the church? So, then we're going to cover chapter 2. Chapter 1, church organization. Chapter 2 is Christian obligation, which is chapters 2 and 3. That's basically the rest of the book. So, we'll see in chapter 2, older saints, instructions to older saints, instructions to younger saints, and then the teaching of Christian slaves. So, let's read chapter 2. But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine. that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, and in patience. The aged women likewise that they be in behavior as becometh holiness." Not false accusers. not given to much wine, teachers of good things, that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, and that the word of God be not blasphemed. Now he moves on to the third phase. Young men, likewise, exhort to be sober-minded in all things, showing thyself a pattern of good works, and doctrines showing uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech, that cannot be condemned, that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you. Exhort servants. Now this word servants, I have in the notes Christian slaves. Let me say this, and this is not just on the King James Version. It's hard to find a translation that will translate this word correctly. This word that is used here is the word doulos. Doulos in the Greek is a slave. Now, there is another word in the Greek for servant. You know what that word is? Diakonos. It means servant. We transliterate that. English translators have transliterate as a fancy word that just means they take a word in the original language, tweak it a little bit, and just make a new word in the English language. So, English translators transliterated diakonos and came up with a new word called deacon. for servant. The word for servant in the Greek is diakonos. The word for slave in the Greek is doulos. But in English translations they tend many times to translate the slave word for a servant. Or sometimes you'll see it this way, a bond servant. Even today's English translations, where they try to get things better, and that's just a few. I mean, the majority of new translations today are terrible. But they even try to get better, but still, they do. In fact, I can't say this for the King James, because their translators are not around to answer questions about it. But words have—insight has come down through the grapevine and asked why will translations like the ESV or the New American Standard not translate this as slave? And what happens is, a lot of times, is this is how a translation is done today. First, a publisher wants to get a new translation. So then they go through the work and fund the entire thing. They get the translation team, the scholars, everybody that's qualified, and they put them together. And so then you have a group of a lot of men that are qualified that come together to put a translation together, and they do the work. And what happens is, is a lot of times you have these scholars who stay faithful to the text to try to do it right. And then they put out their product, but then the product has to be reviewed. And so a lot of times publishers will have, and they don't do it a lot, but they have veto decisions. Because they want to get an English translation out there, but what is their bottom line? It's money. And so what happens is a lot of translations, this has been talked about in some of the seminary world with some of these guys that have complained about this to some of the guys that's been on the translation committees and they say, we've tried, but when it comes down to it, the publishers don't want the cultural, what do you call it, that goes with the cultural animosity that goes with the word slave. So they always change it. because of just the context that that has in our culture. So they change it to a servant to be less offensive. Now, does that make your blood boil? It should. It makes mine. It's just the world we live in. Now, I don't know why the King James translators did it. I'm not going to attach that reason to them, because most... I mean, quite honestly, they didn't give a flip about slaves during that time period. Okay? But the fact of the matter is... Now, I'll say this. Just recently... How many of you have ever heard of the HCSB? It's called the Holman Christian Standard Bible. The Holman Christian Standard Bible just released a new edition of theirs. It's sort of an update or a revision of their translation and they dropped the H. I asked my buddy, I said, why did they drop the H? Now, if you go to the bookstores or anything, it's CSB, which is Christian Standard Bible. I said, why did they drop the H? He said, because four-letter translation, you can't sell them. I was like, what? He said, well, KJV, NIV, those are the best sellers. So you got to drop that fourth letter so you can get them sold. I was like, you're an idiot. He just made that up off the top of his head, but I thought it was pretty funny. So now it's the CSB. The CSB, from what I've seen so far, I haven't done a strict study, they do translate it slave. You say, why are you making such a big deal about this? Because I think it's important to understand that what you are in Christ And what you were when you were not in Christ. When you weren't in Christ, you were a slave to the devil. You were a slave to sin. Now that you are in Christ, you are a slave to Christ. You belong to Him. Okay? Where did we leave off? Verse 9, verse 9, "...exhort servants or slaves to be obedient unto their masters, and to please them well in all things, not answering again, not purloining, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things." For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee." All right, my mouth's drying out. Hold on just a second. So then we move to chapter 3. In chapter 3, I don't know if you can read it, sorry, Christians as citizens is dealt in chapter 3, problem people, problem people, this is handling discipline in the church. We have a little, not a, this is not a big blueprint to go by in Titus. He just gives a couple verses of sort of an add-on of dealing, it might have been, it got back to Paul. a specific situation. So Paul was writing a specific sort of few lines to Timothy to know how to handle this situation. But problem people and then he writes his conclusion, which is normal for a letter. I mean even today in a letter you have a greeting and you have an ending. And so that's what we have in Paul's letters, all of them. So chapter 3, let's read that. Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man." Even Democratic candidates for president. Sorry, that's not in there. Sorry, that's not in there. All right, verse 2. To speak evil of no man to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness unto all men. For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lust and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But after that, the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy. He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by His grace we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying. And these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men. Now he talks about this little uncomfortable issue of discipline. But avoid foolish questions. What? How do you avoid foolish questions? You ever heard the teacher's phrase, there are no stupid questions? I don't know what to think about that. Okay, and avoid foolish questions and genealogies and contentions and striving about the law for they are unprofitable and vain. A man that is an heretic after the first, second admonition, reject. So, what is the process that he gives? And this is... What's specific about this? It's not just anything. It's somebody that's trying to lead people within the congregation astray. That's teaching something that's false doctrine. And he says, how do you handle them? Well, you give them one warning, and then you give them a second warning. And if that doesn't help, you get rid of them. Kick them out. We don't like to talk about that in today's culture, right? But this is what Scripture tells us. Verse 11. Knowing that he is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself. And so then we get the greeting, or the ending, sorry the conclusion. Bring Zenos, the lawyer, and Apollos on their journey diligently, that nothing be wanting unto them. And let ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that they be not unfruitful. All that are with me, salute thee. Great them that love us in the faith, grace be with you all. Amen. And so that's the book of Titus. And so next week we will jump in and we're going to cover verses 1 through 4 and the greeting. And so there's a lot of interesting things. Funny, when Paul starts a letter off, he just packs it with doctrine. It's like, let me give you a theology lesson in my greeting. And so we're gonna go through that. We're gonna start breaking that down next week. So let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for all that you've done for us. You are a wonderful Lord, and we are grateful for Paul's life, for his testimony, for his service to you. We are thankful for Titus and his service for you. And we're thankful that 2,000 years later, as these men were working in their specific ministry situations, dealing with specific people and specific problems, You gave them something by the Holy Spirit that has stood the test of time that now, here in 2019, we can learn from and grow closer to you because of it. We ask that everything that is done this morning's service glorifies your name. We love you and give you praise in Jesus' name. Amen.