Galatians 2:1-5
Not compelled to be circumcised
He goes up to Jerusalem with Paul and Barnabas as a living question. The answer is given by what is not done to him.
People of the Bible
Titus
Was the test case for whether a Greek had to become a Jew first, and the answer was no.
He is a Greek, uncircumcised, and Paul takes him to Jerusalem precisely because of it. The visit is the one described in Galatians, where false brethren come in privily to spy out the liberty of the church, and the pressure is to have Titus circumcised as a condition of fellowship. Paul writes that they gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour. A man standing in a room while other men argue about his body is an uncomfortable way to enter Scripture, and it is how he enters it.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Titus
- 01
- 02
2 Corinthians 7:5-7
God comforted us by the coming of Titus
Paul has no rest in Macedonia until the messenger arrives. The comfort is secondhand and he says so.
- 03
2 Corinthians 8:16-23
Of his own accord he went unto you
He is put in charge of a collection with a second brother sent alongside, providing for honest things in the sight of men as well as of the Lord.
- 04
Titus 1:5
That thou shouldest set in order
Left in Crete to finish what was unfinished and to ordain elders in every city. The letter is a job description more than a theology.
Why it matters
After that he is the one sent where things have gone wrong. Corinth is the hard case, and the letters record Paul waiting for news with no rest in his spirit until Titus arrives with it, and then being comforted by the comfort with which Titus himself had been comforted. He is trusted with the collection for Jerusalem, which is money, and with Crete, where the letter to him is about appointing elders in every city and about conduct rather than argument.
1 song
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
