It’s a constant challenge to find what God is saying to our congregation through any Bible passage, especially when our cultural norms are different. Alistair McKitterick suggests that we need to be unswerving in our faithfulness to the text but also wise to how it is heard in our day as we seek to develop model citizens.
In 2018, the controversial psychologist and author Jordan Peterson published 12 Rules for Life: an Antidote to Chaos.1 This self-help book taught young men especially how to resist the hedonism and chaos of their lives and instead get through each day with increasing integrity.
Peter Hitchens said he thought the book appealed to young men brought up ‘in the post-Christian West’ who ‘cannot work out how to behave correctly towards modern young women.’2 The book offered ways of living that might lead to fulfilment even through suffering and habits that embody simple, traditional western values, such as discipline and self-control.
In a similar way, the ‘pastoral’ letter to Titus presents Paul as an archetypal Peterson, challenging corrupt ideology and cultural influencers of his day and encouraging Christians to live virtuous, godly lives. Paul instructs Titus to challenge head-on the ideologues’ meaningless garbage, and instead to teach the Christian community to be moderate, pure, self controlled and respectful of authority. They are to showcase what faithful Christianity looks like in a pagan world.
Model Citizens
The context of Titus is his temporary ministry on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea (1:5; 3:12). The threat to the fledgling Christian communities there came from members of the circumcision group (1:10) wanting them to adopt Jewish cultural practices and believe gnostic myths.3 This toxic combination could force Christians to separate from normal society and would ruin entire households by destroying ‘the social fibre of Christian community’.4
