The Messiah’s
Secret - Church of England Today in UK
Salt and Light
Jesus spoke of his followers being salt and light. “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt had lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid.” Matthew 5: 13, 14.
Christian Titus Salt reflected his name’s sake Titus the Greek, he was generous and devout, the salt of the earth, an honest principled man with spiritual integrity. He used his wealth not just to build lots of mills, I believe he thought of the needs of his workforce.
Titus Salt built a town ‘Saltaire’ for his 3,500 workforce. The houses had fresh water, gas lighting and heating and every house had its own outside lavatory. It had its own park, church, school, hospital, library and a whole range of different shops, but he never built a pub,. He was not a Methodist, he was a Congregationalist.
Salt –purifies and preserves.
Light – searches the heart and gives direction.
Titus (Greek means) ‘Honoured’ or title of honour’ which is very fitting for this disciple.
We first hear about Titus in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, Titus accompanied Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem where they gave an account to the Apostles of the Gentiles receiving the Gospel message. Titus no doubt witnessed his conversion to those gathered at Jerusalem. Galatians 2:1-3, 5.
Titus was one of a number of disciples who Paul chose to be messengers between the churches. Stephanas, Fortunatus, Archicus and Timothy and several more.
Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church
In Paul's letter to the Christians at Corinth we read about the problems: Jewish Christians insisting on Gentiles becoming Jews, also some followed the individual leaders who baptised them. Pagan practices continued: incest and taking each other to court, all kinds of problems. The church in danger of disintegrating, it’s light going out.
Paul sent Timothy with his first letter to Corinth; pouring salt into the wound, his every word seasoned with salt making it clear that their behaviour did not comply with Jesus’ teaching. Paul states that there was no love between them, he goes on to describe the love of God and how it is worked out in practice. However, it made no difference to their situation 1 Corinthians 13:1, 2.
Eyre and Spottiswoode RSV Bible
In the concordance it states concerning this situation at Corinth, “Paul made a visit to Corinth hoping to settle the controversy; he met with defeat. Paul sent a another letter in stern and severe terms to Corinth by Titus.” This letter is not in the New Testament. 2 Corinthians was written after these problems had been resolved.
Titus’ delivered Paul’s stern and severe letter and stayed with the church at Corinth, he was salt and light by helping them to sort out their problems, subsequently, he reported back to Paul the good news that the church had repented and acknowledged Paul’s teaching. It was very important to the Gentiles that Paul's teaching was accepted. We understand that they had repented making peace with their fellow Christians, an amazing turn around. We read about it in 2 Corinthians 7: 6-16.
Paul wrote in response in 2 Corinthians 4: 5, 6. “For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ, who is the likeness of God. For it is the God who said, “ Let the light shine out of darkness,” The light Jesus’ presence shining out of the darkness of the world.
v 6 Jesus, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
After we heard or read about Jesus and asked him into our heart, his presence was realised, we know the gospels are telling the truth, Jesus did send the Holy Spirit into the world, so all that we can do is to thank the Lord for bringing us from the darkness of this world into his marvellous light.
Church of England Today in the UK
In Paul’s
letter to Titus he gave instructions that the Cretan Christians should submit
to authorities both in the church and governments. Many people today like the
Cretan church submit to the authority of the church, but underlying that there
are Christians who are suffering and need our love and understanding over woman Bishops.
Most of us Anglicans who supported the
ordination of women were pleased when 20 years
ago the church appointed ‘Flying Bishops’ to help Vicars and lay people work together to find a way through their problem
of accepting women in the vocation of the priesthood by being listened to and the
ongoing discussions that took place.
Should the
church be complacent now were people are hurting over women being allowed to
become Bishops?
If we choose to say nothing have we lost our saltiness? And how effective are we going to be in the communities that we serve?
Prayer
Heavenly Father,
Thank you for Christians like Titus who are obedient in response to your call to be peacemakers, help us to listen and discuss your word with each other. In Jesus' name
Afterwards in the conversations that took place I found out that a number of church study groups are studying 'Titus.'
