Titus 1:1-16 (NRSV)

Thursday after Ash Wednesday - Reflections on the Letters during Lent.

"Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and the knowledge of the truth that is in accordance with godliness, in the hope of eternal life that God, who never lies, promised before the ages began — in due time he revealed his word through the proclamation with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Saviour, To Titus, my loyal child in the faith we share: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Saviour. I left you behind in Crete for this reason, that you should put in order what remained to be done, and should appoint elders in every town, as I directed you: someone who is blameless, married only once, whose children are believers, not accused of debauchery and not rebellious. For a bishop, as God’s steward, must be blameless; he must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or addicted to wine or violent or greedy for gain; but he must be hospitable, a lover of goodness, prudent, upright, devout, and self-controlled. He must have a firm grasp of the word that is trustworthy in accordance with the teaching, so that he may be able both to preach with sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict it. There are also many rebellious people, idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision; they must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for sordid gain what it is not right to teach. It was one of them, their very own prophet, who said, ‘Cretans are always liars, vicious brutes, lazy gluttons.’ That testimony is true. For this reason rebuke them sharply, so that they may become sound in the faith, not paying attention to Jewish myths or to commandments of those who reject the truth. To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure. Their very minds and consciences are corrupted. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their actions. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work."

The first word that catches my attention is the word trust. I feel that the whole first portion of the letter is about trustworthiness and trust building. Paul is trying to tell Titus who he can trust, who is trustworthy and who might not be able to be trusted.

Trust, who you trust, lack of trust, and broken trust are big issues in our Churches and Christian communities. Trust built up over years can be lost in a matter of seconds, sometimes over a simple misunderstanding. When trust is broken, it can take years to rebuild. It almost seems to me that Paul knows this. It seems that Paul is urging Titus to take his time and select the correct leader that will guide and direct people to the truth. 

We are right to spend enough time in discernment about who the proper candidate to lead our churches should be. We may like the person, they may have the proper training and credentials, they have even displayed the right skill set. But the question sometimes is, "can we trust them?" The call to action for me to be is to make sure we select people that we can trust. I would hope and pray that we are able to select trustworthy leaders.