In wealthy Ephesus, with its abundant commerce, the desire to be rich was a common passion; and St. Paul feared--perhaps he knew--that in the Church in Ephesus the mischief was present and increasing. Hence this earnest reiteration of strong warnings against it. Hence the reopening of the letter in order to tell Timothy to charge the rich not to be self-confident and arrogant, not to trust in the wealth which may fail them, but in the God Who cannot do so; and to remind them that the only way to make riches secure is to give them to God and to His work. The wealthy heathen in Ephesus were accustomed to deposit their treasures with "the great goddess Diana," whose temple was both a sanctuary and a bank. Let Christian merchants deposit theirs with God by being "rich in good works;" so that, when He called them to Himself, they might receive their own with usury, and "lay hold on the life which is life indeed."
"Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ ... to Titus, my true child after a common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father, and Christ Jesus our Saviour"--TITUS i. 1, 4.
The title "Pastoral Epistle" is as appropriate to the Epistle to Titus as to the First Epistle to Timothy. Although there is a good deal in the letter that is personal rather than pastoral, yet the pastoral element is the main one. The bulk of the letter is taken up with questions of Church doctrine and government, the treatment of the faithful members of the congregation and of the unruly and erring. The letter is addressed to Titus, not as a private individual, but as the delegate of the Apostle holding office in Crete. Hence, as in the First Epistle to Timothy, St. Paul styles himself an Apostle: and the official character of this letter is still further marked by the long and solemn superscription. It is evidently intended to be read by other persons besides the minister to whom it is addressed.
The question of the authenticity of the Epistle to Titus, has already been in a great measure discussed in the first of these expositions. It was pointed out there that the external evidence for the genuineness in all three cases is very strong, beginning almost certainly with Clement of Rome, Ignatius, and Polycarp, becoming clear and certain in Irenaeus, and being abundant in Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian. Of the very few people who rejected them, Tatian seems to have been almost alone in making a distinction between them. He accepted the Epistle to Titus, while rejecting the two to Timothy. We may rejoice that Tatian, Marcion, and others raised the question. It cannot be said that the Churches accepted this Epistle without consideration. Those who possessed evidence now no longer extant were convinced, in spite of the objections urged, that in this letter and its two companions we have genuine writings of St. Paul.
With regard to modern objections, it may be freely admitted that there is no room in St. Paul's life, as given in the Acts, for the journey to Crete, and the winter at Nicopolis required by the Epistle to Titus. But there is plenty of room for both of these _outside_ the Acts, viz., between the first and second imprisonment of the Apostle. And, as we have already seen good reason for believing in the case of 1 Timothy, the condition of the Church indicated in this letter is such as was already in existence in St. Paul's time; and the language used in treating of it resembles that of the Apostle in a way which helps us to believe that we are reading his own words and not those of a skilful imitator. For this imitator must have been a strange person; very skilful in some things, very eccentric in others. Why does he give St. Paul and Titus a work in Crete of which there is no mention in the Acts? Why does he make the Apostle ask Titus to meet him in Nicopolis, a place never named in connexion with St. Paul? Why bracket a well-known person, like Apollos, with an utterly unknown person, such as Zenas? It is not easy to believe in this imitator.