Paul commands Titus to put things in order, appointing elders in the churches. Actually, he appoints elders in towns. How might this inform our view of apostolic Christianity? Notice that Titus is to choose people who are really just people. They are to have maturity in their Christian character and their families are not to bring shame upon Christ. But really he is not looking for people who are unusual in any respect. They are just mature Christians, showing the character qualities we would expect of any believer after a while.
What does it mean to appoint elders in every town? We can make several observations from this statement. We see that the message of the Gospel had spread to places where there was no existing Christian leadership. God's people, like a flock of sheep, do not function well in the absence of leadership. But because we bring the Gospel to places where it has not been proclaimed before we will see there are groups of Christians with no elders. Once the body of Christ is shaping up, once there are multiple believers in an area, assembling together for worship, it is necessary to appoint elders to serve the flock. We also see that the elders don't just serve the flock of believers, but they serve their towns. We are all familiar with the scenario of the missionary moving into a town with no known Christian witness and simply starting to serve the town for Christ. That missionary serves as the pastor for the town. It is all in his parish, so to speak. This is a vision which I fear we have lost, in this age when the emphasis seems to be on recruiting people who are already Christians to gather together and make a sort of separatist and parallel cultural group, that group of Christian believers. Why not proclaim the Gospel in real terms with the elders considering the town their parish and all the people living in the town to be part of the flock, just many of them unbelieving and rebellious members of the flock?
See also in our Titus reading that there is a time for rejecting false teaching and rebuking those who are teaching falsely. That's part of the work of a shepherd also.
May we always see the hand of the Lord in our efforts to minister to Christ's people.
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