Titus chapter 1

vs 9

You'd sort of wonder if this verse wasn't here - of course leaders of churches need to be firm in the word of God. But notice the strong emphasis on following the word "as it was taught" - remember that these churches were lucky to have the OT, the gospels haven't been written yet (possibly Mark), and they have this letter of Paul. So how do the leaders remain faithful to the message of the gospel? By remaining faithful to what they were taught, probably by Paul when he was there. This reliance on tradition might seem a little wierd to us, but that's just how it was done. And that reliance on tradition lasted for about 1500 years until a guy called Martin came along and accidently blew it all out of the water.

The reason Paul gives for the necessity of biblical faithfulness is so the person can encourage people with sound doctrine (literally "healthy teaching") and to elegco those who oppose (contradict) it. The NIV and NASB uses refute, and it's not that the word is wrong, but I have this feeling that it has undertones of proving someone wrong without necessarily then providing the correct healthy teaching. I would have translated it "convince" - the idea being that you begin by refuting their contradicting teaching, but then you teach them the good stuff too.

vs 10

Well, the circumcision group (we assume Jews and possibly God-fearers or proselytes who still think Christians should act like Jews: see Acts 15 for more info) are the direct immediate reason that Paul wants the new church in Crete to have strong leaders in every town. Obviously that's not the reason we have them specifically - we're lucky enough to live in a stage of history where we've got heresy coming out our ears! But if you were wanting to read this letter literally, then you might think that the only reason we have strong leaders filled with good healthy teaching is because of Jews.

vs 11

I hate people like this. I know several Christians who fit this mould. They have entire households under their sway, usually weaker people new in the faith. They teach utter crap, and it spreads like wildfire, as crappy teaching often does. You've really got to jump on it quickly, because once people get set in their ways, they're lost. And you can try to correct these problems at the source, but they are so often stubborn, many (in more conservative circles anyway) having an attitude that they are "the remnant" and those who don't believe in a literal 6-day creation, or who don't believe in an immediate rapture, or who don't believe in a Roman Catholic conspiracy suddenly become less-than-Christians. It was this "special teaching" idea that lead to Gnosticism.

At least I don't know many people who do it for dishonest gain.

vs 12-13

I don't know if Cretans are still like that, but at the time it was true. These false teachers needed to be rebuked sharply. It's amazing how basic and standardised the reply is to false teachers by all the NT authors. I mean, some are harsher than others with messages like "kick them out, and don't be worried if you leave a sandal print on their arse", but the condemnation of false teaching is always powerfully given.

By the way, cretin does not come from the root of Cretan. So when you call someone a cretin, you're not saying that they are from Crete and hence a lying evil lazy glutton-brute. In fact, what you are calling them is a Christian! The word cretin comes from the provincial French creitin, crestin which comes from the vulgar latin christianus! The idea being that someone of mental deficiency and defect is still a Christian (still human despite their deficiencies). And a sidenote completely off topic, American hackers prefer the english pronunciation, most probably because of the popularity of Monty Phython.

Anyway, these heretics (the circumcisors, not the hackers) need to be strongly corrected, with the purpose of returning them to a healthy faith.

vs 14

How important! You've got to note that what these Judaisers were teaching is not OT theological truths - they were clinging to Jewish myths and commands. Paul is probably talking about the rabbinical writings which were (and still are) so powerful and respected by Jews. The NIV says they rejected the truth, but the greek is much more powerful, saying they perverted it.

vs 15

Strong language from Paul here. "All things" shouldn't be taken literally I don't think. Don't go drinking sewage because you think you're pure. Paul says nothing is pure for these defiled ones, and in fact, their minds and consciences aren't pure, so that to me would suggest that "all things" and "nothing" really refers to both their mind and conscience. What's the difference between the two I hear you ask? Well, Paul is talking about their nous and their suneidesis, which I only really put here because I think it's cool that the mind was referred to as 'nous'. sunedesis is basically what we would refer to as conscience - it's the faculty that prompts you to do what is good, and to not to what is bad. It's important to understand that, because it helps to narrow down what nous means in this context. Because of the next verse, I would tend towards saying that their 'minds' are their faculty for understanding in the fairly general and wide sense of the term. The reason I differentiate is because the same word can be used to mean the same thing that suneidesis means, and so either Paul is repeating himself to make it clear that when he says "nothing is pure" of them he just means their consciences, or more likely in my opinion he is saying that their very mental faculties are clouded along with their consciences.

vs 16

Paul claims to know here that they don't know God - and how does he do it? By applying the methodology of John! Their actions show that their claim is false. In fact, their actions are pretty terrible - so bad, that they are unfit to do good things! Their own impurity would probably spoil anything good they did anyway.