Titus 1

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¹Dear Titus This letter is from me, Paul. I work for God and I teach people about Jesus Christ. God sent me to help his people believe in him more. And he sent me to help people understand his message better. Then they will know what they have to do to make God happy.

²A long time ago, before God made anything, he promised his people that they will live with him for ever. And God doesn’t lie. His promise is still true, and this message makes all his people happy. And it stops them from worrying about what will happen after they die.

³God waited a while to tell people about this message, but now is the right time. And God gave me a special job. He is the one that saves us. He said, “You have to tell people that message now.”

⁴Titus, you and I both believe the same things about God, so you are like my own son. God is our Father, and Jesus Christ is his son. And Jesus saves us. I am asking them to be very good to you, and to make you feel happy and quiet inside yourself.

⁵Titus, do you remember why I asked you to stay on the island called Crete? I told you that there were some things I wanted you to do there. Some things in that place were not right yet. I wanted you to try to fix those things. I also told you to pick good leaders to look after Christians in all the towns on Crete.

⁶Now I want to tell you what church leaders have to be like. They have to do all the right things, so that nobody can say anything bad about them. A church leader can only have one wife and he has to stay true to her. His kids have to believe in God, do the right things and not get into trouble. His kids have to do what he says.

⁷Church leaders are in charge of God’s work on earth, so they have to be really good people, and then nobody will say anything bad about them. Whenever you pick people to be church leaders, – don’t pick people that think they are better than everyone else, – don’t pick people that get angry too easy, – don’t pick people that drink a lot of grog, – don’t pick people that get into fights, – don’t pick greedy people, that want lots of money and things.

⁸Church leaders have to be like this, – they have to be happy to have visitors in their houses, – they have to really want to do good things, – they have to control themselves, – they have to be sensible, – they have to do what is right, – they have to do things that make God happy, – they have to be strong for Jesus.

⁹And they have to keep on believing God’s message about Jesus, the message that we told you. This will help a leader teach true and right things to the people. And then this will help the people to believe in Jesus more strongly. Some people say, “That message isn’t true.” But it is true, and a good leader will be able to show these people that they are wrong.

¹⁰There are lots of people that don’t do what God says. They talk about a lot of things that don’t matter. They also try to trick people. They want people to believe what they say. They are the ones that say that we Christians have to follow all the Jewish laws to get God to save us.

¹¹These people teach things that are wrong. They trick whole families. And they only do this to get money from people. So you have to stop them.

¹²Remember what one of Crete’s own teachers said, a long time ago. He said, “People from Crete are always lying. They are dangerous, like wild animals. They are lazy and they eat too much food.”

¹³The things that teacher said are still true. You have to talk straight to those bad teachers and tell them that they are doing the wrong thing, so that they will come back and believe God’s true message again.

¹⁴They have to stop believing in the old stories that people made up. And they have to stop listening to rules from the Jewish people and rules from people that have stopped going God’s way. Those rules are just people’s rules. They are not God’s rules.

¹⁵You know, if people just want to follow God’s way they don’t have to worry about people’s rules. They are clean inside, so everything is all right for them. But nothing is all right for people that don’t want to follow God’s way. They can only think in a bad way. They don’t know what is right and what is wrong.

¹⁶These bad people say that they know God but they do the bad things that God hates. So these people show that they don’t really know God. They shame themselves. They don’t do what God says. They can’t do anything good.