1Dear Titus, I am Paul, and this letter is from me. I work for God, and I am one of Jesus Christ’s special workers. God sent me to teach people about Jesus Christ, and 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 that his people will live with him for ever. And God doesn’t lie. His promise is still true, and it stops his people from worrying about what will happen after they die.

3At first, people didn’t know what God promised, but now he says that it is the right time for them to hear his message, and he helps them understand it. God gave me that message, and he told me to tell it to other people. God is the one that saves us.

4Titus, you and me, we both believe the same things about God, so you are like my own son. I am asking God our father, and Jesus Christ, to be good to you, and to make you feel happy and quiet inside yourself. You know, Jesus saves us.

Pick good people to be church leaders

5Titus, remember when I was with the Christians on that island called Crete, some things there were not right. So I asked you to stay there and try to fix those things. I also told you to pick good leaders to look after the Christians in all the towns on Crete.

6Now I want to tell you what church leaders have to be like. They have to be really good people, so that nobody can say anything bad about them. A church leader can only have one wife, and he can’t sleep with any other woman, like a husband sleeps with his wife. His kids have to believe in God, and they have to 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 easily. – 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 let visitors stay 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. That will help a leader teach true and right things to the people. And then that 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 can show those people that they are wrong.

Stop people from teaching wrong things

10You see, there 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 people that say that we Christians have to follow all the Jewish laws to get God to save us.

11Those people teach things that are wrong. They trick whole families. And they only do that 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 bad, like cheeky 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 properly believe the true message about Jesus.

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.

16Those bad people say that they know God, but they do the bad things that God hates. So those 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.