What is the purpose of the book of Titus?

Answer 1

The Epistle to Titus is one of three pseudo-Pauline epistles called "Pastorals" because of their concern with pastoral issues that were beginning to arise in the second century. The attribution to Paul is clearly fictional, for the language, style and thought are thoroughly un-Pauline. The 'personal' references to particular occasions in the lives of Timothy, Titus, and Paul do not fit with reconstructions of that history taken from the authentic letters of Paul.

As the Church grew, a new type of office, that of "overseer" or bishop, had become necessary. Now there was a need for instruction to both the office-holders and to the congregations in respect of this office. The epistle offers instructions for the bishops as well as for Christians, who should learn to obey the instructions of their overseer. Paul was supposedly writing to Titus, who had been commissioned as an overseer, to remind him of Paul's instructions to him. Thus a church manual of discipline from the mid-second century had been placed in the very beginning of the apostolic tradition and given the imprimateur of Paul.