40-Day Devotion, Day 24

PREPARATION: READ TITUS 2:1-5

Build A Godly Home

An oft-quoted African proverb states: “It takes a village to raise a child.” Whoever first spoke that phrase was wise beyond their years.

Those words have been echoed in many forms throughout our world. Politicians in our country have used them to reinforce the importance of social reforms in childcare and family health. Hillary Clinton famously referenced them in her 1992 speech to the Democratic National Convention and later named a best-selling book after them. International organizations have adopted them as their motto for reaching across political boundaries to promote health, safety, and educational opportunity for all children. Our world celebrates the inestimable power of “synergy”—working together to reach common goals.

It might surprise you to know that the great push for “synergy,” which our culture thinks they invented, is actually something God first prescribed in Scripture. He didn’t say the words, “It takes a village,” but He established the principle. Just look at the Church, Jesus’ plan for spreading the Gospel using the collective efforts of His fallible followers to take His message to multitudes.

Then God designated certain men and women inside the Church to be leaders, entrusting them with the responsibility of organizing the congregation into a cohesive unit that functions as “the body of Christ.” Members of the Church are collectively called to share the burden of caring for one another and teaching one another so we can individually survive and thrive generation after generation until He returns. Talk about synergy!

That’s what today’s key text in Titus 2:1-4 addresses. The Apostle Paul wrote to Titus, a minister of God in the Church on the island of Crete. Titus was probably a younger man, and his ministry was surrounded by a society that definitely wasn’t interested in godly values. His was a monumental task! He wanted the people to embrace a victorious lifestyle, but there was so much opposition and confusion. That’s why Paul in this chapter instructs Pastor Titus to encourage his more mature Church members to pass down the truth to novices to the faith.

Paul’s words were the archetype for the African proverb we mentioned earlier. He encourages Titus to lead the older men, the older women and the younger men through his teaching and by his personal example. In turn, the older men and older women were to teach the younger men and women. Then everyone would share the burden of sharing the message with the children.

You see what was happening? The burden of responsibility for teaching and discipling was not couched in one man or even a small group of leaders. Everyone in “the village” had a part to play and something to contribute to the spiritual well-being of others. Addressing the older men, Paul pressed the importance of setting the right example by displaying the virtues of temperance, respectful behavior, self- control, faith, love and perseverance. For the older women, he encouraged them to live reverently, avoiding gossip and slander, and train the young women to be self-controlled, pure, hard-working, kind and dedicated wives.

Paul pointed out that when older Christians embrace such a lifestyle, it protects the reputation of God’s Word and perpetuates the spiritual vitality inside the congregation. When each group commits themselves to such faithfulness, that lifestyle is passed along to the young inside the body and others in the world.

Pause for a moment and consider the practical implications of Paul’s instruction:
•Those of you who are veterans of the faith have a God-given responsibility to teach and encourage those who are less experienced. As you have learned, so must you teach. As you have received, so you must give. Your duty is to be a channel of God’s grace, pouring out the wisdom and insights and comfort you have received from Jesus to others in need.
In the same way, those who are younger in the faith have a calling: the responsibility to pay attention and learn from “elders.” New converts should consider mature soldiers of the cross as their model of what discipleship looks like. Even those who have grown up in the Church and gained great Bible knowledge should value the guidance of experienced Christians.

In this model, teaching happens, not vertically from the “top-down,” but horizontally, with each member of the body of Christ interacting with each other.

We are often reminded that the world around us is a broken, desperate, and dark place. It can seem much easier—especially to the young and inexperienced—to match the pattern the world has set rather than live according to God’s standards. Titus’ situation in Crete was no different which is why the advice Paul gave him still rings true today. All of us have a responsibility to God, to each other and,
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