“I don’t know how you do the
job. It would be scary to me,” the girl
said. The teacher responded, “Nah. The word, sacred, is not in my vocabulary.” Then the girl asked, “What if I
swerved?” The teacher replied in a
comforting tone, “I would grab the steering wheel and pull the car back into
the right lane.”
In fact, a Washington Post reporter
wrote that the driving instruction, Patrick Norris, had done just that. Earlier, 16 year old, Meghan Huggins had
wandered over the center line and Norris, with a calm, quick flick of his left
hand, brought the care back on the right side of the road.
The newspaper article noted that
Norris’ attitude could be summed up like this: “It is the job of the novice
driver to make mistakes, be corrected and learn.” I suppose the same could be said of novice
Christians!
That seems to be the attitude of the
apostle Paul as he teaches Titus the finer points of being a pastor. Paul makes clear that one of Titus’
responsibilities as he served the new congregation is Crete is to teach.
The people there are new to the faith.
They still have much to learn about Jesus’ suffering, death and
resurrection and how to live the new life in Christ.
Titus is to teach sound doctrine so that the Christians
know, confess and live out the faith which has enabled them to receive Christ
as Savior and Lord. By showing and
sharing the love of God in words and actions they “will make the teaching about
God our Savior attractive.” (Titus 2:10)
Some mistakenly think that being
taught the truths of God’s Word ends at confirmation or adult instruction
class. Nothing could be further from the
truth. Brothers and sisters in Christ,
let me encourage you to attend Bible
class on Sunday or during the week; join a small group; read the Scriptures
every day and pray. Learn sound doctrine
while you “wait for the blessed hope – the glorious appearing of our great
God and Savior, Jesus Christ.” (Titus
2:13)
