Prepare your heart for the Sermon by looking through these suggestions that will assist you in making the most of our time together hearing God's Word.

You will find suggestions for thinking more critically through the passage, meditating more intently on the text, and prayerfully seeking wisdom to deepen your understanding of the passage to be preached this Sunday.

Carefully Think

• Read Titus 1:5-8
• What is the reason that Paul left Titus in Crete?
• How many elders are to be appointed in each of these churches?
• What does it mean to “set in order what remains?”
• What is signifiant about Crete that Paul would leave Titus there?
• Who was Titus?
• Who are overseers according to these verses?
• What does it mean to be above reproach?
• What does it mean to not be pugnacious?
• What does it mean to not be fond of sordid gain?
• What are the elders supposed to use to be able to exhort?

Prayerfully Meditate

• What was Titus’s relationship to Paul?
• Why was Titus appointing elders instead of Paul?
• How are elders appointed according to this passage? On what basis/credentials?
• What kinds of things might you expect to be on a list of qualifications for selecting overseers that you do not see here?
• How does the gospel find itself central to the elder qualifications listed in these verses?
• Why might Paul use the term overseer (vs 7) additionally to elder (vs 5)? What is a synonym for “the faithful word?”
• How is teaching addressed in these verses? Why is this signifiant for the role of elder?
• What is practical purpose(s) Paul mentions for choosing men who are holding fast to the faithful word?