Ko te mea tenei i waiho atu ai koe e ahau ki Kariti, kia whakatikaia ai e koe nga mea i mahue, kia whakaritea ai ano hoki he kaumatua ki ia pa, ki ia pa, kia pera ai me taku i whakatakoto atu ai ki a koe:
O le mea lenei na ou tuu ai oe i Kereta, ina ia e faatonuina mea ua totoe, ma ia e tofia toeaina i lea aai ma lea aai, faapei ona ou fai atu ai ia te oe;
The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you.
Titus 1:5
Sometime around AD 59-60, Paul sailed past the island of Crete as a prisoner (Acts 27). It’s probable that after Paul’s first Roman imprisonment, he returned to evangelise the island and establish churches, sometime between AD 62 and 64.
Titus 1 records Paul in Crete, passing the baton on to Titus. The question is, why would he give leadership over to someone else?
Paul isn’t concerned with management but rather multiplication. His ministry isn’t about himself, and it isn’t about his control over the work. By entrusting Titus with the work instead, the gospel multiplies in that area.
Notice what Titus is supposed to do: appoint elders in each church. And what will they do? They’ll invest the gospel into others who will pass it on. As a result, the gospel multiplies on Crete—from Paul, to Titus, through the elders, and on from there.
The result of Paul passing the baton of ministry to Titus at Crete is that Paul can now see the gospel multiplied further afield. In Titus 3:12, we learn that while Titus was at work in Crete, Paul was wintering in Nicopolis, over 500 km away. He was using the coastal city as a base for ministry throughout Macedonia, Achaia, and Asia Minor.
Paul recognises that the work of the gospel in Crete is unfinished. In the best sense, the work of the gospel is always unfinished until the Lord Jesus returns.
While God in his grace will often work through us as he works out the gospel, his work is also beyond us and will continue long after we are gone. Paul doesn’t consider himself an owner of the work but a steward of it. Therefore, he can and does entrust it to others who will in turn pass the gospel on to more people.
Today, we so often look at a ministry's size or scale to evaluate its effectiveness. My sense is that God measures the success of our ministries by faithfulness—looking to see who we’ve passed the gospel baton on to, and how they are passing it on to others in their generation.
