{"id":10124,"date":"2022-04-20T05:37:27","date_gmt":"2022-04-20T10:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-titus-3\/"},"modified":"2022-03-23T15:10:27","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T20:10:27","slug":"devotional-on-titus-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-titus-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Titus"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_16239\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16239\" style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P8019694.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-16239\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P8019694-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P8019694-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P8019694-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P8019694-768x576.jpg 768w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P8019694-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P8019694.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16239\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Oregon 101 &#8211; along the southern coast<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Life in the middle<\/p>\n<p>Titus 3: Stay away from mindless, pointless quarreling over genealogies and fine print about the law code.<\/p>\n<p>Since Paul&#8217;s somewhat critical of the average resident of Crete I assume that his warning to Titus here isn\u2019t based on some natural tendency of Titus to get caught up in trivial matters. It seems to me that Paul thinks that the people of that island do share this tendency and if he isn\u2019t careful Titus will get bound up in it too. Paul wants Titus, and all believers, to focus on the big picture. The Lord has graciously and in mercy reached out to us in our sinful state to establish us in a new relationship with him. He stepped into this world and knowing full well that we don\u2019t deserve it, loved us anyway and went to work transforming our lives. Now, we\u2019re made new, cleaned up by Jesus, recipients of God\u2019s gift of himself to us. These are the things we\u2019re to think and tell about. We\u2019re to let others, outsiders, have the corner on worrying about the minutia of the law. They\u2019re welcome to it. After all, if such things provide salvation, the Pharisees and Sadducees would have been Jesus\u2019 best friends. Paul tells Titus to \u201cput his foot down\u201d and insist that the business of the Church is declaring Jesus and to provide evidence of what he does in people\u2019s lives by being \u201cbighearted and courteous,\u201d law-abiding citizens. On one side of us are those who are \u201cordered every which way by their glands.\u201d On the other side are those who focus on debating the finer points of the Law. Here in the middle, we just live for Jesus, telling our story to all who will listen.<\/p>\n<p>Take Away: It\u2019s easy to major on the minors \u2013 but to do so is to fail to live the life to which the Lord calls us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Life in the middle Titus 3: Stay away from mindless, pointless quarreling over genealogies and fine print about the law code. Since Paul&#8217;s somewhat critical of the average resident of Crete I assume that his warning to Titus here isn\u2019t based on some natural tendency of Titus to get caught up in trivial matters. It [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1531,1428],"tags":[1357,518,713,941,1077],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10124"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10124"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16273,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10124\/revisions\/16273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}