of

The movements of the apostle from his conversion as recorded in Acts 9

until his two years' imprisonment recorded in Acts 28, can be traced with

comparative ease, but from the close of the Acts his movements can only be

conjectured (see 2 Timothy for proofs of an interval between the two

imprisonments, pp. 149 -158).  We know that he was hopeful of release and

that he had asked Philemon, a member of the church at Colosse (Col. 4:9;

Philem. 22), to prepare him a lodging; Timothy had been left at Ephesus (1

Tim. 1:3) and Titus at Crete (Titus 1:5).  While some commentators make the

imprisonment of 2 Timothy fall within the period covered by the Acts of the

Apostles, we have not found it possible to accept this and believe that after

a period of freedom Paul was again apprehended, this time to suffer martyrdom

for the faith.  During this interval of freedom we believe he visited many of

the assemblies, and wrote the first epistle to Timothy and the epistle to

Titus.  It is this epistle to Titus that awaits our attention.  The structure

of the epistle is simple, and while doctrine finds a place as we might well

expect, it is introduced to strengthen the apostle's appeal for godliness of

living, or `good works' rather than for its own sake, and a fair amount of

space is devoted to the exposure of an incipient Gnosticism, which is also

exposed in the first epistle to Timothy and which forms the dark background

against which these pastoral epistles are set.  The structure in its simplest

form is as follows: