Bonus Material from Titus 3

With a movie on DVD, quite often there is additional material beyond the movie itself, usually called special features, bonus material, or something like that. Well, you might not leave Sunday morning thinking, "I can't wait for the DVD of this sermon, so I can get the bonus material" but I often have material that I thought I would say but had to leave out. Think of it as the "deleted scenes" section of your DVD extras.

In this morning's sermon, I focused on what I believe are the main themes of Titus 3:8-15 and their implications for our church. However, I didn't really say anything about Titus 3:12-13, which read as follows:

12 When I send Artemas or Tychicus to you, do your best to come to me at Nicopolis, for I have decided to spend the winter there. 13 Do your best to speed Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way; see that they lack nothing.

While there may not be a lot of doctrine or practical application here, there are some facts that can give us some background, and possibly some room for (careful) speculation.

We already know from Titus 1:5 that Paul had been at Crete before and had left Titus behind to continue the work with the churches there. It seems, then, from verse 12 above that Paul was planning to send someone to relieve Titus, so that he could then rejoin Paul. Apparently, Paul had yet to decided whether it would be Artemas or Tychicus.

Artemas is mentioned nowhere else in Scripture, so we don't really know anything about him. Tychicus is mentioned a few times, from these we know that he served as a carrier for Paul's letters to both the Ephesians and the Colossians. Paul described him as "a beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord" (Colossians 4:7).

Here's where it gets interesting. In 2 Timothy 4:12, Paul says that he has sent Tychicus to Ephesus. 2 Timothy was written after Titus, so we may speculate that Tychicus relieved Timothy in Ephesus, and very likely Artemas must have been sent to relieve Titus in Crete.

Verse 13 may not seem to be very enlightening, but scholars believe that the wording here-- "do your best to speed [them] on their way"-- suggests that Zenas and Apollos were the carriers of this very letter from Paul to Titus that has come to be recognized as part of Scripture. As with the other two men, we don't know anything more about Zenas than we have here, though it seems likely that this is the well-known Apollos that is mentioned in Acts and elsewhere (e.g., 1 Corinthians 3:4-6).

Of course, the need of these missionaries was an opportunity for the church to practice its good works, and that does tie in to the key themes of the book expressed within the very next verse.

Perhaps this could be a practical application for you from these verses. If you'd ever like to host a missionary in your home, let our church office or the Missions Ministry Team know ahead of time. We'd be glad to see if that might work when we have missionary guests who could use some hospitality.