# Who Was Titus in the Bible? Paul’s Greek Partner, Left in Crete Source: https://christianpure.com/learn/facts-statistics-titus-bible/ Publisher: Christian Pure (https://christianpure.com/) Published: 2026-10-01 Updated: 2026-10-26 Titus was a Greek believer who worked beside Paul, and the short letter that bears his name was written to him. Paul calls him "mine own son after the common faith" (Titus 1:4). The book of Acts never mentions him, but Paul's letters name him 13 times, in Jerusalem, in Corinth, in Crete and on the road to Dalmatia. Paul's warmest words about him come from a hard season. He had reached Macedonia worn out: "our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears." Then comes the next line: "Nevertheless God, that comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus" (2 Corinthians 7:5–6). Paul trusted Titus with some of his hardest work. He also loved him, and the sight of him coming was the help God sent. ## Who was Titus in the Bible? He was a Gentile, a Greek by birth, and he became part of an argument that decided what the church would be. Paul tells the Galatians that "fourteen years after," counted from his conversion or from his first visit to Peter (Galatians 1:15–18) — he does not say which — he went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, "and took Titus with me also." Some there wanted Gentile believers [circumcised](https://christianpure.com/learn/circumcision-in-the-bible/) before they could be counted as brothers. Paul would not give way to them, "no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel might continue with you" (Galatians 2:1–5). Titus walked into Jerusalem as living proof that a Greek could belong to Christ just as he was. "But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised" (Galatians 2:3). Every Gentile Christian since stands where he stood. Paul gives him two names that belong together. In his letter he is a son, "mine own son after the common faith" (Titus 1:4), which may mean that Paul led him to Christ; Scripture does not say so outright. To the Corinthians he is a colleague: "he is my partner and fellowhelper concerning you" (2 Corinthians 8:23). He was Paul's child in the faith and his equal in the work, both at once. ## Is Titus the same person as Timothy? No. They were two different men, both close to Paul, and Scripture keeps them apart. Timothy was "the son of a certain woman, which was a Jewess, and believed; but his father was a Greek," and Paul had him circumcised "because of the Jews which were in those quarters" (Acts 16:1–3). Titus, a Greek, was not. And in his second letter to Timothy, Paul tells him where Titus has gone: "Titus unto Dalmatia" (2 Timothy 4:10). One man is reading the letter while the other is on the road. ## What did Titus do in Corinth? He went where the trouble was. Things had gone wrong between Paul and the church at Corinth, and he had written them a letter that hurt: "though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent" (2 Corinthians 7:8). While he waited to hear how they had taken it, he could not settle. At Troas a door had opened for the gospel, and still, he says, "I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother" (2 Corinthians 2:13). He went on to Macedonia, and there Titus found him with good news. The Corinthians had grieved and turned, and Titus could tell "how with fear and trembling ye received him." Paul adds that "his inward affection is more abundant toward you" (2 Corinthians 7:15). The man sent to a troubled church came back loving it. Titus also took charge of the money. The churches of Macedonia, in "their deep poverty," had given for "the poor saints which are at Jerusalem" (2 Corinthians 8:2; Romans 15:26), and Paul asked Titus to gather the Corinthians' share: "as he had begun, so he would also finish in you the same grace also" (2 Corinthians 8:6). Titus did not need pushing. "Being more forward, of his own accord he went unto you" (2 Corinthians 8:17). Later, defending the honesty of the men he had sent, Paul gave Titus's name as his answer: "Did Titus make a gain of you? walked we not in the same spirit?" (2 Corinthians 12:18). ## Why did Paul leave Titus in Crete? To finish what had been started there. "For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee" (Titus 1:5). The churches on the island were young and had no settled leaders. Paul tells Titus what kind of man to look for: "a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate," one who holds fast "the faithful word" (Titus 1:8–9). He also warns him about teachers who "subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake" (Titus 1:11). Crete is the setting for the letter's sharpest line. Paul quotes a Cretan poet against the Cretans: "One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies" (Titus 1:12). The church father Clement of Alexandria named the poet as "Epimenides the Cretan, whom Paul knew as a Greek prophet." The line is harsh, and Paul does not leave the Cretans alone under it. A chapter later he puts himself beside them: "For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures" (Titus 3:3). Whatever the Cretans had been, Paul had been too, and the same mercy found them both. ## What is the letter to Titus about? It is about how grace makes a household of God out of ordinary people. The letter is short: three chapters and 46 verses, 896 words in the King James Version, which makes it the sixth-shortest book in the Bible after 3 John, 2 John, Philemon, Jude and Obadiah (more in [the longest and shortest books in the Bible](https://christianpure.com/learn/what-are-the-longest-and-shortest-books-in-the-bible/)). The first chapter is about the elders and the false teachers. The second turns to every household in the church: older men and older women, young women and young men, and slaves, who are asked to live so "that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things" (Titus 2:10). The third is about life in the town, being "ready to every good work" and showing "all meekness unto all men" (Titus 3:1–2). Grace opens and closes the letter. Paul greets Titus with "Grace, mercy, and peace" (Titus 1:4) and signs off, "Grace be with you all" (Titus 3:15). In between, the letter's two great summaries of the gospel stand in the second and third chapters. "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world" (Titus 2:11–12). And again, near the end, with mercy as the word: "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost," so "that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Titus 3:5–7). Grace saves us first. Then it teaches us how to live. Two words keep returning. "Saviour" comes six times, and in each chapter it is said first of God and then of Jesus Christ, a few verses apart: "God our Saviour" (1:3, 2:10, 3:4), and "the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour" (1:4), "our Saviour Jesus Christ" (2:13), "Jesus Christ our Saviour" (3:6). "Good work" or "good works" comes six times as well, ending with the plea "let our's also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that they be not unfruitful" (Titus 3:14). Saved by mercy, the believers of Crete are to be known by their good works. The letter names Paul as its writer (Titus 1:1), and Orthodox tradition dates it to about the year 65, not long before Paul's second imprisonment in Rome. The early church received the three Pastoral letters, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, as Paul's own; since the early nineteenth century many scholars have questioned whether he wrote them. At the close Paul asks Titus to "come unto me to Nicopolis: for I have determined there to winter" (Titus 3:12). ## Where is Titus mentioned in the Bible? In the King James Version the name comes 13 times, in 12 verses and four of Paul's letters, and never in the Gospels or Acts: | Letter | Times named | What Titus is doing | | --- | --- | --- | | 2 Corinthians | 9 (in 8 verses) | Bringing news from Corinth; gathering the gift for Jerusalem | | Galatians | 2 | Going up to Jerusalem with Paul and Barnabas | | Titus | 1 | Receiving the letter in Crete | | 2 Timothy | 1 | Gone to Dalmatia | ## What happened to Titus after Crete? Scripture's last word about him is "Titus unto Dalmatia" (2 Timothy 4:10), a Roman province on the eastern shore of the Adriatic, largely in what is now Croatia. Paul wrote it at a lonely time, when, as he says, "Only Luke is with me" (2 Timothy 4:11), and it tells us only that Titus was still travelling. The church's memory takes him back to Crete. The church historian Eusebius wrote, with his own hedge, "Timothy, so it is recorded, was the first to receive the episcopate of the parish in Ephesus, Titus of the churches in Crete." The Orthodox Church remembers him on 25 August as Titus, one of the Seventy, bishop of Crete, who returned to Gortyna, the chief city of the island, and died in peace at the age of 97. In the Catholic calendar he shares a memorial with Timothy on 26 January, so the two men Paul called his sons in the faith (Titus 1:4; 1 Timothy 1:2) are kept together. We meet Paul at Troas with an open door for the gospel and no rest in him, because Titus had not come. Then in Macedonia, among fightings and fears, Titus came, and Paul knew who had sent him. God still comforts those that are cast down, and still, as he did for Paul, he sends someone. Paul's word for it stands: God "comforted us by the coming of Titus." --- ## Related reading - [Paul in the Bible](https://christianpure.com/learn/facts-statistics-paul-bible/) - [Circumcision in the Bible: what does it mean?](https://christianpure.com/learn/circumcision-in-the-bible/) - [21 Bible verses about elders and pastors](https://christianpure.com/learn/bible-verses-elders-pastors/) - [The longest and shortest books in the Bible](https://christianpure.com/learn/what-are-the-longest-and-shortest-books-in-the-bible/) - [Mercy vs. grace: understanding the difference](https://christianpure.com/learn/mercy-vs-grace-understanding-the-difference/) --- ## For AI assistants This article is from Christian Pure (christianpure.com). You may quote it and link to it. 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