To Lob the Right Questions

1Paul, a bond-servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness,

2in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago,

3but at the proper time manifested, even His word, in the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior,

4To Titus, my true child in a common faith: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.

II. Purpose
As we now look into the purposes for which Paul wrote this letter, I find three prepositional phrases which suggest purpose, one of which I am sure about, but the other two will require some investigation.

1. For the faith (and the knowledge)
2. In the hope
3. To Titus

The first possible purpose phrase, for the faith, is one I’m not totally sure denotes purpose. So let’s look into it.

I’d like to look at the Greek first, then compare the phrase in a few translations.

κατὰ πίστιν ἐκλεκτῶν…καὶ ἐπίγνωσιν

Now, when I was studying Greek I learned that the preposition κατά should be normally translated as ‘according to,’ as in κατὰ Λογκαν – ‘(the gospel) according to Luke.’ A further examination, with the help of my good friend Bauer, reveals that κατά with the accusative (πίστιν and ἐπἴγνωσιν are the accusative forms of πίστις – ‘that which evokes trust and faith’ and ἐπίγνωσις – ‘knowledge, recognition’) can have an incredibly wide range of meaning:

1. marker of spatial aspect
2. marker of temporal aspect
3. marker of division of a whole into parts
4. marker of intention or goal
5. marker of similarity
6. denoting relationship
7. other more ambiguous cases

Bauer has Titus 1.1 listed under #4 – ‘marker of intention or goal,’ with the caveat: but the meaning ‘in accordance with’ is also probable.

Translations:

• KJV, NKJV, ASV, Young, Darby – ‘according to the faith’
• NASB, NIV, CSB – ‘for the faith’
• Amplified Bible – ‘to stimulate and promote the faith’
• New Living – ‘(I have been sent) to proclaim faith’
• ESV – ‘for the sake of the faith’
• CEV – ‘(I encourage God’s own people) to have more faith’
• Wycliffe – ‘by the faith’

Observations:

Bauer and most of the translators seem to agree that this phrase denotes purpose, but I’m still not comfortable with what I have learned to be the basic root meaning of the preposition – ‘according to.’ To me, those are substantially different.

How does the difference affect the meaning of the passage?

Paul, a bond-servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for/according to the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness

‘for the faith’ – To me this rendering clearly denotes purpose. Paul is finished with his introduction of himself and is moving on to state the purpose for which he’s writing – to further the faith (or faithfulness – but we’ll talk about that later…) and the knowledge of God’s people.

‘according to the faith’ – This suggests to me a continuation of the previous phrase: ‘Paul, a bond-servant…and an apostle…according to the faith.’ It seems as if he would be setting the framework under which he considers himself a servant and apostle.

Since we’ve already done the work, let’s go back and look at our analysis of other introductions, to help judge what Paul is most likely intending here.

The other Biblical introductions that use κατα in a similar position are:

• I Timothy: ‘Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus, who is our hope,’
• II Timothy: ‘Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life in Christ Jesus,’

No other authors use it in their personal introduction, and Paul only uses it when writing to a specific person: Titus or Timothy, his ‘true child(ren) in the faith.’ It always comes after ‘an apostle of Jesus Christ.’

I think we’re going to have to leave this as an unresolved issue for now. I think it carries connotations of both, but we may reach a decision as we continue our study through the introduction.