A Common Faith
by David Gibson
What is so remarkable about this statement by Paul: “To Titus, my true child in a common faith” (Titus 1:4)?
Paul was a Jew, and his coworker Titus was a Gentile (Galatians 2:3). The gulf separating Jews and Gentiles was so deep and wide and of such long standing that unity between them seemed impossible.
Before Paul and Titus were converted to Christ, could either of them have imagined being in close fellowship with the other? In Christ, however, the walls of separation have been broken down (Ephesians 2:11-22). And now, only because of Jesus, Paul could address him as “my true child in a common faith.”
What an amazing turn of events!
Bridging the great divide between Jews and Gentiles could well have been the greatest and most amazing accomplishment of the gospel in the first century A.D.
This had been predicted in the Old Testament (Genesis 12:3—note Paul’s comment on this promise in Galatians 3:8-9; see also Isaiah 49:6; Daniel 7:13-14; Hosea 2:23). During His ministry Jesus predicted He would bring believing Jews and Gentiles together under His Lordship (Matthew 8:10-12; Mark 12:6-9; Luke 13:23-29; John 10:16; 12:32).
The unification of Jewish and Gentile believers in Christ began in earnest, starting with Cornelius (Acts 10:1-48; 11:1-18). The church began Jewish in Acts 2, but by the end of the New Testament, Gentiles far outnumbered Jews in the kingdom. Some 30 years later, Paul could write, “... there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all” (Colossians 3:11; see Galatians 3:28; Ephesians 3:3-10).
And so today
John tells us what he saw in heaven: “... behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes ...” (Revelation 7:9).
How beautiful it is when a congregation begins to look more and more like what Christ had been planning from all eternity: people of various ethnicities working and worshiping together in harmony—because of Him.
