Monday, January 21, 2008

Excellence (Part 3 of 4)

Titus 3:1-11 was the first text I studied for Sunday’s teaching. It had some great things to say about excellence. I actually thought I would use the text in my message but Mary and Marthar’s example simply worked better. You may want to pause to read Titus 3:1-11 HERE (sorry, the link uses the KJV).

To find out what Paul’s “things that are excellent” you have to read the text somewhat backwards. Paul writes…
• "...Stress these things, so that those who trust in God will devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.” (vs. 8)
• Paul was shown the excellent way “when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared [to Him]” (vs. 4-7)
• Paul admitted that before the “appearance” of God, he did not know what “excellent” was (vs. 3)
•“These things [that are excellent]” are...
- Be subject to the rulers and authorities...of the community (vs. 1)
- To be obedient...to those authorities in the community(vs. 1)
- To be ready to do what is good...in the community (vs. 1)
- To slander no one...in the community (vs. 2)
- To be peaceable...within the community (vs. 2)
- To be considerate...within the community (vs. 2)
- To show humility toward all men/women...within the community (vs. 2)

I interjected “in the community” on my own free will because Paul is not excluding “things that are excellent” to the Church. The context of his list is the governing authorities...who govern the community...therefore Paul told Titus to stress excellence in living in a local community.

As a minister, I know that I need to be a greater presence in our community. I simply spend too much time in the office. But as I look at our church, I see many people doing excellent things (Fall Festival, Volunteer Fire Dept., and Cub & Boy Scouts just to name a few). With that being said, I’m sure there are ways we can be more excellent to our community of Puski county and neighboring White, Jasper, and even Stark counties.

Looking over Paul’s list of excellence...
1. What are your areas of excellence that you should improve upon in your community?
2. How could FCC be more excellent in our surrounding community?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey French Dog, long time no see. Saw this and just wanted to drop you a line. I miss you and seeing your picture made me smile. Hope life is treating you well.
Rute