A few years ago a politician referred to her opponent’s supporters as a basket of deplorables. While the description accurately describes many in politics (both sides of the aisle), in this case it galvanized the opposition. Perhaps it would have been better to quote scripture?

Paul wrote the young church-planter Titus to buck him up in the midst of strenuous efforts among insolent people:

One of Crete’s own prophets has said it: Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons. This saying is true.

How should Titus communicate with new church members from this demographic? Speak loving words softly and tenderly? Nope—in this case more truth than grace:

Therefore rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith.

Rough crowd for a church-planter, but Titus took to the challenge. He planted multiple churches on the island. He stuck it out through frustrating meetings, provocative sermons and very few five-star reviews.

Paul and Titus considered no soil too hard for the gospel. In fact, the development of churches in Crete led by indigenous leaders showed how the message of Jesus penetrated even the most defiant of cultures.

I actually like the phrase basket of deplorables, and I’m tempted to stamp the label on many I disagree with. But the flourishing Cretan churches founded by Titus pull me up short. No one is too far gone to turn to the Lord.

I’ve seen it happen again and again. God goes after those farthest from him, redeems them and uses them to build his church.

Titus 1 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Maria Teneva