The Emperor’s Complaint

Titus 3:8 - The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.

Nearly three hundred years after Paul wrote this verse, a Roman emperor sat down to complain about Christians, and the complaint became one of the great accidental compliments in history. Julian had been raised in the faith, but later rejected it. He spent his short reign trying to restore pagan worship across the empire, but he understood that arguments alone wouldn’t solve his problem.

See, Christians had become known for the way they cared for people. So around AD 362, Julian wrote to Arsacius, the high priest of Galatia. He ordered him to establish hostels in every city so that strangers could be cared for, and he was explicit that he didn’t mean their own people only. Julian allocated grain and wine from the imperial supply to help pay for it.

Then he explained why. He said it was disgraceful that the Christians, whom he called “impious Galileans,” were supporting not only their own poor but the pagan poor as well. And then he used the word we were introduced to earlier in the week. Build the hostels, he said, so that strangers can benefit from our philanthropia. That’s the same Greek word Paul used in verse 4 when he wrote that the goodness and loving kindness of God appeared.

Julian wanted paganism to display philanthropia. Paul had already told the church where philanthropia begins: in God. The emperor could build hostels. He could distribute grain. Those were real goods that could help real people. But he couldn’t produce by imperial decree the source from which Christian mercy grew. He was trying to command outwardly what the gospel creates inwardly. Within about a year, Julian was dead. He was killed during a military campaign against Persia in 363, at thirty-one years old, and his imperial program of pagan renewal didn’t survive him.

Consider the sequence in Titus 3. Four verses of pure gift: The kindness that appeared. Mercy instead of anything we brought. Washing and renewal by the Spirit. Justified by grace and made heirs. And then — only then — good works. The order matters. Good works aren’t the price of grace. They’re what grace produces.

Julian could requisition grain, but he couldn’t requisition grace. Which is worth turning around on ourselves lest we forget the proper order. Grace is meant to overflow, but Paul doesn’t treat that overflow as automatic. He says believers must be “careful to devote themselves to good works.” Thoughtful. Intentional. Deliberate.

Most of us have a fairly clear sense of who our kindness is for. The people in our house. The people in our small group. The people at our table. The ones who will notice and might one day return it. We become generous inside a circle we drew ourselves, and we learn to call that being a good Christian. But Paul won’t let the circle stay that size. He says these things are “excellent and profitable for people.” Not only for the church. For people. The grace that came to us is meant to benefit people beyond us.

And the word behind “devote themselves” can be used for taking responsibility or managing something carefully. Here its force is active and sustained: organize your life around doing good. Don’t just admire kindness. Plan for it. Practice it. Stay at it. Be ready to meet needs before someone has to beg. Be useful to neighbors, coworkers, strangers, and people who may never walk into our building.

That is the Winsome Witness, sharing the good news with sensitivity and inviting people toward Jesus. Christian witness cannot end without words, but it often begins before a sentence is spoken. It begins with somebody who can’t account for why you helped.

And notice how the verse opens. “The saying is trustworthy.” Paul uses that phrase a handful of times in his final letters to mark truth worth carrying and repeating. Here it points back to the concentrated gospel summary in verses 4–7 and preserves words early Christians were already confessing when they gathered together.

Which is what well be doing together soon as we gather for Sunday worship. And some of you aren’t especially looking forward to it. You’ll walk in tired, or distracted, or carrying something you haven’t told anybody about. Come anyway. You’ll say and sing truths Christians have been confessing for thousands of years, surrounded by people at different points in the same story.

Then go back out and live, love, and give like Jesus, in a world that is watching more closely than we tend to think. An emperor tried to reverse-engineer the church and couldn’t locate the part that made it run. It was never a program. It was Him all along!

Head: The grace God gave me is meant to move through me beyond my natural circle.

Heart: Ask God to make you glad to help someone who can’t recognize, reward, or repay you.

Hands: Do one useful thing this week for someone outside your usual circle, especially someone with no interest in what you believe, and expect nothing in return.

Prayer: “Father, You have always been kind to people who had nothing to send back, and I am one of them. Thank You! Move me toward someone outside my usual circle, and let my actions make the goodness of Jesus visible. Give me courage to name Him when the door opens. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

-PK