May 18, 2017 | Sent To Reform

The Greek word ἐπιδιορθόω epidiorthoo means to reform; to make straight. That’s why we often translate it “set in order” or “set right.”

Thus, Paul & Titus are the original church reformers. 1400+ years before Luther & Calvin, God sent Titus to epidiorthoo – to reform churches. Guess what that means? It proves that entropy has always been an issue, even in the first century! Every era must always be about reformation.

Did you know that researchers at the University of Maryland and at Harvard recently created something the press is calling “time crystals?” These things are quantumly different than the matter around them. The scientists took ions out of their natural state and used either microwaves or lasers to “prod” the ions. In response, the ions formed a type of bonded community that appeared to operate in a perpetual motion of forming and re-forming.

When I read about this, I was astounded not so much by the research, which may prove eventually fruitless, as by the parallels to the book of Titus. In Titus, God prods us with His Word and Spirit to produce a type of community different than the world around us, a place and time of perpetual reformation. Far from fruitless, this reforming changes everything.

I shared that observation on Titus 1:5 and “time crystals” with our pulpit team, and Cindy Sharp wrote back this great comment:

The jobs God gives are always changing. Just take parenting, where it changes…appropriately so…to the needs of the child. Parenting adult children as you would a toddler, would be inappropriate – not to mention ridiculous and unreasonable. It is sometimes tempting to hold our kids back, to try and keep things the way we like them, to stay “in control.” (Kind of like a church that does things a certain way because that is how it has always been done.) However, it doesn’t work and thus isn’t the way God intends us to set things right through continual reformation.