The island of Crete was a tough place. It was to the Roman world what
the urban ghettos and favelas of today's great cities are to our
neighborhoods. Paul needed a young missionary with energy, zeal, wisdom,
determination, faith, and courage to embark on a mission to the fabled
but fateful home of the Minotaur and the mythological birthplace of
Zeus. Charged with the task of finding elders for the churches and
grounding these churches in the faith of the Apostles was the unenviable
task given to a driven, passionate young preacher named Titus. The
instruction of the missionary-theologian Paul to one of his sons in the
ministry beckons the reader to follow into the Labyrinth of Crete and
see that in both the first century and in the contemporary urban
setting, God's redemptive grace is adequate to change both life and
eternity. Paige Patterson is President and Professor of Theology at
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He
previously served as President of Southeastern Baptist Theological
Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina; President of Criswell College
in Dallas, Texas; and he was twice elected President of the Southern
Baptist Convention. His passion is expressed as scholarship on fire with
and manifested in missions and evangelism.
