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.
