mission · 63 · Crete
One sentence in the letter does more to explain how the apostolic mission actually propagated than most of Acts: this is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you. It is a delegate with a brief — not a founder, not a successor, but a man sent to finish and to ordain. The rest of the letter is the criteria he is to use, and a warning about the Cretans quoted from one of their own poets. Whatever this dataset means by a succession begins in operations like this one, and the page held none of it.
To put in order what was left unfinished, and to appoint elders in every town.
The clearest job description in the New Testament, and the church of Crete.