1 Timothy 3:14-15 “I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how you ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of truth.”
I was reading this recently and was really struck by the description of the church. So often when people talk about church it can be in vague terms or mean their building or something along those lines. But what is the church? At the very simplest, ecclesia, the Greek word used for church means gathering or assembly. So at the very lowest form of description the church is a gathering of believers or a assembly of people who have put their faith in Jesus Christ. But we also know that while this might be the make up, there is more to a church than just this base description.
The church is the household of God. It is the home of God. This brings to mind the loving images of our relationship with God. God is our Father in heaven, he cares for us as his children, we are his sons and daughters, coheirs with Christ. And while this conjures up the loving picture of a caring Father it also means that we are under someone else’s rules. All Fathers have rules for their homes that they expect to be obeyed, and God is no different. This is why Paul is instructing Timothy how people should behave if they are a part of God’s household, the church.
The church is also the church of the living God. This is important. We don’t worship some impotent, weak, cognitive exercise. We worship the living God. God is alive and He is active. God moves in this world, his creation, he moves with purpose and intent. God is alive. Nietzche stated that God is dead, and there are many that operate under that belief. But how wrong they are. For Nietzche has since passed away, his body decomposing as we sit here, but God is very much alive.
The church is also described as a pillar and buttress of truth. The church is where the truth is celebrated and upheld. The church is where the truth, the truth of Jesus Christ is proclaimed. Jesus stated that he was the truth in John 14:6. He is what is true in this world. And the church is the organization, the organism that seeks to spread this truth, the truth throughout the whole of the world. But what is truth? Take a moment and define truth in your head. It is one of those words that are so simple, so fundamental for our lives that it can be hard to define. One of my professors once asked this question and no one could answer it. Ina room full of graduate students no one answered. Truth is what corresponds to reality. Jesus is truth because his claims and who he is corresponds to what is real, it fits the reality in which we live, it is the reality in which we live.
This is what the church is. This is just one of the many passages that describes the church and what it is to this world. But what does this verse mean to us? It firstly means that when we claim to be believers, we are claiming to be part of the church and not only just the church, we are claiming to part of God’s household, part of God’s family. As part of God’s family we have the comfort and security of knowing that God is our Father and takes care of us. Our heavenly Father, Lord of the Universe, cares for us and takes care of us. We rest in that comfort. But also being a part of God’s family means that we have responsibilities. All families have responsibilities, be it from taking out the garbage to taking care of the other family members. God gives his family responsibilities as well.
The church is called a pillar and buttress of truth, and I think that the church needs to rediscover what that means. We are the place where the truth of this world and how Jesus came to save us is proclaimed. We need to be the place that is able to tell the world why it is the why it is. That is the power of the church. We have been given a sacred deposit, the gospel is the truth of this world and those in it. People are searching for answers. People are looking everywhere for what fits with what they know of this world. And the church should be the place they find it. This means that the church can’t be filled with fakers, it can’t be filled with posers. This means that the church has to be filled with people that are willing to share their lives, the truth of their lives.
Does this describe the church as you know it? I have to think that it should. The bible has many verses and passages that outline what the church should be. While we on our own can’t make this happen, we are called to be instruments in God’s plan to make the church into what He designed it to be. Through Christ working in us, as individuals and as a group, we will be able to contribute to God’s kingdom by building his church.
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