Text: 1 Timothy 3:14-16
Title: Supporting the Truth
Truth: The church must conduct itself aright so it can properly uphold the truth.
Date/Location: Sunday morning July 15, 2012 at FBC
I. The Purpose of Paul’s Writing, v. 14-15a
A. The setting of the letter is apparently at some point after the events
recorded in Acts 28. Paul is still going about his itinerant ministry and,
while he hopes to return to Ephesus soon, he doesn’t know if he will be
able to make it. Travel planning was not as easy then as it is today (and
even today it takes a lot of work, doesn’t it?).
B. In case he is delayed, he has written some things and sent them ahead.
Paul seems to have the idea that writing is sufficient to get his point
across, but a personal face-to-face meeting would be better. Paul’s
concern was pressing enough in the case of the particular situation in
Ephesus that he felt it important to write so that problems of church
worship and order could be solved quickly. Similarly, we cannot sit on
problems in the church and let them fester. They only get worse.
C. Here is the purpose statement of Paul’s letter—why Paul wrote. His
purpose is to convey how you ought to conduct yourself. It is literally
translated this way: “in order that you (Timothy) know how it is
necessary in the house of God to behave.”
1. This is an obligation laid upon Pastor Timothy. That means he has to
live a certain way. By extension, the whole church must as well.
2. The obligation includes things like what we read in chapters 1-3.
II. The Place of Timothy’s Conduct, v. 15b
A. The clause which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of
the truth tells us the importance of the house of God and thus why we
ought to behave ourselves a certain way in it.
The church is not just another social club where we can make up the
rules as we go or do whatever we want to feel good.
The church is not just a corporation that does things like other
businesses. There are certain divine imperatives for the church and
how it does things. What happens sometimes today is that the
church looks to business to see how it can conduct itself. But this is
backwards. Business should be looking to the church for principles on
All Scripture is from the NKJV unless otherwise noted.
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how it should be run; and the church should be looking to God and
the Bible for how it should run.
B. The church is the house of God. See Ephesians 2:22. In the Old Testament
time, the temple was God’s special dwelling place on the earth. Today,
the church is. The Bible is talking about both the church as a whole and
its individual manifestations—local churches like ours. Practically,
however, we are talking about our church family and its limited
connections to a handful of other local churches and missionary works.
C. The church is the house of the living God, the one and only true God.
Christians do not worship a dead deity or a piece of rock. God is real and
alive. Our God has expectations of holy conduct in His people. He expects
His special dwelling place on the earth to be a comfortable place for Him,
not necessarily a comfortable place for us. Although I hasten to add that
for a true believer who desires the things of heaven rather than the
things of earth, a holy church is the most comfortable place on earth, as
a loving resting place from all the sin out there.
D. The church is the pillar and ground of the truth. There has been a lot of
debate over the meaning of this phrase.
1. Sometimes the verse is used to indicate a priority between the church
and the Word of God (the truth), or to indicate that whichever came
first was the origin of the second. The debate is cast as a chicken or
egg question, and when you tell which (Bible or church) is the
chicken, you know then where the egg came from.
2. If you cast the question about the church or Bible in this way, then
you arrive at a false conclusion. As a little thought experiment, let’s
try it. If you say the Bible came first, then you would say that the
Bible gave us the church. On the other hand, if you say the church
came first, then the church gave us the Bible. Or, at least the church
authoritatively recognized the Bible books’ canonicity, and then the
Bible is dependent on the church. Roman Catholics hold this kind of
view, which then practically gives them two authorities—the Bible
and the church tradition.
3. But this all is an invalid way to think because it is over-simplified.
Chronologically the Old Testament part of the Bible came first; then
the church started; then the rest of the Bible was inscripturated. The
church was started before the NT was written, but not before
revelation occurred upon which the church was founded. This
revelation was given by Jesus and by the work of the Holy Spirit in
the apostles and is founded upon Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:20).
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4. The reality is that the church did not give us the Bible, nor did the
church give us the New Testament part of the Bible; nor did the Bible
give us the church per se.
5. Rather, Jesus said He would build the church; and He started it by the
Holy Spirit as recorded in Acts chapter 2. The Bible came by the Holy
Spirit as well—through the miracle of inspiration in which God
superintended the authors of Scripture to write the Bible without
error in all its parts. God therefore gave us the Bible and the Church.
6. The Bible gives us the “rules” for the church today, so that if you were
on an island with a group of people that knew nothing about
anything, and you had a Bible, you could start a church and run it
properly. However, if you had no Bible, and yet you had a church of
people already together, without any collective and infallible
memory of the Word of God, you could not run a church properly.
7. Pillar and ground has been taken to suggest two distinct ideas or a
single combined idea. I take the latter view by combining the two
figurative word pictures as a column with a footer underneath it.
That pictures the church as holding high the truth and supporting it
in that sense of being an advocate for the truth in the world. The
church is supposed to uphold the Word of God in its practice and
proclamation. When we depart from it, we depart from what we are
and what we are supposed to do.
8. Note that the church is not the truth. Rather the church does something for the truth (like 3 John 8). If the church were to disappear,
that would not change the truth one bit; it would not crumble to the
ground. Such would only remove the truth’s best advocate.
III. The Proclamation of the Mystery, v. 16
A. With the previous verse’s mention of the truth, what the apostles does
next is to define what that truth is.
1. First, it is without controversy. All Christians agree to it. It is
undeniable and without question; it is the truth that we confess as
believers. Only believers confess this truth, but all believers do.
2. Second, it is a great mystery. This mystery is the same kind of mystery
as we saw in verse 9—namely, it is not something now hidden.
Rather, it is something now disclosed/revealed/uncovered.
3. Third, this mystery is the mystery of godliness. It is really the mystery
of our faith, of the Christian ‘religion.’ But it is the faith as it works
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out in a life of piety, godliness or devoutness which completely
revolves around and is based upon the Jesus Christ.
4. Fourth, the subject of the confession: Jesus Christ the Son of God.
Obviously that is the One we are talking about—manifested in the
flesh and received up in glory make it clear that Paul is talking about
the incarnation and the ascension. [Whether the opening word is
“God” or “Who/He” doesn’t change this at all.]
B. The truth is a confession, a brief statement of important Christian beliefs.
1. Christians believe the Son of God took on human flesh at the
incarnation. See 1 John 4:2-3.
2. Justified in the Spirit means that Jesus was vindicated by the Holy
Spirit. Whether in a public proclamation such as at the baptism of
Jesus (Matthew 3:15-17) or through the written word of God, the
Bible, the Spirit of God testifies of Jesus.
3. Angels saw the birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
They joined the Holy Spirit in becoming witnesses to the truth.
4. The apostles and other believers then preached Jesus among the
Gentiles. Philip moved out to Samaria, and Peter went to the
Gentiles in Caesarea (Acts 8 and 10).
5. Jesus was believed on throughout the world. By the time 1 Timothy
was written (early to mid 60s AD?) Paul could say that people all
around the Mediterranean world had believed on Jesus.
6. Jesus ascended to heaven and resides at the right hand of God (Acts
7:56).
Christianity is more than this. For example, Christ is coming back. Christ
died for sins and rose again from the dead. And other things. But
Christianity is not less than this confession.
Conclusion
This is the kind of truth that we proclaim as a church. This truth demands
that we conduct ourselves appropriately in God’s house, because that
place is where God dwells and that which upholds the truth to the world
through its practice and proclamation.
MAP
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