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There are two descriptions of the church found in 1 Timothy that are not found elsewhere in the Bible. Only in this Epistle is the church called “the church of the living God” and “the pillar and base of the truth” (3:15).
For us to conduct ourselves properly in the house of God, we need to take note that it is the church of the living God. God is called the living God several times in the Old Testament (Deut. 5:26; Josh. 3:10; 1 Sam. 17:26, 36; 2 Kings 19:4, 16; Psa. 42:2; 84:2; Isa. 37:4, 17; Jer. 10:10; 23:36; Dan. 6:20, 26; Hosea 1:10). He is also referred to by this title in nine books of the New Testament (Matt. 16:16; 26:63; John 6:69; Acts 14:15; Rom. 9:26; 2 Cor. 3:3; 6:16; 1 Thes. 1:9; 1 Tim. 3:15; 4:10; Heb. 3:12; 9:14; 10:31; 12:22; Rev. 7:2). When Peter recognized who Christ was, he called Him “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” In Hebrews 3 we are exhorted to beware lest we fall away “from the living God,” and in chapter 9 we are told that the blood of Christ purifies “our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”
In 1 Timothy 3:15 the church is also referred to as “the house of God.” The term house means “household” or “family,” as well as “the lodging place of the family.” Thus, in the Bible the house of God means both His family and His dwelling place, because God’s dwelling place is within His people, not in a physical building. The house of God is also used in 1 Peter 4:17 (“It is time for the judgment to begin from the house of God”) and in Hebrews 10:21 (“Having a great Priest over the house of God”).
The church is also called the pillar and base of the truth. The temple in the Old Testament had two pillars in front (1 Kings 7:15-22). Standing on their base, they bore the weight of the building. The apostle Paul considered that the church is not only a house in which the living God dwells but also a pillar standing upon its base bearing the truth.
Many Christians think of the church as merely a gathering of God’s called ones. From the names given to the church in 1 Timothy we can see that the church is also a house where the living God dwells and a pillar that supports the truth (reality). Both a house and a pillar need to be built.
It will help us to know how to conduct ourselves in the house of God if we consider these two words, living and truth.
For us to match our living God, we too must be living. Suppose you came into a house and found everything in disarray. The tables were turned upside down, dirty socks were scattered around, shoes were in the sink, and the chairs were knocked over. You concluded that the people were either dead or kidnapped, but when you checked in the bedroom, there they were in bed sick. Sickness or death is the only excuse for such a disorderly house.
How is the house of a healthy family? Everything is clean, neat, and orderly. If you entered such a house, you would be assured that the members of that household were living and healthy.
What signs of life should characterize the church of the living God? Consider how the living God affected the lives of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. When the evil power of darkness tried to force them to worship idols, they boldly declared to Nebuchadnezzar, “Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the blazing furnace of fire, and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods nor worship the golden image that you have set up” (Dan. 3:17-18). This same, living behavior also characterized Daniel when he was confronted with a den of lions because he prayed to his God. That is why the king called him the “servant of the living God” and proclaimed that “the God of Daniel...is the living God” (6:20, 26).
As the Lord’s recovery spreads throughout this earth, the door is open for all sorts of people to enter. Paul warned the elders of the church in Ephesus, “After my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among you yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverted things to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore watch” (Acts 20:29-31). This responsibility for watching to see that the house is kept in order falls upon every one of us, young and old. The Lord is not only adding His life to us but also making us living. This phrase, the church of the living God, was used during a time of degradation in the church, just because most Christians were not living but sleeping. The Lord’s recovery must not be like sleeping Christianity. Our God is living! We are His living children. In His house we must conduct ourselves in a living way. We must be on the alert to guard it from all evil.
Truth is contrasted to law in John 1:17. The law was given through Moses, but truth came through Jesus Christ. The Old Testament is divided into two parts, the law and the prophets (cf. Matt. 7:12; Rom. 3:21). What we find in the Old Testament can be likened to a photograph, or a picture, of the truth. It is as though I were to send you a photograph of myself before I came to visit. In the New Testament the truth, or the reality, came through Jesus Christ, who Himself told us, “I am...the reality” (John 14:6). The law was a shadow, but He is the reality.
For the church to be the pillar and base of the truth, it must bear Christ as the reality. Man in Genesis 1 is a shadow of the image of God; the reality of His image is Christ (Col. 1:15). All the offerings mentioned in Leviticus are types; the real offering is Christ (Heb. 10:11-12). The same is true of all the other positive things mentioned in the Old Testament; Christ is their reality. This is also the case with qualities like love and humility; their reality is Christ. The human expression of them is just a shadow. The church is the pillar to support Christ alone as the reality.
“Our Savior God...desires all men to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:3-4). It is not that God wants us acquainted with doctrines. Doctrines are like shells; the truth is the content. Behind the doctrine of foot-washing, for example, there is a truth. The truth is Christ Himself. If I wash my brother’s feet by myself, in myself, it means nothing. I have been crucified with Christ and no longer live; Christ lives in me. Thus, when I come to wash my brother’s feet, it is not I but Christ who is doing the washing. I actually had this experience over forty years ago. I found that I could not wash another’s feet; I had to have Christ as my life in order to do it.
For us to come to the knowledge of the truth, we cannot stay in doctrine. Even the doctrine of salvation comes short. My mother was baptized as a teenager, yet she was not saved even when I became a Christian. She raised all her children in Christianity, teaching us Bible stories and insisting that we attend Southern Baptist Sunday morning services. We were all in Christianity, knowing the doctrine but not being in the truth. One day my second sister lost her fiancé. In her grief she turned to the Lord and got saved. Then she prayed for me, and I too got saved. I began to love and study the Bible. This influenced my younger brother, who was fifteen; he began to read the Bible in English, and he too opened to the Lord. A few years later my mother got saved. We all turned from the doctrine of salvation to its reality.
The two Epistles to Timothy contain eleven references to the truth (1 Tim. 2:4, 7; 3:15; 4:3; 6:5; 2 Tim. 2:15, 18, 25; 3:7-8; 4:4). Paul exhorted Timothy to cut straight the word of the truth. There were in Ephesus those who were deprived of the truth, who misaimed concerning the truth, who needed to repent unto the full knowledge of the truth, who opposed the truth, and who turned away their ear from the truth. This repeated attention is given to the matter of the truth because, when the apostle Paul wrote from prison in Rome, the church was degraded from reality to formal doctrines and vain teachings. His purpose in these two Epistles was to bring the church back to the reality.
Paul uses several descriptive terms that indicate the direction some at Ephesus were taking away from the truth. In 1 Timothy 1:6 he says, “From which things some, having misaimed, have turned aside to vain talking.” Vain talking is just empty talk. Verse 7 continues, “Desiring to be teachers of the law.” They turned from God’s economy to the law, which, as we have said, is only a shadow. Verse 4 tells us, “Nor to give heed to myths and unending genealogies.” Verse 7 of chapter 4 says, “Profane and old-womanish myths refuse.” In 5:13 we read, “They also learn to be idle, going around from house to house; and they are not only idle but also gossips and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.” Instead of caring for the truth, they spent their time gossiping with their neighbors. In 6:3-5 we have a clear contrast between what is healthy teaching and what is not: “If anyone teaches different things and does not consent to healthy words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the teaching which is according to godliness, he is blinded with pride, understanding nothing, but is diseased with questionings and contentions of words, out of which come envy, strife, slanders, evil suspicions, perpetual wranglings of men corrupted in mind and deprived of the truth, supposing godliness to be a means of gain.” Notice how the healthy words are opposed by those who are deprived of the truth. Those who promote strife and perpetual wranglings Paul describes as sick.
In the second Epistle Paul continues to warn against these unhealthy words: “Avoid profane, vain babblings, for they will advance to more ungodliness, and their word will spread like gangrene” (2:16-17). In verse 23 he further admonishes Timothy, “Foolish questionings and those arising from an untrained mind refuse, knowing that they beget contentions.”
From all these verses we can gather what the state of the church was at the end of the first century. There was empty talk. There were those who had turned back to the law, who were giving heed to myths and unending genealogies, and who were gossips and busybodies. There were questionings, strife, perverted wranglings, and worldly and vain talking.
It was to correct such a deplorable situation that Paul wrote these Epistles, in which he emphasizes so strongly the matter of the truth. Here are some of the descriptive terms he uses relating to the truth. Besides the healthy words and healthy teachings we discussed in chapter 19, Paul also speaks of the word of God (1 Tim. 4:5; 2 Tim. 2:9), the words of the faith (1 Tim. 4:6), the words of our Lord Jesus Christ (6:3), and the Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16). These positive terms are a reminder to us that, for the church to serve as the pillar and base of the truth, we must take in the Word of God.
Second Timothy 3:16 is the only reference in the whole Bible that tells us that all Scripture is God-breathed. This is a strange way of speaking. We do not think of our words as our breath. If we write a letter, we do not consider that we breathed out the words. But Paul here introduces the concept that the divine word is God’s breathing. The word in the Bible is more than an utterance; it is the breath of God.
What is the proper way to take in the Word of God? You may say that we must eat it. Yes, there is such a thought in the Scriptures. The Lord Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). Jeremiah also expressed that thought: “Your words were found and I ate them” (Jer. 15:16).
There is, however, an even more prevailing way to take in the Word. Since God breathes His word out, we may breathe it in. How can we do this? It is by prayer. Our spiritual breathing is our unceasing prayer. Eating and sleeping are for a while, but breathing is never ending throughout our life. “Unceasingly pray” (1 Thes. 5:17). This verse likens our prayer to breathing. We cannot inhale God’s breath by exercising our mentality; we must inhale by praying.
This thought of mingling our reading of the Scriptures with prayer is what we call pray-reading. Though we introduced this term about ten years ago, the prayerful reading of the Word has been practiced by many saints of old. George Müller described his morning watch as a blending of reading the Word and praying over it. He called this way of praying over the Word the soul-nourishing way. (Of course, he was actually nourishing his spirit, but the Brethren did not know the distinction between soul and spirit.)
Reading the Word and praying must go hand in hand. The inspiration to pray spontaneously arises when we begin to read the Word. We need to cultivate this inspiration rather than try to interpret what we read.
It is most beneficial to our spiritual health to inhale God’s breath. Just as deep breathing brings fresh air into our lungs and expels the bad air, so our whole being can be cleansed by deep breathing God’s breath. This is the highest hygiene. Inhaling the fresh air of God’s Word will do more for us than memorizing it. Memorizing is an exercise of our mentality; praying over the Word is an exercise of our spirit.
By taking in God’s Word we receive the truth into our being. In this way we are built up as the pillar and base of the truth. By staying in this pure air and deep breathing, we will be kept from the noxious fumes of myths, vain talking, and perpetual wranglings.
In the church of the living God, the Lord expects His children to be living. These two Epistles contain many commands that Paul expected Timothy to act on. When the church is degraded, the satanic lie comes in to whisper, “You cannot make it; you are too weak.” The children of the living God must denounce this lie and receive the imperative word. This is the conduct expected of us in the house of God. We will consider just a few of the commands given here. If you go over these Epistles carefully, you will find many more exhortations, indicating that the Lord requires us to exercise our initiative to “lay hold on the eternal life” (1 Tim. 6:12) and reject the subtle lie that we are weak.
In both of these Epistles Paul told Timothy to flee: “You, O man of God, flee these things, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, meekness” (1 Tim. 6:11). Timothy was to flee from the love of money and its attendant evils. He was to withdraw from those men of corrupt minds who were teaching differently for gain. He was to turn from one direction to another, fleeing evil things and pursuing righteousness and godliness. “Flee youthful lusts, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:22). This second exhortation to flee what is evil and pursue what is pure shows what a high standard we must maintain. We must be pure in our thinking, pure in our word, pure in our way of looking at things, pure in our motives, pure in our heart, and even pure in our anger.
When Timothy received these Epistles from Paul, he was a young man, yet Paul exhorted him, “Let no one despise your youth, but be a pattern to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (1 Tim. 4:12). There are many young people in the church life. Do not let anyone despise your youth; rather, be an example to others, not in looseness but in purity. In human society the church must present the highest standard of morality, ethics, and character. The church as a golden lampstand is a tower full of light, expressing the divine nature.
“The profane and old-womanish myths refuse, and exercise yourself unto godliness” (v. 7). “Foolish questionings and those arising from an untrained mind refuse” (2 Tim. 2:23). “Fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Tim. 6:12). “Keep the commandment spotless, without reproach, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 14). Because we have the living Lord within, we are able to keep these commandments.
“God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of sobermindedness” (2 Tim. 1:7). God has given us a spirit that empowers our will, strengthens our love, and sobers our mind. There is no excuse for us to be jellyfish.
Notice the conclusion of these Epistles: “The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you” (4:22). For the Lord Jesus to be with your spirit means that grace is with you. In that grace you are empowered: “You therefore, my child, be empowered in the grace which is in Christ Jesus” (2:1).
This empowering grace will make us living and strong to support the truth. The church has been going through a time when the truth has been undermined and even openly attacked. Perverse teachings have been allowed to spread throughout the recovery. Dear ones, what conduct is required of us in the church of the living God? As His living children, we must rise up to protest and reject these efforts to draw us away from God’s economy. What a strong testimony we must be for the truth, that all may see that the church is in very fact the pillar and base of the truth!
