1 Timothy 3:15

howthou oughtest to behave thyself There is little in the Greek words and little in the context to decide us in translating either thus with A.V. and margin of R.V. or how men ought to behave themselves, with R.V. For (1), Timothy himselfis in St Paul's mind throughout; the directions are given for his guidance in seeing to a properly qualified ministry; for (2), presbyters and deaconshave just had their proper equipment and behaviour fully detailed. Perhaps the latter is to be preferred from the long phrase (for so brief a style) -that thou mayest know how (one) ought to walk" instead of -in order that thou mayest walk"; and from the brevity of the style solving by omission the difficulty of finding a phrase which should include bishops, deacons, and women deacons.

behave thyself The verb is used by St Paul twice besides, 2 Corinthians 1:12, -we have (had our conversation) behaved ourselves in the world"; Ephesians 2:3, -we also (had our conversation) lived in the lusts of the flesh"; and the cognate substantive in the next chapter, 1 Timothy 4:12, -manner of life," and twice besides, Galatians 1:13, -my (conversation) manner of life in time past"; Ephesians 4:22, -put off concerning the former (conversation) manner of life the old man." It was represented exactly by the Latin conversari(conversatio), whence our A.V. -conversation" in its old sense.

the house of God In O.T. the Temple; cf. Mark 11:17, -My house shall be called a house of prayer," quoted from Isaiah 56:7; and then spiritually God's household and temple the chosen people, cf. Hebrews 3:6, -Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, Christ as a son over God's house," quoted from Numbers 12:7. St Paul had elaborated the metaphor in his letter to Ephesus, Ephesians 2:22; and so in the later Epistles it is natural and appropriate as a title of Christ's Church; Hebrews 10:21, -having a great high priest over the house of God"; 1 Peter 4:17, -the time is come for judgment to begin at the house of God." See Appendix, K.

which is the church of the living God The lengthened form of the relative is used to give the characteristic attribute -which is, to describe it aright, the Church." -The Church," ecclesia, is used (1) simply for -a gathering," -a calling together," i.e. the regular law-court, Acts 19:39; (2) for -the congregation" of the children of Israel, in LXX. constantly; (3) from this, by our Lord twice for His own constituted community, Matthew 16:18; Matthew 18:17; (4) hence, 23 times in the Acts, the first history of that community, 62 times in the Epistles of St Paul its widest organiser, and 23 times in the Epistles and Apocalypse of St John, its venerable champion and prophet; sometimes of the Church at large, as here, -holy and Catholic," sometimes of one or other of its constituent parts, e.g. in Asia, Galatia, Judæa, Macedonia. See Bp Browne on Art. XIX., who quotes the following among other definitions of the earliest Fathers: -Tertullian speaks of the Church as composed of all the Churches founded by Apostles or offsprings of Apostolic Churches, and living in the unity of the same faith and discipline. The Church according to Clement of Alexandria is the assembly of the elect, the congregation of Christian worshippers; the devout Christians being as it were the spiritual life of the body of Christ, the unworthy members being like the carnal part. Origen says, "the Church is the body of Christ, animated by the Son of God, the members being all who believe in Him." The visibility of the Church he expresses by saying that "we should give no heed to those who say, There is Christ, but show Him not in the Church, which is full of brightness from the East to the West and is the pillar and ground of the truth." "

the living God At Lystra, where -the gods" were thought to have come down in the likeness of men, St Paul besought them to -turn from these vanities unto the living Godwhich made heaven and earth and the sea"; so now at Ephesus, where the Jewish and oriental speculations of physical and moral sciences, -the endless genealogies of emanations and æons," were clouding the simple truth -as it is in Jesus," St Paul insists on all his teachers being -good churchmen," holding and teaching the faith in - one living God" manifested in Christ Jesus.

the pillar and ground of the truth It will be felt unworthy of the rising greatness of the passage to refer this to Timothy or to the teachers; it is the Churchpenetrated through with this faith which, as the single central column in the chapter-house at Salisbury, supports and sustains and combines all the orb of truth, God's progressive revelation of Himself in Nature, Art, Conscience. -Christ is the centre of mankind, and mankind is the centre of the world. If that be so, we have a central point round which all knowledge groups itself. The physical and the moral sciences have each their part in the building up of the great human temple in which God dwells; and the highest education is that which gives man a complete conception of the world thus viewed as centred in humanity and in Christ, its head." Fremantle, The Gospel of the Secular Life, p. 98.

There is no difficulty in a certain shifting of the metaphor, any more than in the above passage, itself a modern undesigned expansion of the phrase. The Church is, first, the house of God, and the Son of the living God its centre; and then this house is itself a centre, the central pillar of a larger house, the world, God's home.