1 Timothy 3:15

“But in case. am delayed,. write”: Paul knew that circumstances might delay his hoped for reunion with Timothy, thus he writes this letter. Paul had been hindered on other trips (Acts 16:6; Romans 15:22).

1 Timothy 3:15 “So that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God”

The absence of any pronoun in the original makes it possible to insert either “you”, “thou” or “men” in the above verse. Other passages stress the fact that the church is the family of God, God's household (Hebrews 3:6; Hebrews 12:22; 1 Peter 2:5; 1 Corinthians 3:16; Ephesians 2:19). “Both Timothy and the Ephesian Christians must know how to defend and propagate the truth (vs. false doctrine), how to conduct public worship and how to select proper leaders, because what they have been entrusted with is not. private business-it is God's household!” (Reese p. 147). Let us always remember that the church does not belong to us, but to God, therefore let us resist any temptation to make the church “what we want it to be”.

1 Timothy 3:15 “Pillar”: “Now the congregation is pictured as. massive pillar, holding up the truth and displaying the truth” (Reese p. 149).

1 Timothy 3:15 “Support of the truth”:. stay, bulwark. “The church is also the stay and buttress of God's truth in that it supports and maintains it in opposition to all attacks upon it” (Hiebert p. 73). In addition, each local congregation is to be. pillar and ground of the truth.