Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

1 Timothy 3:15

1 Timothy 3:15. The home of God. The true Bethel, in which through the Spirit. God manifests His presence. The title, at first applied locally, as in Genesis 28:17; Genesis 28:19, and continuing so applied throughout the whole period of the Old Testament, received a new significance in the teaching of our Lord. The promise to Peter led naturally to the inference that the ecclesia which was to be ‘built' upon the rock was the house of God in a higher sense than that in which the name had been given to the Temple at Jerusalem. St. Paul is never weary of dwelling on the thought from every point of view (1Co 3:9; 1 Corinthians 3:16; 2 Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 2:22), and the Epistle to the Hebrews depicts the same image (1 Timothy 3:2; 1 Timothy 3:5-6). The word rendered ‘Church' of course had not as yet any local or material imagery connected with it, and was simply equivalent to ‘congregation.'

The pillar and ground of the troth. The words admit grammatically of three possible constructions. (1) They may be taken, with a change of punctuation, in connexion with what follows. (2) They may stand in apposition with the ‘Church of the living God' as the nearest substantive. (3) They may be connected with the pronoun implied in the opening words, ‘that thou mayest know,' and so be applied to Timothy himself. Of these (1) may be rejected as having but little authority, involving an awkward anti-climax, and leaving the sentence from which the words are thus detached to close abruptly. (2) has the greatest weight of authority, both patristic and modern, in its favour. Against it there is the confusion of metaphor thus introduced, the ‘house' of the previous clause being used as a ‘pillar' in a larger fabric. (3) has in its favour some great names (Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzen, and Basil), the consensus of the three implying something like the interpretation of a school of theologians, and yet more the fact that elsewhere the metaphor of the ‘pillar' is elsewhere, as in Galatians 2:9; Revelation 3:12, applied to individual persons. On the whole, there-fore, there seems reason for adopting it. Even here, however, there is a certain mingling of imagery, the ‘pillar' being also the ‘ground' or ‘foundation.' Possibly the word so rendered may be taken in the wider sense of ‘support' or ‘prop.' In Revelation 21:14 and Ephesians 2:20, however, the ‘foundation' is identified with ‘prophets and apostles.'

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

1 Timothy 3:15

Old Testament

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