The Mystery Of Godliness Series

Scripture

In the third chapter of his First Letter to Timothy, Paul set down the qualifications for church officers. He described the qualifications for overseers, also known as elders, in verses 1-7 and then the qualifications for deacons in verses 8-13. Paul then turned his attention to the church in which those officers serve. “For,” as commentator John Stott notes, “the nature of the ministry is determined by the nature of the church.”

Let us read 1 Timothy 3:14-16:

14 I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, 15 if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. 16 Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. (1 Timothy 3:14-16)

Introduction

If I were to ask you to define “church,” you may or may not have difficulty defining it, depending on your background and experience. Some people may say that it is where religious people gather to worship God. Others may say that it is an organization that tries to do good in the community. And still others may say that it is a building in which people meet. In his article on “The Nature of the Church,” Dr. J. I. Packer writes as follows:

The Church of God, “that wonderful and sacred mystery” (Aquinas), is a subject that stands at the very heart of the Bible. For the Church is the object of the redemption which the Bible proclaims. It was to save the Church that the Son of God became man, and died (Eph. 5:25): God purchased his Church at the cost of Christ’s blood (Acts 20:28). It is through the Church that God makes known his redeeming wisdom to the hosts of heaven (Eph. 3:10). It is within the Church that the individual Christian finds the ministries of grace, the means of growth, and his primary sphere for service (Eph. 4:11–16). We cannot properly understand the purpose of God, nor the method of grace, nor the kingdom of Christ, nor the work of the Holy Spirit, nor the meaning of world history, without studying the doctrine of the Church.

Today we are going to examine the nature of the Church. This is not by any means an exhaustive examination. We are going to look at just three descriptive expressions that Paul gave for the Church in 1 Timothy 3:14-16, each of which illustrates a different aspect of it.

Lesson

1 Timothy 3:14-16 shows us the nature of the church.

Let’s use the following outline:

1. The Church Is God’s Household (3:14-15a)

2. The Church Consists of People Called Out from the Unbelieving World (3:15b)

3. The Church Exists to Uphold and Proclaim God’s Truth (3:15c-16)

I. The Church Is God’s Household (3:14-15a)

The first truth we learn about the nature of the church is that the church is God’s household.

Paul planted the church in Ephesus during the three years he served there (Acts 20:31). He trained a core of leaders to serve the church after he left (Acts 20:17ff). False teachers arose after he left, just as he had foreseen (Acts 20:29-30). After Paul’s release from his first Roman imprisonment, he returned to Ephesus and dealt with two prominent false teachers (1 Timothy 1:20). Then he left Timothy to deal with the rest of the false teachers and to set the church in order, while he set out for Macedonia (1:3). Shortly after his departure, he wrote this letter to Timothy, to confirm in writing what he had said to him in person. Timothy was to correct the false teachers and build up the Ephesian church. That is why Paul wrote in verses 14-15a, “I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God.”

It is likely that what Paul had written in his First Letter to Timothy was what he had taught the congregation in person. But it was good for the people to see it again in writing so that they would be assured that Timothy was not acting on his own but under the leadership and authority of Paul.

These verses express Paul’s purpose in writing his letter to Timothy. He wanted to instruct Timothy on proper conduct in the church. Paul used three expressions in verse 15, and we shall look at each of these in turn. First, he mentioned “the household of God.” The church is not a building. It is the people of God who are members of God’s family. John Stott helpfully summarizes what “the household of God” means: