14 “…in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.” 1 Timothy 3:14-15
Every week millions of Christians, in the entire world, gather together to worship God and to hear His voice through the preaching of the Word of God. Every local church is different and offers the body of Christ a variety and diversity without equal in the world. But Church is more than gathering together on Sunday. There is in the Church a common thread that we need to find in each local church; something that unites all local churches.
Firstly, the Church is the house of God. With all that that entails. In the church we find a spirit of family. It is a place where love and peace reign. It is in a way the first place where a team spirit is established. When a sport’s team wins a cup, it is not the victory of one individual, but of the whole team. It is the result of the efforts and sacrifices of each one. Certainly, there is a team captain, but the cup is not given to one person, but to the whole team.
Paul also speaks of the Church as: the Church of God. The word Church in the Greek is the word : « Ekklesia » which indicates an assembly of citizens that have been called and that are distinguished from others. In Athens, the citizens belonging to an assembly, the ekklesia, were the governing body of the city. Isn’t this in agreement with what the Lord said speaking of the Church He is building : « I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matt 18.18) ». The Church of God is a place where the authority of God has to prevail against all the power of the enemy. This demands of its members a disciplined and virtuous life. Hell has no power over us, except the power which we give it (Eph. 4 :27). We are called to govern the earth, not over man, but over the power of the enemy, over circumstances and, some times, over events. We are the house of God, and we are also the Church of God.
Moreover, he says that the Church is the pillar of truth. Other translations use the word: “column”, which immediately reminds us of the pillars of the temple of Diana in Ephesus, the city where this letter to Timothy is sent, since Timothy is the pastor of the Church of Ephesus – this church would become the biggest church of ancient times. One of the particularities of the temple of Diane (formerly the temple of Artemis and one of the seven wonders of the ancient world), were its “pillars”, its columns. There were more than a hundred of them, all in marble. It was the first thing one could see when standing before the temple. These pillars do not speak of support – a word that we find in the fourth function of the Church. The pillars of the temple are the first things we can see, even from afar. Therefore, the Church being the pillar of truth, one of its great functions is to manifest loud and strong the truth of the Word of God; it serves to highlight the One who is the truth; the Church is the keeper of the doctrine of Jesus. A sad thing, today, is that many local churches distinguish themselves more for their music and art – which are good in themselves – and less and less for their teaching; yet, the peculiarity of the Church of God, is that it makes manifest the truth. May truth return once again at the center of all activity of the Church.
Finally, the apostle Paul says of the Church that it is the ground of the truth. Truth is again put on a pedestal. For Paul, what makes the Church, is not the variety of programs it may offer, as good as these may be, but what makes the Church peculiar is that it is the ground of truth. In the world where many hide, where it is not popular to manifest the truth, it is clear that the Church still remains as a custodian of the truth. In a politically correct world, where we can’t speak of things as they are, the Church has to rise and lift the truth as its standard and proclaim it loud and strong. In a world that wants to position itself against the Word of God by imposing the theory of evolution in school, imposing a certain theory of gender; a world that wants to destroy traditional family, that is to say a family made of a man, his wife and his kids, and the list goes on ; the Church has to rise, and manifest the truth in love and respect. It is the duty of the Church to say what the Bible declares. The world wants to destroy truth; maybe this will imply, one day, a more active persecution from the enemy, but so long the Church persists, Truth will prevail.
