1 Timothy 3.14–16
A sermon preached on Mothers’ Day 8th May at Geraldton Anglican Cathedral.
It is a pleasure to be speaking to you this Mothers’ Day. The Church has had its own Mothering Sunday for a lot longer than Mothers’ Day, but the Americans invented Mother’s Day and it has caught on. There are a lot of things in society that are good to go along with. I regret that I took my own mother so much for granted. She was like the sun: always there, reliable, always warming us with her love; but because it was constant I just took at as the way things were. I regret that; I owe her so much. It is good to be reminded on Mother’s Day.
The first thing I want to say this morning is that mothering is a good thing. When we step back from all the busy-ness of life, perhaps there is no more important calling. Each of us has a mother; we all owe our life to a mother—and we owe a whole lot more to her. I have four wonderful children, and we are now up to nine grandchildren. Each of my children is a passionate Christian, which can only be the grace of God. Nothing we humans do can make a person a child of God. But humanly speaking, I know my children’s upbringing was eighty percent the work of their mother. The rabbis used to say, “Thank you God that I was not born a woman.” That could be acceptable, if it was a man thanking God for making him what he is, but if he is suggesting it is better to be a man than a woman, it is evil. In the first chapter of the Bible we read that God made them male and female and blessed them. Blessing means happiness—final, permanent happiness—and he blessed them both. But in this fallen world there is no question that women have a hard road. Quite apart from the agony of giving birth, the hard work of rearing a child falls mostly to the mother. Many was the time I thanked God I couldn’t breast-feed, and was able to roll over and continued my sleep. Even now that our children are adults, their mother is closer to them and attentive to their needs in a way I cannot match.
In our Bible Study yesterday we read Revelation 12: “A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.” We asked who she might be? We decided she was a kind of composite figure: Eve, the mother of all the living, Israel the betrothed of God, Mary the mother of the one who is to rule the nations with a rod of iron, and the Church the future bride of Christ and Queen of Heaven. What an important place the woman has, and mothers have, in the unfolding plan of God!
We are doing the second of a series of sermons on the Church. Today I want to ask how we should think of it? “Mother Church”, they used to say. I don’t think that is a common image in the Bible. In his first letter to Timothy, the young church planter, Paul says:
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, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth. (1 Timothy 3.14–15).
He speaks first of “the household of God.” This is worth pondering. The word he uses is the simple word, oikos, which means a house, but is also commonly used in the New Testament of the members of a house, a household, an extended family.
The world was full of them: a family head, a wife and mother, children, grandparents, relations, servants and slaves. Many of the houses in Ephesus were more than a single building; more like a compound, with a number of interconnected dwellings to accommodate everyone, with a surrounding wall cutting them off from the street.
To belong to a good household was everything. To be out on your own with no family in the ancient world was lonely and dangerous. There were not too many bachelor flats back then; even lepers clung together for some sort of family and protection. Even to be a slave in a good household, was blessed, compared with being out on your own.
What a great thing then to become a Christian, and find you are a member of the household of God, and not just any household, and not as a slave, but as a son or a daughter of the Creator of the world, of the God who owns the cattle on a thousand hills, of the Father who sent his Son to fetch you home and died in the process, of the one who will perfect his creation and provide a permanent home for his family. What a blessing!
Note especially at this point that the “household of God” Paul is talking about, is not the universal Church we spoke of last week, but the local church: the church at Ephesus, and therefore the church in Geraldton and the church in Kununurra. And for most Christians in Ephesus, their entry into the church was also their entry into someone’s household. Apollos heard the Gospel in the house of Aquila and Pricilla, and his first experience of a Christian church was also in their home. I don’t know how that was for him—maybe he was from a good home, so that side of it mightn’t have been the first thing to strike him—but imagine if you were a slave—used to being treated like dirt—and you were invited into the home of Mr and Mrs Aquila, who treated you like a human being and accorded you the same respect as the important people, who were also your friends. The household of God would have been much more than a concept. As you discovered your heavenly Father you were also discovering your brothers and sisters in Christ. When I became a Christian I found there was a home where we students were always welcome, where God was a normal subject of conversation.
What is the purpose of the church? It is common to hear that the church exists for mission. A living church will be a missionary church, but this is not its purpose. Mission is for the church, not the church for mission. What I mean is, the purpose of mission is to build the church. The church’s purpose is to be a community which loves God and enjoys him together, and where people love and enjoy one another. Imagine a family where the children are taught that their purpose is simply to work! God does not call us to himself first and foremost to be his workers, but to know him, and love him, and enjoy him, and, yes, also to serve him, but that does not come first.
We need to ask ourselves whether our church really is the household of God? Or are we more like a cinema, where people come in to watch a show, and leave as soon as the credits go up? Or like a service station, where you drive in to tank up? Or a school where people come for instruction? Are our members getting to know each other, and becoming friends?
A formal service in a big venue may seem a long way removed from a household, but not so far, if people are chatting with friends before and after the formal bit, inviting each other to their homes, being part of a home study group, and coming together for special occasions. There was a formal bit in the gatherings of those homes in Ephesus; on one occasion they would have read this letter of Paul to Timothy; it is full of talk about how to make the church a well-ordered functioning household. Without some of us opening our homes as places for fellowship, study, prayer, and care, our church will be a shadow of what it should be.
Paul moves on to a second image; he speaks of “the church of the living God”: The ecclesia of the living God. This can be misleading. We spoke last week about the great Ecclesia, the invisible Church, the Church God sees, and the Church as it will be when Jesus returns. We said it was Jesus’ Church: he is building it, and it will survive every attempt to destroy it. We call it invisible, but of course it is not. It is there wherever two or three gather together in his name; it is just not yet complete and glorified.
But if you went to Ephesus on a Sunday morning, and asked where you could find the local church you would get a surprise, because they would tell you it is not meeting today—you would have to speak to the Town Clerk and he could tell you when the next citizen’s meeting is scheduled. Ecclesia was not a Christian word. It just meant a meeting. But if you said “the Ecclesia in Ephesus” everyone would know you meant the citizen’s meeting, though there would also be a local firemen’s ecclesia, and several other associations as well. When Paul says “the Ecclesia of the Living God” he is thinking of something more formal and historic than a household. He could mean the regular Saturday meeting of the Jews, but that was mostly called the synagogue (which means the same). The “Church of the Living God” evokes the whole history we spoke of last week: Moses assembling the Israelites at Mt Sinai for their meeting with God, the nation Israel, the periodic gatherings of “the great congregation.” And if this body is represented in Ephesus, it is something more dignified and public than just a household.
In chapter 2 Paul reminds Timothy what should be happening in the church.
“I urge that first of all, that requests, prayers, intercessions and thanksgiving be made for everyone – for kings and all those in authority … I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer …”
And there are instructions for the women.
This is like the public responsibilities of the temple in Jerusalem being transferred to the local church. It is the household of God, yes, but in no ways is it private; in no ways does it live to itself. It is called in every place to to be a community, and, dare I say it, an institution, and pray for the world. There is something incredibly arrogant here, if you look at it in today’s terms. The church is laying claim to a responsibility for everyone, even the king and the government—not just believers, and not just members. We need to take care when we think of the church as an institution. Usually “institution” evokes the framework that supports a community, but the church is the community itself.
In chapter 1 Paul tells Timothy to command certain people not to teach “different teachings”. It is not clear whether they are false teachings, or just inconsequential. They are to stop devoting themselves to myths and endless genealogies: meaningless talk, Paul calls it. He calls these people conceited, with an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant frictions.
The effect of whatever it was, was to turn the church into an inward looking debating club, absorbed with its own controversies. But the church is the community of the Living God, and is meant to shine like a lighthouse in the dark world that God wants to save. After all, every man, woman, and child receives their life from God. Every good thing comes from him. God wants all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth, and Paul says there is one mediator between God and human beings, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for many. It is because God wants to save everyone that the church must be there as a responsible public institution, praying for all, even for governments and for the peace of the world, with the dignity and propriety that will commend it to the wider community. The church must never become a private club, not when we realize who we are, and what our responsibility is for the rest of the world. There is a lot of talk today about inclusiveness. The church has always been inclusive. From the beginning rich and poor, men, women and children, slaves and free, even the emasculated were included Everyone is welcome to its meetings. Membership is a different matter; sharing at the Lord’s Table is for those who believe in Christ, and in what the church stands for, and are seeking to live a Christian life.
Which brings us to the third thing Paul has to say about the household of God. It is the pillar and buttress of the truth.
At first reading this is a puzzle. How is the church the pillar and buttress of the truth? Surely the Word of God is stronger. The church is so weak and feeble, and unreliable. It often resists the word of God.
But see it as Paul did. He came to Ephesus and there was no knowledge of God, no gospel, no godliness. He taught for two years; he even ran a theological college. And a great multitude of people believed and came together to form the church. He was able to move on, leaving behind a witness to the truth. But now the church is fragmenting. People are going after new ideas. The energies of the community are being dissipated in debates and arguments and ill-feeling is appearing. Forgotten are the multitudes of lost sinners on their way to hell. Forgotten is the life-giving gospel.
A faithful, well-ordered church is God’s chosen instrument to bear his truth—to read it, preach it, teach it, hold it up, live it, and model it. These are the things Paul urges Timothy to get into place again. Read the letter and you will see how important the truth is to Paul. It produces the orderly life of the household of God. (1.4) It produces love, (1.5) and it saves people into eternal life. (1.15-16) It holds promise for this life and for the life to come. (4.8) It promotes true godliness and contentment. (6.6). And it glorifies God. It has been especially entrusted to Paul; (1.11) he entrusts it to the church.
Whether we like it or not, the fortunes of the Word of God are linked to the fortunes of the church. If the church is faithful and stands to its task, many will be saved, and society will be affected for good. If the church falls apart or fragments few will be saved.
Most of us have been nurtured in the church. The church has been the means of preserving the truth and bringing it to us. We must strive to see the truth is there for our children and our children’s children. That means striving for good churches. 1 Timothy was written for that purpose.
“I am writing you these instructions so you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the Living God, the pillar and buttress of the truth.”
Paul cannot say this without bursting into a song, and it is not a song about the church. Christians do not come to church because they are in love with the church, but because they love Jesus. Paul’s song is about Christ.
He appeared in a body – he was justified in the spirit
He was seen by angels – he was preached among the nations
He was believed on in the world – he was taken up in glory.