1 Timothy 3:14-16

Alright friends,
thanks for being with us as we close out this week and Holy Week, Happy Monday Thursday.
And
we are in the tail end of chapter 3,
verse 14 is where we start.
We’ve gone through here Paul’s advice to Timothy on selecting elders or bishops and deacons.
And now we move on to,
again,
kind of these moments,
if you’ve been with us as we’ve read Paul before,
these moments where Paul kind of breaks into almost liturgy,
kind of worship language.
And we see it here today.
So,
verse 14,
“I hope to come to you soon,
but I’m writing these instructions to you
that so if I’m delayed,
you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God,
which is the church of the living God,
the pillar and the bulwark of the truth.
Without any doubt,
the mystery of our religion is great.
He was revealed in spirit,
seen by angels,
proclaimed among the Gentiles,
believed in and throughout the world,
taken up
in glory.”
So you might remember as we started this letter,
Paul didn’t really give a purpose statement.
We mentioned at the time that it was a little unusual,
but that Paul seemed to be in such
a hurry to get to the issues.
He kind of skipped over that.
Here he kind of comes back to that,
“I’m writing to you so that you’ll have some help,
that you’ll have some tools,
that you’ll be able to know how one ought to behave.”
And particularly in the case of the leaders that Paul has outlined in this chapter.
And then really interesting language for Paul,
pillar and bulwark.
One of the things that’s interesting about these three letters,
1 Timothy and Titus,
is they contain I think is well over a hundred words that Paul doesn’t use anywhere else.
And here we see a couple of them,
pillar and bulwark.
These are not typical Paul kind of words,
but a pillar and a bulwark.
In other words,
testament to the truth,
things that hold together,
things that are structural.
And that has to do interestingly enough with how one ought to behave.
We’ve said it before,
Michael, but for Paul,
what one does is always the measure of what
one believes.
Behavior and belief are always connected for Paul.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think it is very easy as we come to a text like this and to read past it.
Some of that is the lyrical nature that you’re talking about,
Clint.
Some of that is we are not particularly connected as modern readers to the exact context for
which Paul’s writing.
As we’ve already said in our study of this letter,
what scholars do is they come and
they look and they try to intuit as best as they possibly can from the data within the letter itself.
But
we can’t, unfortunately,
interview a person from this congregation in Ephesus and say,
what are the challenges?
Who are these false prophets Paul’s talking about?
What are the teachings that that false prophet is maybe propagating?
And what I find very,
very interesting, Clint, about this particular text is,
do you notice
as we get into this hymnody,
I just want to bring this up here so we can all be on the same page.
Notice what is not included here.
I’m going to get verse 16.
Here we go.
What’s not included revealed in flesh,
this idea that Jesus Christ is revealed incarnation
is the theological word we would use,
vindicated in spirit,
likely we see in the other texts
this idea of resurrection as the vindication of Christ or the display of God’s power through Jesus Christ.
Seen by angels.
No, maybe that’s potentially one of those angels at the tomb that we see in the gospels.
And then we have this movement to acts,
proclaimed among Gentiles, believed throughout the world,
taken up in glory,
this idea of ascension.
Notice what’s not there.
This is especially prevalent during a holy week setting.
There’s no talk of cross.
There’s no talk of sacrifice.
That for Paul,
number one,
is a little surprising.
Paul often talks about the cross.
In fact, in some places says that if Jesus Christ did not really truly die and was not
really truly resurrected, then Christians among all people should be pitied.
So what I find interesting here with the heavy emphasis on revelation is it leads us to wonder,
might there be a sense in which this is giving us an idea of what Paul is
addressing in these false teachers?
Is it possible that there’s some sort of idea going around in this congregation that really
there’s some kind of special knowledge or there’s some kind of very particular theological
spiritual understanding that some people can attain,
but that not everyone could?
If that’s the case,
then this is a very clear repudiation to say, no,
the revelation of Jesus Christ was discernible,
knowable.
If you were in the room,
it could be seen.
It was revealed.
And that is an absolutely essential,
I think kind of a corrective in what could have been
a context in which that was up for debate.
Yeah. And I think a really interesting bridge,
Michael, the idea of revelation and then proclamation
and for Paul,
he can’t separate how he understands the gospel from the fact that the gospel is
shared with the Gentiles,
that it is making its way not only through Jewish believers,
but ultimately outside of the Jewish faith to the Gentiles.
For Paul, this is a staggering and central fact of who Jesus is and what Jesus has done,
what God has done through Jesus Christ.
He was revealed.
He was vindicated.
He was seen.
He was proclaimed among the Gentiles.
Again, many of those reading this letter are Gentiles believed in throughout the world.
What does this say?
This says, “Remember that you’re not the only ones.
You are part of something bigger.
There is a community.”
He refers to it up above as the household of God,
which is another unique phrase.
Paul doesn’t say that in other places.
The household of God,
the connection,
the family of the risen Christ believed in throughout
the world and taken up in glory.
And yeah,
some commentators think maybe this is part of an early liturgy or even an early hymn.
However, it is that Paul comes to use it.
He uses it here as a moment of doxology,
a moment of praise,
and it is a fitting place
to close the chapter.
Remember that there aren’t numbers and chapters in the original letters,
but this is clearly
an ending point.
We see Paul do this all the time.
He ascends to a moment of praise,
a kind of an amen moment,
and then he moves on to the
next thing, which he’ll do and we’ll take a look at next week.
Yeah, Clint, you know, I think one of the really amazing things about a text like this
is it does begin to flesh out for us a little bit about what is meant by the holy mystery
or that idea that we talked about yesterday where we need to stay true to the mystery of the faith.
It is a beautiful reflection here that we aren’t going to have our mind fully grasped
around an ungraspable God.
The creature is not going to fully understand the creator.
And what I think is beautiful about this as we see it is that this is not a kind of attempt
to encapsulate all of the faith.
You wouldn’t even really call this a kind of training document or a place where we really
see a list of the minimum beliefs for what it means to be Christian.
Rather, it’s a kind of exhortation.
It’s a kind of liturgical,
almost praise.
You could see something like this,
maybe even in the Psalms,
you know, in the Old Testament.
I think what is beautiful about the lyrical nature of this is it in form encapsulates,
I think, the content, and that is to say that these are the things that we believe.
Jesus Christ was revealed.
Jesus Christ was exalted.
We don’t understand the mechanics of every component of that,
but nor do we need to.
That is the beauty of the mystery of the faith.
Those words paired together are, I think, beautiful.
And I think that they enable for us not just sort of that idea of,
once again, the content of stuff like a checklist to be believed,
but also the affect with which a Christian life is lived.
We live with a kind of openness to revelation,
a kind of awareness that we didn’t get there on our own,
a kind of commitment that there are those in the faith who point us down some
mysterious paths, and if we’re willing to trust them and ultimately the one who goes
with us on that journey, Jesus Christ,
then we are discovering the fullness of what it
means to be people of faith.
And you know,
clearly,
though we may not in this conversation be able to encapsulate all
of the controversy that’s being addressed here for the modern believer seeking to hear
the word of God for us today in this text.
I think that this is beautiful,
and I think it’s invitational.
And I think it’s even encouraging, that idea,
if you live with some doubt,
if you live with
some struggle with your faith today,
that that’s okay.
There’s some mystery in it and trust out in the midst of that.
Well, and just to kind of tie this up, Michael,
bring us to a close here,
I think it helps to remember that
Timothy is reading this as one who has Paul as a mentor,
right?
So he says, “I’m writing to you.
I’m hoping to come to you.
I’m hoping to be there soon.
I want to help.
I know there’s stuff going on in this congregation,
in this fellowship that needs addressed.
I know that people are causing division,
dissension.
I know that people are saying things that are offensive and that have caused problems
in the fellowship, and I want to come and be a part of fixing that.
But if I’m delayed,
I’m writing to you so that you know how one ought to act.”
And there is an empowerment,
I think, that’s given there to Timothy that Paul recognizes
that if I’m not there,
Timothy,
it will fall on you to do that and do that in keeping with
this beautiful mystery of our faith.
In other words,
live out your leadership and your ministry and your mission in the
person of Jesus Christ.
The authority is not your own,
nor is the intention your own.
The intention is to have a fellowship,
a household of God that reflects the glory of Jesus Christ
in which he was taken up.
And I do think this is a kind of really confirming and affirming text of Timothy’s own ministry.
Now, I’m sure it came across with some intimidation as Timothy tried to imagine,
“Ooh, I’m going to have to call some people to account,” and that may be,
you know, that’s always a difficult thing,
may have been difficult for him.
But I think Paul shows here a lot of confidence in Timothy,
and I think we want to keep that in mind.
You know, what I think is interesting here, too,
is this idea that the Church of the Living
God is the pillar and bulwark of the truth.
What’s interesting about that,
to me, Clint, is the bulwark is a defensive sort of place.
It’s the thing that stands in the gap.
And I think what I find really fascinating about that is what comes later.
It’s not the kind of thing that you would find in a Church’s confession book, right?
It’s not the thing that sort of teases out,
like you even have in the Apostle’s Creed,
this sort of breakdown of all of the narrative elements of the faith.
It is rather an affirmation of the revelation of Jesus Christ in all of these different ways.
And that is a kind of spiritual posture,
especially in the midst of Holy Week, that is unbelievably
helpful, for us to be able to fix our eyes on the one who continues to this day to show
us what it is for God to take on flesh.
And I think that as we seek to become people more and more aware of that revelation,
the people who even, as we see spoken right here,
are proclaiming among the Gentiles,
believing throughout the world, that we are part of this family,
we’re part of that bulwark,
we’re part of the community that’s seeking to be faithful,
to be witnesses to the good news
that we’ve seen, the very thing that has been revealed.
Friends, that is a gift.
It’s an absolutely beautiful kind of gift.
That said,
you know,
we know comes with controversy.
It comes with challenge.
It comes with disagreement.
It comes with figuring out what it means to live in Christian community together.
So to your point,
Clint, and maybe to summarize here for myself,
it’s amazing to me that we
have a wise Christian leader writing to a younger person,
a younger leader to say,
here is here’s the the goal moving forward.
Here’s the spiritual plan.
And he leaves it open for what that exact teaching is going to be and how to address the
individual members that need address.
But he says, you know, this is the real heart of the mystery of the faith.
That is beautiful.
And to whatever extent every Christian can embody that holy mystery,
the revelation of Jesus Christ, and it’s showing through our witnessing to the world,
then I think we not
only honor the text like this,
but we are beginning to live into the very heart with
which it was offered.
Yeah, and I think a fitting message for today as we come toward some of the most important
days of Holy Week and as we move closer to Easter,
the affirmation of Jesus,
of his work, of the proclamation, of the place of the church in the sharing of the good news
and teaching the faith and understanding the faith,
I think really good reminder and I
think a fitting word to end our week together.
So we’re grateful that you would join us today.
It’s good to have you with us.
Glad that we’re back on video.
And we hope that you all have a blessed and wonderful Easter weekend,
a celebration of the good news of Jesus Christ,
and we look forward to joining with you again next week.