How One Ought to Behave (1 Timothy 3:14-15)

1 Timothy 3:14-15:

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.

You need to know how one ought to behave, or conduct oneself as part of the church.

This isn’t a back-burner issue. It’s urgent. Otherwise, Paul could have just waited to address it whenever he got to visit Timothy in person. But he couldn’t wait. Timothy needed to know how one ought to behave in the household of God—NOW.

You might be thinking, “I’m going to teach the Bible and let people’s behavior sort itself out as they learn.” “If I pour truth in upstream, it will result in good behavior downstream.” “I’m not the behavior police.”

I’ve thought and operated this way too, but the Bible takes a more nuanced view. Belief and behavior are connected, and we work them both out somewhat simultaneously.

I’ve found that people need their pastor’s help to connect the dots between their beliefs and their behaviors. We’re not always good at doing this on our own.

A lot of our people attend church and read their Bible’s as sort of a spiritual exercise that fails to connect to the conversations they have with their kids in the car, their budgets, or how they respond to someone who needs something from them at an inconvenient time.

I’m teaching my daughter how to drive this year. I’m not just telling her true things about the car and the rules of the road, assuming that her driving behavior will work itself out naturally from there. I’m riding beside her, teaching her proper driving behavior. She’s learning the truths and behaviors of driving simultaneously.

This is how it is for our people when it comes to the truths of the gospel and proper conduct in the church. Your people need you to shepherd them in their beliefs and their behaviors simultaneously.

Some of them may be so thankful for God’s gracious acceptance of sinners that they forget that God also has expectations for the saved. They may feel like anything goes. Being authentic may mean behaving poorly in their minds. But our passage reminds us that there are ways one ought to behave in the household of God.

Think back to some examples of what Paul has written about so far in the letter. Because there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, men should pray peacefully. They shouldn’t fight each other in prayer meetings.

Because godliness adorns itself with good works rather than fancy clothes, women should dress modestly. They shouldn’t parade into church in luxurious outfits.

Because Adam was formed first, then Eve was the first to be deceived, women shouldn’t domineer over men in Sunday school.

Our beliefs have implications for our behaviors—and these implications are important to know because the church is important. Listen to how Paul describes the church.

The church is the household of God. This phrase is not as meaningful to us as it would have been to Timothy and the Ephesian Christians. American households are so different from theirs. The American household is a hub for family members’ individual lives and activities, independent from one another.

The kind of household Timothy would have been used to is an ecosystem of clearly defined relationships with mutually understood authority and responsibility. You see this in the “household codes,” like Ephesians 5 and 6.

Husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church, with initiative and self-sacrifice. Wives submit to their husbands as the church submits to Christ, with trust and respect. Children obey and honor their parents. Fathers bring their children up with sensitivity, discipline, and instruction. Bondservants do their masters’ bidding. Masters treat their bondservants well

To be a part of this kind of household is to participate in a pattern of relational behavior that, when everyone plays their part, works together as a unit. This is what the church is. It is not the Costco of God with individual members enjoying the products and services that appeal to them. It is the household of God, an interconnected network of people learning how to relate to each other properly.

The church is the assembly of the living God. Jesus did not just die to save individual persons. He died to save a people. Other assemblies have inherent expectations for the behavior of their members. As the only assembly dedicated to the living God, of course the church does too.

The church is a pillar and buttress of the truth. When the New Testament refers to the truth, it usually means the gospel and all the subsidiary truths that flow from it. The church is not the only safeguard from factual error. Scholars and journalists and others can do this pretty well. The church is not a fact-checking institution. But it is the only support system underneath the ultimate truths.

Falsehood floods our communities. The polluted waters keep rising all around us. And there’s no falsehood as dangerous as falsehood related to the fundamental truths of reality.

There is no other institution on earth upholding the truths of the gospel and all the truths that cascade from it. This is an incredibly high calling and we cannot rise to it while behaving improperly. We cannot uphold all this glorious truth while we’re puffed up with conceit, quarreling with one another, and letting our children run around in rampant rebellion.

So, this week remember: You need to know how one ought to behave in the household of God, the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.

Remember it. Model it. Teach it. Expect it from yourself and your people.