1 Timothy 3:15– Ecclesia of the living God

Yet if I should be tardy, that you may be perceiving how one must behave in God’s house, which is the ecclesia of the living God, the pillar and base of the truth.

In the absence of Paul, Timothy would know through this letter how to be in the ekklesia of the living God. By the way, this was not only true for Timothy in the first century, but also for us who are now reading this letter in the twenty-first century. Paul’s physical absence as an apostle is no obstacle to fully absorbing his teaching.

It is true that the situation has changed dramatically since the first century. Christendom as a whole has completely deviated from the truth. The second Timothy letter in particular emphatically predicts this development. Ecclesias have en masse renounced sound doctrine and they no longer tolerate it (2Tim.4:3). There is no room for the truth within the established church systems because they are dogmatically (Nicea!) closed off to it.

And yet… even today there are still places, however rare, where believers simply gather around the message that Paul preached among the nations. There one experiences in all simplicity and modesty what “the ecclesia of the living God is”. A “pillar and base of the truth”!

Delen: