1 Timothy 3:15

15. If I tarry long So that the letter was a proviso against his failing to come soon, or ever.

Behave thyself in the house of God The word behave unfortunately suggests to the ordinary reader the idea of personal deportment; it really designates Timothy’s official management in governing the Church, in doctrine, ordinations, and administration, according to the directions thus far by Paul prescribed.

House of God Huther objects that if Timothy’s personal management is here intended, then the house of God must mean the Church of Ephesus. Undoubtedly it does. Timothy and the Church of Ephesus are solely here meant, and the whole epistle and all its contents are applicable to other cases only by fair inference. And so it is with a large share of the New Testament. The rule in the immediate case is placed on record for future application to future cases. Huther well notes that the term house of God is the original designation of the temple, Matthew 21:13: thence applied to the Church of the Old Testament, Hebrews 3:2-5; now to the Church of the New Testament in which God dwells, Heb 3:6 ; 1 Peter 4:17. Synonymous is Ephesians 2:22, habitation of God, and 1 Corinthians 3:16, and 2 Corinthians 6:16, temple of God.

Church of the living God Emphatic explanation of the previous phrase.

Living God A solemn and impressive epithet; used, perhaps, to distinguish Jehovah from the lifeless Diana of Ephesus.

The pillar and ground of the truth That St. Paul should, after having called the church a house, then make it but a pillar, has been decried by some critics as a very tasteless anti-climax. And to avoid this objection some very forced interpretations have been invented; as for instance, the making pillar apposition with thou, and identical with Timothy. But this criticism fails to appreciate St. Paul’s purpose in this rapid change of figure. The Church, as the sphere within which Timothy is to administer, is a house; but as a bulwark against the invasion of the errorism predicted in the next verses, it is a pillar and basis. The Church is hereby the pillar and ground, not merely of truth, nor of the truth, as the gospel generally, but of the truth beautifully summarized in the next verse, the truth of the incarnation, against which the errorists of 1 Timothy 4:1-3 are assailants.