Reading 1 Timothy this morning, I was struck by the first century hymn quoted by Paul at the end of chapter 3. The hymn follows Paul’s instructions concerning the appointment of overseers (elders) and deacons. Paul notes that he hopes to give these instructions in person, but that he is “writing you these instructions so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.” (1 Tim. 3:14-15.)<\/p>\n
I never noticed before what an amazing ecclesiological passage this is. It seems to pull together much of the reading and scribbling I’ve been doing over the past year about truth and epistemology. Paul says the church, the community of God’s people, is “the pillar and foundation of the truth.” This is what seems to be missing in much of our hyper-individualist evangelical culture. Perhaps in some ways it’s a sour fruit of the Reformation. We need to regain an understanding of the community<\/em> of faith as “the pillar and foundation of the truth.”<\/p>\n Now, on to the hymn. After his ecclesiological statement, Paul concludes that, “[b]eyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great,” and then quotes this Christological hymn:<\/p>\n He appeared in a body, How I wish I could sit in one of those first century house churches and sing this hymn with that first generation of believers who composed it! And yet I can — the Christological hymn naturally follows Paul’s ecclesiological statement about truth because Christ is the head of the Church. When I proclaim the truth of Christ in the community of God’s people gathered together in a particular time and place, I become part of the pillar of truth extending back through the first century to the Church’s founding at Pentecost. This is an incredible mystery to celebrate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reading 1 Timothy this morning, I was struck by the first century hymn quoted by Paul at the end of chapter 3. The hymn follows Paul’s instructions concerning the appointment of overseers (elders) and deacons. Paul notes that he hopes to give these instructions in person, but that he is “writing you these instructions so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epistemology","category-spirituality"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-3m","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nwas vindicated by the Spirit,
\nwas seen by angels;
\nwas preached among the nations,
\nwas believed on in the world,
\nwas taken up in glory.<\/p>\n