Read 1 Timothy 3:14-16; 4:6; 5:1-2; 6:1-2
On only on a few occasions does a book of the Bible come right out and tell us its main theme plainly. When this happens, we have a clear answer as to why God inspired this book and why we have it today. Paul does this in 1 Timothy 3:15: “I have written so that you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God.” In other words, everything Paul says in 1 Timothy is about how we are to live as a part of God’s family, the church. In this letter, which is all about restoring spiritual life and health to a church that had become unhealthy, Paul says that the big ideas we cannot miss are that life and health are found in 1) knowing that a healthy church is like a family (a household); and 2) knowing that a Christian can only be spiritually healthy in connection to - and as a part of - a household/family. There is no such thing as spiritual health in isolation or separation from this family.
1) What This Means
When Paul calls the church “household” here, he is using the language of family. Earlier in the chapter, he compares leadership in the church-as-a-household to leadership in a traditional family household (see 3:4, 5, 3:12). He uses the word “household” in Ephesians 2:18-22 to describe the corporate privileges Christians have of connection to one another and access to God as Father. In Galatians 6:10, he uses the word to emphasize the responsibility of Christians to meet one another’s practical needs, like a family would. After introducing the idea of church as household in chapter 3, Paul begins using his more common way of referring to the church as family – as “brothers and sisters”
4:6 – As you point these things out to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished by the words of faith
5:1-2 – Do not rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters with all purity
6:1-2 – Let those who have believing masters not be disrespectful to them because they are brothers, but serve them even better since those who benefit from their service are believers and dearly loved
The teaching is clear – a church is a family. This idea is not unique to 1 Timothy or Paul. This idea comes from Jesus and is everywhere in the New Testament. In a radical and unambiguous way, Jesus defined his community of disciples as family (see Matthew 12:48 and 23:8-12). This clearly left an impression on his early followers. The word translated as “brothers and sisters” in the NT (“adelphoi”) is used 271 times in the NT to refer to the relationship of Christians to each other - to describe what a church is. For comparison: the church is described as a “body” 30 times (18 times in 1 Cor 12); as “saints” 30x, as a “fellowship” 12x and as the “church” 60x. The weight is staggering and the implication is clear - the primary way we are to think of and conduct ourselves as the church is as a household family.
2) How This Is Possible
Is it possible in our age of fragmentation, transience, loneliness and busyness to be a church like this? With our awareness of the realities of brokenness in our own families and the dysfunctions and failures of the church, is it even desirable? Paul’s words here help us answer these questions with a resounding, “Yes!”
The first thing we must keep in mind is that church is God’s idea. Church is not a man-made idea or human institution. It is “God’s household, the church of the living God.” If God is not real and living - forget church. If the authority of God is not recognized as a real and living authority by the leadership and the members of any church, church as family will inevitably break down into division, conflict and unhealth. But if the living God – the God who created all things, who rules over all things and who has all power to redeem all things - If He is present with and over this family, then church as family is possible.
The second thing that makes church as family possible is that this family is built on and created by a mystery. It cannot be built on or created by human ideas or effort. Paul says the church is built on and holds out to the world a mystery (3:15, 16). The mystery Paul is talking about here doesn’t mean a paradox or a puzzle to figure out. Rather, mystery can be defined as something that human wisdom and thinking cannot and would not come up with. What is this mystery? It is the gospel. Verse 16 is the gospel in poetic and hymnic form. Great is the mystery of the gospel that creates this new family! This mystery is the only possible way a church could live like a family.
Hebrews 2:9-3:6 explains the work of Jesus in family/household terms. The mystery is that Jesus, our elder brother, brings many “sons and daughters to glory” by leaving his heavenly glory as the Eternal Son and becomes like us in “every way”, suffering in our place to create a new family and make it possible for us to get in. Here’s the key - If we know this is how we got into the family – it makes it possible for us to receive each other into family as we are and not as we think we should be. No one is Jesus’ brother or sister by right, birth, status, performance or ability. So then who’s in? Anyone who comes through Him, our Elder Brother. When we show the acceptance, understanding, help, compassion and humility we have been shown by our Elder Brother – church as family is possible.
3) What This Looks Like
A church that lives like a gospel family is like a “foundation” and “a pillar” (3:15). What does this mean? Foundations hold things steady; pillars hold things up. The church is called to hold steady and firm to the truth of the gospel in a world of ever-changing ideas (foundation). The church is to hold out the truth for others to see (pillar). We can only do this together as a household/family. It cannot be done on our own. Individually we will inevitably drift, be shaken and be drawn away from the truth of the gospel. We will favor and create our own versions of the truth without the steadying effect of a church family. Individually we may be able to present to the world the content of the gospel (as faith to believe), but it is the conduct of the gospel, our life as a family, that draws others into a community that is only possible because of Jesus.
DIAGNOSE – How would much does your church feel like family? How deeply are you convinced that a Christian can only be spiritually healthy in connection to a church family?
DISCUSS
What about the sermon impacted you most? What left you with questions?
In Bruce Malina’s book, Christian Origins and Cultural Anthropology, he describes what it meant for the church to be family in the collectivist culture of the ancient world. In our modern individualistic world, it is hard for us to grasp when it means for the church to be a family since we ourselves don’t define ourselves first in relationship to our families or any other group. Read the following two selections below (the second is a quote from Malina’s book) – which feels more comfortable? Uncomfortable? What would it look like to embrace church as family, as in the second quotation? What questions does this raise
(Individualist) A person should perceive himself or herself to be an individual responsible to him/herself for his or her actions, destiny, career, development, and life in general... The individual person chooses a church and is free to do what he or she feels right and necessary only if in accord with their personal norms and only if the action is in their best interest. The individual has priority over the church.
(Collectivist) What this means is, first of all, that the person perceives himself or herself to be a member of a church and responsible to the church for his or her actions, destiny, career, development, and life in general... The individual person is embedded in the church and is free to do what he or she feels right and necessary only if in accord with church norms and only if the action is in the church’s best interest. The church has priority over the individual member.
Given the description of church as family shared in the sermon, is it hard for you to believe that church as family like this is possible? Why? Is it hard for you to believe it is even desirable? Why? Do you have any stories/experiences that you can share that shows it is indeed possible and desirable?
What would it look like for a church to guard itself against losing sight of God’s presence and authority over its life as family?
To paraphrase Dietrich Bonhoeffer “He who loves his/her dream church more than his/her own church becomes the destroyer of their church.” How does the gospel make it possible for us to receive our real church family as it is and not to continually judge it for not being our ideal church? (see Heb. 2:9-3:6).
What step(s) can you take to make your current church be more like a family?