Grace & Truth Chapel
131 Fardale Avenue ~ Mahwah, New Jersey
Phone 201-327-6226 ~ E-mail gtchapel@juno.com

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"Behavior in the House of God" (posted July 20, 2016)

   If I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
   - 1 Timothy 3:15

The apostle Paul was hoping to rejoin Timothy, but in the meantime, by divine inspiration, he wrote the above verse. Now, Paul was not telling Timothy how to act when he went to church! Timothy was not a mere child who had to be instructed as to his behavior among a congregation gathered to worship God. When the apostle uses the expression “house of God,” he is not referring to a material building.

Men may speak of a building dedicated to the worship and praise of God as the house of God, and there is a sense in which it is perfectly correct to so speak. It is important that Sunday school teachers and those who have the instruction of children should impress upon their hearts the necessity of reverent behavior when they come into the building that has been set apart as a place where we come together to worship and sing praises to God, to lift up our voices in prayer, and for the ministry of His holy Word. It is most unbecoming for boys and girls— little ones and older ones too— to be running around through the halls, giving vent to loud laughter and various noises that disturb and distress others. We should realize that there is a certain demeanor which should characterize us when we enter such a building.

But when the apostle used the expression “the house of God,” he was not referring to a material building. The house of God is the Church of the living God, a spiritual building, made up of all those who are born of God, who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, “in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22).

Again and again, both in Paul’s epistles and Peter’s first epistle, the Church of God is looked upon as being made up of living stones cemented together by the Holy Spirit, and in that building God dwells. We need to learn how we ought to conduct ourselves as members of the assembly of saints; how we ought to behave in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. The only way we can learn this is through the study of the Scriptures, which tell us of the behavior that should characterize those who have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and recognize Him as the Head of the Body, the Church.

This Church is the pillar and ground, or foundation, of the truth. A pillar is for display purposes; the foundation is that on which the superstructure rests. The Church was intended by our blessed Lord to be the pillar proclaiming the gospel of His grace while resting on the great foundation truths of the Word of God. We have no right to play fast and loose with revealed truth. We may be liberal with that which belongs to us; but this is God’s truth, and we are to stand firmly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Harry A. Ironside



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