The Household of God – Satya Shiksha Seva

“If I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth.”

1 Timothy 3:15

While teaching a leadership course, I asked people what they thought the above verse meant. Most of the answers concluded that it talked about the discipline or order we should follow in Sunday church meetings or gatherings. People often think this verse applies to gatherings or programs. But in fact, this verse talks about something beyond our regular Sunday or other day gatherings.

The distinction between a church building and the church that consists of people, is presented in the article never go to church again, which will help you define church biblically. So often today, we look at “church” as a place to go to. We think of a church as a physical structure and therefore we confine it to a hall, a building, or a meeting place.

As the apostle Paul writes to Timothy about ‘how to behave in the household of God’, he is by no means thinking of discipline to be followed during a meeting or when we are at a meeting place, a building, a shrine or a physical structure. Neither is Timothy understanding it that way. Both the writer and the recipient understand “church” as the people in the local community and not a meeting place. Both understand ‘the household of God’ not as some meeting place, but the community of the saved ones.

Similarly, when Paul writes to Titus (Titus 2:2-8) about elders teaching young men and older women teaching young women, Paul is not imagining a pulpit sermon or a teaching session in a Sunday gathering or a particular program or a conference; he is talking of learning that should take place in a community, beyond set programs, and not just a planned activity or meeting.

Therefore, though it’s good to think about order in our meetings and programs, and there, of course, should be order for smooth functioning of programs and meetings, the leaders of local church communities should start thinking of community life of the church beyond formal gatherings and programs.

Real life and discipleship are going to happen not in our formal meetings alone but even more in the community life of the local church.

As leaders, we must help our churches to come out of traditional thinking of “church” as Sunday gatherings and other formal meetings and to think of church as a community and begin to look at the church – the people – as the body of Christ, as the household of God. We must educate our people on “how to behave in the household of God” that is, how we relate to each other, serve one another, and be a family of God’s people.

Let’s think of “the household of God” biblically and help others to think likewise.