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Christians are people of the truth. We take our very name (Acts 11:26) from the incarnate God who is “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14) and who said, “For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth” (18:37). Moreover, we know that the fundamental error of mankind—the sin behind every other sin—is the idolatrous exchange of “the truth about God for a lie” (Rom. 1:25). We also know that God’s remedy for our plight requires the truth to set us free (John 8:32). This is the means by which the grace of God saves (1 Tim. 2:4), sanctifies (John 17:17), and matures (Eph. 4:15) all those who know Him (John 17:3), love Him (2 Thess. 2:10), and worship Him “in spirit and truth” (John 4:23).
It is somewhat counterintuitive, therefore, for Paul to say that the church is “a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). We might have expected the Apostle to say instead, “The truth is a pillar and buttress of the church.” To be sure, the church cannot exist without the truth that precedes it and brings it into existence, for God must first reveal Himself before those who constitute the church can respond by faith to what He has revealed (James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23). Paul knows this, of course. That is why he elsewhere says that the scriptural truths taught by the prophets and Apostles are the church’s foundation, with Christ Himself being the cornerstone (1 Cor. 3:11; Eph. 2:20).
Even so, that is not what Paul is writing about in this letter to his pastoral protégé. Instead, he wants Timothy to understand that while the church is not the foundation of the truth, it is indeed its pillar and its buttress—its preserver and its promoter, as John Calvin says in his commentary on 1 Timothy 3:15. Just as pillars and buttresses support the roof and walls of a cathedral, so also the church plays a vital role in upholding the truth of God within a fallen world.
We do not have to guess what sort of support Paul envisions, since he gives Timothy the following exhortation in the next chapter: “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Tim. 4:16). This is a summary verse for this section in the epistle, where Paul emphasizes godly living (vv. 7–10, 12) and right doctrine (vv. 1–6, 13). These are what he exhorts Timothy to “command and teach” to others (v. 11) while also practicing them himself (v. 15).
As to how holy lives and pure doctrine enable the church to be a pillar and buttress of the truth, consider that there simply is no true church without the faithful preaching of God’s Word. As Paul says in another place, “If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:9). Thus, the Reformers argued that the faithful preaching of right doctrine is the first and greatest mark of any church worthy of that name. If a church is not preaching the truth, how could it ever be a pillar or buttress of the same?
Relatedly, the church is called not only to preach the truth but also to “contend” for it (Jude 3). To preach truths that the natural man neither understands (1 Cor. 2:14) nor accepts (Rom. 8:7–8) is no easy task. It requires courage to keep declaring God’s truth to a world that thinks wisdom sounds like foolishness (1 Cor. 1:21–25). We must keep doing so anyway. It is not our job to dress up the Word of God, as if we could make it more palatable to people in rebellion.
This is only half our calling, however. For what good is faithful preaching if we undermine it by unfaithful living? This is why Jesus rebuked hypocrisy with calls to repentance and faithfulness (Matt. 6:2–16; 7:5; 23:1–36). Similarly, Paul urges us to replace our former way of living with one that matches the new man, “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:20–24; see Rom. 13:12–14; Col. 3:5–11). These verses are solemn reminders that we can obscure the Word of God on our lips by the unfitting conduct of our lives (Rom. 2:24; Gal. 2:14).
This principle works in a positive fashion as well. Paul calls the church to “adorn the doctrine of God our Savior” (Titus 2:10) such that “an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us” (v. 8). This is not to say that a godly life will stop the world from slandering the church. The Lord Jesus was perfectly holy, yet He was mocked and reviled just the same. Our aim, therefore, is not to prevent the world from accusing us (Matt. 5:11–12) but to ensure that its accusations are baseless (1 Peter 3:16; 4:15–17). In this way, the Lord uses the lives of His people to point those who are being saved to His glory (Matt. 5:14–16).
Yet I admit that the church has not always acted as the pillar and buttress that it ought to be. At different times and for different reasons, the plaster has chipped and the supports have cracked. But our God is in the pillar-and-buttress-renewal business. He never leaves Himself without a witness, and so the church in every generation may draw confidence from His promise that He will make us what we were meant to be if we only “[hold] fast to the word of life” (Phil. 2:16) as we hold it forth to all the world.