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).