Healthy Teaching + Healthy Teachers = Healthy Households

Wow! The above title is 1 Timothy in a nutshell. Healthy translates hygiainos, from which we get the medical term hygiene. It begins and ends Paul’s letter to Timothy (1:10; 6:3). You may have heard about “sound doctrine.” I suggest that we say “healthy teaching by healthy teachers.” And “household” is the focus rather than “church.” Household translates oikos, occurring in its various forms eight times in the letter Church is OK since the household of God is the church of the living God (3:15). Timothy is to teach the church in Ephesus how to behave.

What is so new and important about household? Several reasons occur to me. 1) It is the word Paul uses throughout the letter. 2) The word was readily understood by first century Christians who assembled for worship and fellowship in the house of one of their members. 3) Church is misunderstood today as the building to which we come and a time when we must behave properly. 4) The main reason is theological. Paul’s first use of the word in this letter (1:4) informs the whole letter. The word here, oikonomia, talks about God’s stewardship (ESV), his way of ordering and operating his world, his creation.

That is a big idea! It points to the enormity of Timothy’s task and ours today. We are to be a household, a church of the living God that models the way God intents his world to operate. How does God order his world? The answer is seen in the God statements in 1 Timothy.

1:17 – Paul’s praise of the one who delivered him and appointed him to his service.

2:3-4 – God’s desire for all humans to be saved informs the prayer and worship of men and women in every place (house-church?).

3:16 – Confess the mystery manifest in Jesus. The mandate for how to behave in God’s house, the church of the living God.

4:4 – Everything created by God, both food and sex, is to be received with thanksgiving.

4:10 – God as Savior of all people directs our labor and mission in life.

6:15-16 – The good fight of faith is to be waged until his appearing with hope and expectation.

Let us learn how to behave properly as God’s household, a church of the living God.

—Tom Yoakum