Paul’s reference to God’s household is a reference to the family of believers, the royal priesthood or the holy nation of 1 Peter 2:9. Paul was writing this letter (First Timothy) to inform Timothy what should be expected from the people whom God had chosen to represent him here in the earth at this time in history. These people, the believers in Jesus Christ, together are the family, or the household of God called “the church.” They are “the pillar and foundation of the truth” in their society, their culture, their city, their world, their time and in their generation.

The buildings of the first century in Ephesus where supported by pillars and the pillars stood on foundation stones for strength and permanence. The roof and the building would be supported by an elaborate system of decorated pillars whose stability came from the foundation stones. In Paul’s image the truth is the building with its roof, but the church (which is the household of God’s people, not the local church building) was the pillars that held that building of truth up, and the people of God who together were the church of the living God, were also, the support for those pillars. If the household of God did not provide a stable base the pillars would sink, lean or wobble. If the pillars moved from the foundation stones the building would move, crack, pieces would fall and the building would collapse.

Paul is not saying the church is the truth. Paul clearly separates truth as an identity that exists outside the people of God. The point of Paul’s analogy is to say that the church, or the people of God’s family, is the foundation stones that stabilize the pillars, and the pillars, which are also the church, or the royal family of God, hold up the building which is the Truth. If the people of the local church collapse or are not stable, then the presentation of truth to that local community will falter and even fail.

 The church is made up of the people that God has chosen to demonstrate his word, his character, his will and his salvation through. If the church, or the people of God, fail to live as men “who know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household,” then even though truth will always exist, it will not be seen, known or understood by the people in that local society. The structure of truth will be unstable and will crumble in a society with unstable, wobbling believers.

"The bow cannot be always bent without fear of breaking. Repose is as needful to the mind as sleep to the body… Rest time is not waste time.
It is economy to gather fresh strength...It is wisdom to take occasional furlough. In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less."
-C.H. Spurgeon