Sola Church

The Church is the Pillar (Proclaimer) of Truth

“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)

Foundations hold things fast; pillars hold things high. Pillars put things on display. Think Athens or Rome and those ruins still have pillars and columns standing upright. They are still doing their job centuries later.

The church is called to display the gospel by proclaiming the gospel. This is our outreach. This is our evangelism. This is our lives lived as salt and light. This is God’s love through us to others.

Now the pillar stands on the foundation. In fact, the larger the foundation, the higher the pillar can go. I remember when we built the Auditorium at our Crown Point campus. I was astounded at the size of the concrete foundations. People don’t notice foundations; they notice pillars. But a pillar with no foundation won’t last very long. It’s precarious, like palm trees in a hurricane. Similarly, a foundation with no pillar is ineffective. Nobody notices a foundation in the ground unless something is on top of it. The pillar reveals the foundation.

There are three types of churches around. There are foundation-only churches. They are very doctrinal, but they cloister. They are a secret society. They are vaults of truth. There are churches that are pillar-only churches. They are incredibly effective at getting peoples’ attention. They go very high. They can draw a crowd, BUT they are big pillar, small foundation. These churches come and go.

The true church, the Sola Church, is both foundation and pillar. They hold fast with passion the biblical doctrines. They pass that passion on to their children who share their passion and pass it on. They are not ashamed of the gospel of Christ (Romans 1:16). That solid foundation allows the church to hold high God’s truth in their community. Luther didn’t merely discover the true gospel in the pages of Scripture, he nailed it to the door of the church. He filled Germany with books and pamphlets. Wittenberg became a Sola Church with a massive doctrinal foundation and a pillar that rose so high that Rome saw it and 500 years later we still see it today.

Sola Church. Foundation and Pillar. Hold it fast. Hold it high.

© 2017 by Steve DeWitt. You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author, (2) any modifications are clearly marked, (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, (4) you include Bethel’s website address (www.bethelweb.org) on the copied resource.

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