There has been some claims that the Dead Sea Scrolls contain fragments of Timothy and other Christian Greek scriptures, but this is rejected by the majority of scholars.[6][7][8][9]
if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.
In his Commentary on John, while talking about the cleansing of the Temple, Origen mentions the Temple as "the house of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth", referring to the Church which provides firmness.[10]Clark H. Pinnock uses this verse to say that the view that God raising up Church leaders to protect and interpret the Bible is "good and scriptural". He argues that in the Apostolic Age itself there were heretics misinterpreting the truth, and the Church as "the pillar and bulwark of the truth" had to take action against them.[11]
Citing Lesslie Newbigin, who says that the Church confessing the mystery of the faith is "the pillar and bulwark of the truth", Brian Stanley says, "The church herself, as the body of Christ, ... is the only missiologically effective 'hermeneutic of the gospel', bearing witness with 'proper confidence' (a favourite phrase of Newbigin's) to the revelation she has received."[12]
Linking with ecclesial authority, the Eastern Orthodox Church uses this verse to state that the Church (Ekklēsia) proclaims and protects divine truths, both written (Scripture) and unwritten (Tradition), "which coexist in complete harmony with each other".[13]Peter Kreeft gives his summary: "The Bible appeals to the authority of Tradition and Tradition appeals to the authority of the Bible. The Bible calls the Church "the pillar and bulwark of the truth" (1 Timothy 3:15), and the Church calls the Bible infallible divine revelation."[14]
Though there are disagreements on the exercise of teaching authority, the Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) participants cites this verse and share their agreement in Your Word Is Truth:
Because Christ's church is the pillar and bulwark of truth, in disputes over conflicting interpretations of the Word of God the church must be capable of discerning true teaching and setting it forth with clarity. This is necessary both in order to identify and reject heretical deviations from the truth of the gospel and also to provide sound instruction for passing on the faith intact to the rising generation.[15]
Verse 16
And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness:
"Mystery of godliness": which is the incarnation of Jesus Christ, involving his birth of a virgin, the union of the two natures, divine and human, in his person.[17]
"God was manifest in the flesh": that is the second Person, the Word, or Son of God (cf. 1 John 3:8) who existed as a divine Person, and as a distinct one from the Father and Spirit.[17] This clause is a very apt and full interpretation of the word "Moriah", the name of the mount in which Jehovah would manifest himself, and be seen (Genesis 22:2; Genesis 22:14).[17]
"Received up into glory": Jesus was raised from the dead, had a glory on his risen body and ascended in a glorious manner to heaven, is set down at his right hand, and crowned with glory and honor, that he had with him before the world was.[17]
^David E. Aune, ed., The Blackwell Companion to The New Testament (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 9: "While seven of the letters attributed to Paul are almost universally accepted as authentic (Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Philemon), four are just as widely judged to be pseudepigraphical, i.e. written by unknown authors under Paul's name: Ephesians and the Pastorals (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus)."
^Stephen L. Harris, The New Testament: A Student's Introduction, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001), 366.
^Millard, A. R. (2000). Reading and Writing in the Time of Jesus. NYU Press. p. 56. ISBN0-8147-5637-9. C.P. Thiede drew on papyrology, statistics and forensic microscopy to try to prove O'Callaghan's case, yet without convincing the majority of other leading specialists.
^ McCready, Wayne O. (1997). "The Historical Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls". In Arnal, William E.; Desjardins, Michael. Whose Historical Jesus?. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. p. 193. ISBN0-88920-295-8.. "On the whole, O'Callaghan's thesis has met with scholarly skepticism since the fragments are extremely small, almost illegible, and his strongest case does not agree with known versions of Mark."
^"... Qumran ms. 7Q5 ... is captioned as if it contains a fragment of Mark: it was of course O’Callaghan who made that controversial — and now virtually universally rejected — identification of this Dead Sea text as a piece of the New Testament ..." Elliot (2004), JK, Book Notes, Novum Testamentum, Volume 45, Number 2, 2003, pp. 203.
^Gundry 1999, p. 698. It should be noted that so acclaimed a text critic as the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, S.J., Archbishop of Milan and part of the five member team which edited the definitive modern edition of the Greek New Testament for the United Bible Societies agreed with O'Callaghan's identification and assertions.
^Ledegang, F. (2001). Mysterium Ecclesiae: Images of the Church and Its Members in Origen. Leuven University Press. p. 324. ISBN90-429-0945-5.
^Pinnock, Clark H. (2002). The Scripture Principle. Regent College Publishing. p. 80. ISBN1-57383-000-3.
^Stanley, Brian (2013). The Global Diffusion of Evangelicalism: The Age of Billy Graham and John Stott. InterVarsity Press. p. 144. ISBN978-0-8308-2585-1.
^Metzger, Bruce M.; Coogan, Michael David, eds. (1993). The Oxford Companion to the Bible. Oxford University Press. p. 175. ISBN978-0-19-974391-9.
^Kreeft, Peter (2017). Catholics and Protestants: What Can We Learn from Each Other?. Ignatius Press. p. 38. ISBN978-1-68149-745-7.
^George, Timothy; Guarino, Thomas G., eds. (2015). Evangelicals and Catholics Together at Twenty: Vital Statements on Contested Topics. Brazos Press. pp. 48–49. ISBN978-1-4934-0237-3.
