<p>3:15 <i>But if I am delayed</i>- Paul had no miraculously provided itinerary. He realized the many variable factors in the life of a believer.</p><p><i>I write so you may know how you ought to behave in the</i><i> house of God</i>- The existence of house churches within the Ephesus ecclesia would explain the slightly unusual Greek construction here which in the Greek speaks of behaviour &ldquo;in a house of God&rdquo;. Maybe Paul refers to the same distinction between house churches and larger gatherings in Ephesus when he advises that a bishop should rule well his own house church and have his children in subjection (:4,5). There is a common New Testament understanding of &lsquo;children&rsquo; as referring to converts; and the Greek word translated &ldquo;rule&rdquo; is only used elsewhere, both in 1 Timothy and in the rest of the New Testament, about &lsquo;ruling&rsquo; or &lsquo;providing for&rsquo; the church in a pastoral sense (Rom. 12:8; 1 Thess. 5:12; 1 Tim. 5:17; Tit. 3:14). This interpretation would solve a commonly observed difficulty- that the children of many fine elders aren&rsquo;t not always believers, they&rsquo;re not always &ldquo;in subjection&rdquo;, and neither were those of many Biblical heroes. And further, seeing even the children of believers ultimately have freewill choice, how can it be that church leaders are held as it were responsible for their children&rsquo;s choices? If we understand the &lsquo;ruling&rsquo; here to mean spiritual provision for those in one&rsquo;s own house church, as a qualification for appointment to being a minister of the larger, joint congregational gatherings- then this difficulty disappears. And this idea- of being faithful over a household and then being promoted to greater responsibility- would then be an obvious allusion to the Lord&rsquo;s parable about the faithful house-manager AV &ldquo;steward&rdquo; who is then promoted to greater responsibility in the Master&rsquo;s own household (Lk. 12:42 compared with Mt. 24:45).</p><p><i>Which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth</i>- I have pointed out that most of the Ephesian church were Gentiles- hence the letter to the Ephesians several times refers to &quot;you Gentiles&quot;. Most of them would have been converts from the temple of Diana, which was put out of business by the Christian preaching. And yet as noted on chapter 2, various rituals and ideas associated with temple worship had not been fully jettisoned by all the converts. Paul here uses language associated with a temple- and applies it to the ecclesia or church of God, making the point that the true temple is the Christian community and not an edifice with literal pillars and foundations. The <i>oikos</i> of God uses a word elsewhere translated &quot;temple&quot; (Lk. 11:51). The final phrase &quot;of the truth&quot; may simply mean that the <i>true </i>edifice, the <i>real</i> pillar and foundation of the temple, was the ecclesia- the group of individual Christian believers, and not any literal physical edifice. Excavations of the temple of Diana / Artemis at Ephesus have found that its pillars were an unusual feature of it- there were 127 pillars, 60 feet high, supporting a striking roof. It would've been easily identified by the large number of pillars all around it. All that now remains standing of the temple is in fact one pillar. So without doubt it is the temple of Diana, from whence many of the converts had come, which was the point of the allusion; the true pillars and supports NEV &quot;ground&quot; of God's temple were the converts. Contrary to what was being taught, no physical building had any significance in God's saving plan. And this confirms our suggestions on chapter 2, that the converts had brought with them the baggage from Diana worship.</p>