What is godliness? Is the answer obvious? It should be, but in a world that increasingly does not believe in God, let alone read the Bible, few have a clear idea of what godliness is! Do we? We are reading Paul’s letters to “Timothy, my true child in the faith” [1 Tim 1 v.2]. Paul had urged him to stay in Ephesus and set an example of “love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” [v.5] There were some there “who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good … (and) is to be received, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.” [Ch. 4 v.3-5]

Human nature always seems to be inclined to make rules, such as to abstain from this or that, or worship on a specific day or way (see Coloss. 2 v.8,16-19) and then think they are ‘better’ people in God’s sight as a result. Paul tells Timothy, “If you put these (good) things before the brothers (and sisters), you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed.” [v.6] He then stresses “… train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” [v.7-8]

Paul tells him to “set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.” [v.12,13] Imagine living 400 years ago, when people were in church every day to read or hear read the Bible that had been chained to a reading stand! What value was placed in those days on the word of God – what a comparison to today!

Paul’s words summarise the main factors in true godliness. Given the way in which our minds are so easily distracted we must note the stress that Paul makes in his letter to his “true child in the faith” to “keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.” [v.16]

We are not ‘hearers’ – instead we are ‘readers’ – what a wonderful blessing to have these words preserved for our guidance – that we can (and must) read every day. After Jesus told the familiar parable of the sower sowing the seed he said, “He who has ears, let him hear” [Matt. 13 v.9] We can and should ‘translate’ that as, ‘He that has eyes to read, let them read’ – and absorb into their consciences what they read and so develop greater ‘godliness.’

Over the last few days we have been reading about the conquests of the Israelites after they crossed the Jordan. The account of the conquest of Jericho is well known and the way the walls fell down. Then there was a setback in achieving what had appeared to be an easy task in conquering the nearby smaller town of Ai. A surprising reason came to light; there had been disobedience with a stealing of the spoils in the conquest of Jericho. The Israelites learnt a hard lesson. A second attempt to conquer Ai succeeded.

It is most illuminating to note what Joshua then did; “he built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal” [Ch. 8 v.30], and they made “offerings to the LORD and sacrificed peace offerings” [v.31] and Joshua “wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses” [v.32] which would have been the ten commandments. But not content with that, “afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones and the sojourners who lived among them” [v.34,35]

It is obvious to us why he read “all that is written” – it was so that the failure they had recently experienced would not be repeated! Also, that they would be inspired with a “vision” in their minds of the wonder of the God they served and the long term future of their nation.

This is the reason why we read God’s words every day. It is more essential than ever for God’s word to be in our minds to “inspire” us to face each day with a ‘vision of things unseen.’ Look at the words we read in Isaiah today! “God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid … with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. And you will say in that day, ‘Give thanks to the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples … Sing praises to the LORD, for he has done gloriously …” [Ch. 12 v.2-5] He has done – but will do even more gloriously. Isaiah later writes, “… no eye has seen a God beside you, who acts for those who wait for him. You meet him (& her) who joyfully works righteousness, those who remember you in your ways.” [64 v.4,5]

Today, more than ever before, we live in a herd environment, a human herd. Mass advertising in a great variety of media confronts us hour after hour, this creates a herd mentality. We reflected on this as we read Paul’s words this morning. He told the Thessalonians that we “give you in ourselves an example to imitate.” [2 Thess. 3 v.9] What do we imitate? What or who do we take as our examples in life? An equally important question – why do we see them as examples that we might feel inclined to imitate?

Bad examples surround us! But there are other things that are in some aspects good, but are dangerous in other ways! In these cases we need to acknowledge the good but be conscious of the potential for danger, seeing the aspects that could be deceitful, as Paul did. Do you remember what he wrote about sin in Romans ch. 7? Verse 11 challenges our understanding. Paul wrote, “For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me …” Yet, the next verse says, the “law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.”

What does he mean? It appears to us that in studying the law and keeping them they became proud of their righteousness, that pride, deceived them! Now he was a follower of Christ, Paul sees life through Christ’s eyes, he now has what we might call, a down to earth perspective. He writes, “you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it … that we might not be a burden to you.” [v.7,8]

So we need to ask ourselves - are we pulling our weight, doing our share? We live in a world (in the west in particular) where getting something for nothing is the aim of quite a percentage of the population. Some have seen a career in ‘Christianity’ as a means of making a living with very little hard work attached to it. This is sometimes evident in India, especially if some overseas organisation is pouring in money.

In this country the degree of ‘social welfare’ encourages some to try to live ‘idle’ lives, but the true believer must have an attitude that is the very opposite. Soon we will be reading the letter to the Hebrews where it is stated, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith” [13 v.7] They did not have the blessing of a Bible to read every day and we cannot help but think that, if they had, they would have read it every spare moment – and made as many such moments as possible. Today with so many Bibles available, it is vital we ask ourselves what part does God’s word take as we live each day?

One of the smallest “books” in the Bible is the 3^rd letter of John. Let’s take our final point from what he wrote at the end of his long life. “Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.” [v.11] What will you do today that you would call “good”? We should read the Bible with such dedication of mind that we “see” God.