Pursuing Godliness in 2025

Note: This is the first in a series of posts on the topic of pursuing godliness in 2025.

Christmas break is a wonderful time for a professor. That is, as long as the grading is done, the syllabuses for next semester are completed, and the online course components are ready! In between attending to those and looking at Christmas lights, one still needs to walk with the Lord. This Christmas break I decided I would try to read one book of the Bible over and over for my Bible intake. I chose the book of Titus. There is much to commend in the book. Today I’d like to share an observation that sparked a survey of the concept of godliness, and then take you on a simple word study.

In Titus 1, Paul greets Titus (a young pastor in Crete) with the following words,

Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness.

As I read those words, I was struck by the thought that knowing truth is something that will lead a person to godliness. Or to say it another way, godliness is produced by the knowledge of truth. This means that if I lack this knowledge, no matter how I try, I won’t become godly. Imagine if you were really trying to grow in godliness, but you didn’t understand this point. You could very well try to be godly and fail because you’d be going about it all wrong. I was glad to have studied this verse. I was glad to see that here is an avenue that was bearing fruit in my life in a way I didn’t even realize.

But this led me to wonder . . . what else the Bible has to say about how to become godly? The next moment I had fired up a quick word search and discovered that the Bible shares a few more truths that lead us to godliness. This time of study was profitable and this post is the fruit of that study. However, what started as a post has ended up as a series of posts. So this post is just the first a series that will lay out 6 paths that lead to godliness.

6 Paths that Lead to Godliness

There are more than just these 6 verse that refer to godliness. But these 6 were particularly helpful and clear. Here is a listing if you want to start looking at them yourself,

Knowledge of Truth Leads us to Godliness – Titus 1:1
Praying for Rulers Leads to Greater Opportunity for Godliness – 1 Timothy 2:1-2
Purusing Godliness . . . Leads to Godliness – 1 Timothy 6:11
Avoiding the Wrong Friendships Leads to Godliness – 2 Timothy 3:4
Knowledge of God Leads to Godliness – 2 Peter 1:3
Eternal Perspective Leads to Godliness –  2 Peter 3:11

Each of these sections or verses has something to say that either directly leads to a godly life, or at least sets the context in which a godly life will flourish. Let’s study what the word “godliness” means in the New Testament.

The Nature of Godliness

The word translated “godliness” is eusebia (εὐσέβεια) and is defined as “awesome respect accorded to God, devoutness, piety, godliness.” ¹ One resource — summarizing a few other sources — explained that eusebia “indicates that this truth has the purpose of producing piety [godliness].” It also notes that truth “is in the interest of piety; that is, it promotes it.” ²

It is noteworthy that the word appears to be a combination word. The Greek prefix “eu” generally refers to “good.” A eulogy is a good (eu-) word (logos) said about someone or something. Here we also see the term “sebō” which refers to the word for worship that relates to expressing one’s devotion or allegiance. Hence, godliness is a life that demonstrates our devotion to God.³

The Form of Godliness that Denies its Power

The Pharisees famously attempted to carry out some of the practices of those who follow the Lord. Yet, while they honored God with their lips (and some actions), their hearts were far from God. I think this is an apt picture of false godliness. When we engage in the externals of devoting ourselves to God, but we don’t actually love Him with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we show false devotion.

As sinners though, this is terribly difficult. How can we change ourselves to where we love what we ought (The Lord) and we hate what we ought (sin)? Are we not sinners? Yes. Is not the Spirit the one who actually produces the fruit of godliness? Yes. So do we simply sit around and wait for the Spirit to act on us?

That is where this study was very helpful to me and I hope it will be helpful to you. The Bible does not advocate a sit-back-and-wait model of godliness. We are active in our growth in godliness, and to be passive is to misunderstand the witness of scripture.

So consider reading through the above verse and taking some notes on what you see leading you to godliness. Check back ever day or two here at this site and we will walk through these 6 verse/sections together. Hopefully we will all have more helps in knowing how to pursue godliness in 2025. 

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1. William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 412. ↩︎
2. J. Harold Greenlee, An Exegetical Summary of Titus and Philemon, 2nd ed. (Dallas, TX: SIL International, 2008), 15. ↩︎
3. Note that you can’t always do this with words. A butterfly is not a fly made of butter. See D. A. Carson’s book Exegetical Fallacies for more on this. ↩︎