Article April 10, 1909 Issue

THE POWER OF GODLINESS

DENNIS L. ROGERS

The article on "the report of the Lambeth Conference with respect to the 'Ministries of Healing,'" published in part in the Sentinel of Oct. 10, 1908, suggests this remarkable saying of St. Paul: "Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof." When this second epistle to Timothy was written, Paul was at the close of his earthly career: in prison, under torture, sentenced to death, he probably felt that these would be his last words.

For thirty years Paul had been a missionary of the gospel of the kingdom; he had suffered contempt, persecution, stoning, lashing, imprisonment, banishment, shipwreck, cold and hunger; had made three long missionary journeys, preaching, teaching, healing, and had established churches in more than sixty villages and towns in Europe and Asia. Although blinded at first by bigotry and ignorance of the truth, the scales had fallen from his eyes; he saw the light of Truth and experienced the power of the risen Christ. If ever a man was qualified, through personal experience and demonstrated knowledge of the truth, to speak with authority, it was St. Paul at this time. Timothy was his beloved pupil and assistant; the son of a believing Jewish mother and a Greek father, and acquainted with the Hebrew Scriptures from childhood. To him Paul addressed his last, most particular, and special instructions and admonitions, warning him especially against those errors which seemed to him most insidious and dangerous in these words, "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, ... having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away."

St. Peter and St. Paul are the only New Testament writers who make use of this word "godliness," and it does not occur in the Old Testament. Paul seems to use it in his epistles to Timothy more than anywhere else, counseling him to "lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness;" and again he bids him, "Exercise thyself rather unto godliness," for "godliness is profitable unto all things; ... godliness with contentment is great gain." In the Revised Version the word is used in Acts as the equivalent of the word "holiness:" "And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness [godliness] we had made this man to walk?" In his second epistle Peter says: "And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. ... for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall."

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