Titus 1:1 (f) — A Christmas Story

… that leads to godliness …

Summary: Godliness is a topic of interest throughout the ages. A favorite Christmas story illustrates one way of explaining what it means. 

Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, has written a letter to Titus. His goal is to further the faith of the elect and their knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness. 

The question that Paul presents us with today is what is godliness, and why would we want it? 

It is a good question. It is one of those questions that cry out for a book-length answer. The word “godliness” is not used a lot in the Bible, yet the entire Bible is about it. 

In sum, I am drawn back to Matthew 22:37-40, 

“ Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

If one were to spread the entire Bible’s pages out before them like wallpaper and then take in the whole work at one glance, I think we would see the same answer. Throughout the history presented in the Bible is a story about mankind’s innate self-centeredness contrasted with God’s innate selflessness. 

In the year 1843, a book was published, which became a Christmas classic. Charles Dickens had written a story about a man named Ebenezer Scrooge whose entire world centered around the acquisition of wealth. This Scrooge was unnaturally efficient at focusing on his goal to the exclusion of all else, especially the people around him. 

As the story develops, Scrooge is visited by a ghost. It is Jacob Marley, his former partner. Marly had died seven years earlier and is now tortured by two things. The first is an unending exposure to the suffering of his fellow man. The second is to be aware of that suffering and not be able to do anything about it. Charles Dickens described it this way: 

“Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He looked out.

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley’s Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.”

The story, of course, is called, “A Christmas Carol.” The theme Dickens writes about is godliness. His technique is to show us what godliness is by illustrating the absence of it. 

In the end, thanks to the warnings of three more ghosts, Scrooge is a changed man. Instead of ignoring his fellow man, he is now anxious to find any way that he can of serving them. The God behind this transformation is only hinted at in the story. You have to look past Christmas to see the Christ. 

Charles Dickens is not a theologian. His purpose is not to delve into the means of salvation by faith in Christ. Nor does he expect to introduce his audience to topics such as repentance and sanctification. Even so, his story reflects all these things in a way that captures the imagination and challenges each person who hears his story. Dickens wants us to think about repenting of evil and turning to good. We can all learn a bit about godliness from it. 

Application: To be godly requires that we know God and that we act according to his will. 

Food for Thought: You are sitting on a bus and the conversation with the person next to you turns to godliness. How would you explain godliness before they get off at the next stop?