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It is written:
James 1:27-Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
There are many people in our day and age who are saying they are against “religion,” but for “Jesus.” In reality, you cannot be for Jesus and against religion!
Let’s study.
Religion has often been misunderstood, especially because people are often offended by any kind of religious text or standard. This sentiment is often embraced by those who proclaim that Jesus is the Word of God, not the Bible. Let’s have a clear definition of the word “religion.”
“RELIGION Relationship of devotion or fear of God or gods. 1. The cognate terms translated “religious” and “religion” (Acts 17: 22; 25: 19) can indicate positive reverence for the gods or else negative fear of the gods. The pejorative translations “superstitious” (KJV) and “superstition” (KJV, RSV) is unfortunate. Paul hardly alienated the Athenians at the outset of his speech. He rather pointed to their outward expressions of piety (Acts 17: 22). Though a monotheist (believer in one God) would not use “fear of the gods” to describe Judaism, the expression is natural on pagan Roman lips (Acts 25: 19). 2. The cognate terms translated “religion” and “religious” in Acts 26: 5 and James 1: 26-27 point to the “fear of God” as evidenced in religious conduct, particularly ritual practice. In Acts 26: 5 Paul referred to Judaism as “our” way of evidencing reverence for God. According to James 1: 26-27, one who thinks himself religiously observant but who cannot control the tongue will find religious observance worthless. James continued that the religious observance God cares about is not a cultic matter but an ethical matter, care of the helpless of society. 3. Several terms derived from sebomai (to fear) are translated religious or religion. The term in Acts 13: 43 is rendered “religious” (KJV), “devout” (HCSB, NRSV), and “God-fearing” (NASB). The term RSV translated “religion” in 1 Tim. 2: 10 is literally “God-fearing,” here in the sense of obedient to God’s commands (cp. John 9: 31). The NIV translation “who profess to worship God” highlights the connection between fear and reverence. The KJV and NASB translation “godliness” accentuates the linkage of fear with an obedient life. The term RSV translated as “religion” (1 Tim. 3: 16; 2 Tim. 3: 5) and “religious duty” in 1 Tim. 5: 4 is generally translated “godliness” or “piety.” The emphasis is again on conduct.” (Chad Brand, Archie England, et al., Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary: The Complete Guide to Everything You Need to Know About the Bible, 42695-42711 (Kindle Edition): Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers)
I now share this incredibly detailed study of the word “religion” as used in the first century world.
“EUSEBEIA THE WORD OF TRUE RELIGION There is a very great group of Greek words which is characteristic of the language of the Pastoral Epistles. As we shall see, they are not easy to translate, but they all have in them one essential idea. There is eusebeia, the noun, which is usually translated godliness in the AV. The RSV usually retains this translation. Moffatt translates it either piety, or religion, in the sense of true religion. There is eusebēs, the adjective, which the AV translates devout or godly, a translation which the RSV retains; Moffatt translates it religious, religiously-minded, or pious. There is eusebein, the verb, which means to worship, to carry out the duties of true religion. There is eusebōs, the adverb, which the AV translates godly. There is the closely related word theosebeia, which the AV translates godliness, and the adjective theosebēs, which means worshipping God. It can be seen that all these words come from the same root; and the root meaning of them all is awe in the presence of that which is more than human, reverence in the presence of that which is majestic and divine; not only do they express that feeling of awe and reverence, but they also imply a worship which befits that awe, and a life of active obedience which befits that reverence. The fact is that in so far as Greek has a word for religion that word is eusebeia. Let us then begin by seeing what the Greeks themselves said about these words. The Platonic Definitions define eusebeia as right conduct in regard to the gods. The Stoics defined it as knowledge of how God should be worshipped. Lucian (De Calum.) said that the man who is eusebēs, pious, religious, is a lover of the gods (philotheos). Xenophon (Memorabilia 4.3.2) said that such a man was wise concerning the gods. It was always the Greek custom to define every virtue and every good quality as the mean between two extremes. Virtue was the right point, the happy medium, between some defect and some excess. So Plutarch says that eusebeia is the mean between atheotes, which is atheism, and deisidaimonia, which is superstition; Philo said it was the mean between asebeia, which is impiety, and deisidaimonia. That is to say, eusebeia is the right attitude to God and to things divine, the attitude which does not eliminate God altogether, and which does not degenerate into futile superstition, the attitude which gives God the place he ought to occupy in life and in thought and in devotion. Josephus sets eusebeia over against eidōlolatreia, which is idolatry. Eusebeia gives God the right place, and worships God in the right way. Plato urges all men to eusebeia, that we may avoid evil and obtain good, and so become the friends of God (Plato, Symposium 193d). But not only does eusebeia put a man into the right relationship with God; it also puts him into the right relationship with men. Plato speaks of eusebeia both to God and to parents (Plato, Republic 615c). In Greek thought the word eusebeia has certain uses which will still further illustrate the idea behind it. Even in pagan religion eusebeia was a word of a noble lineage. (i) Sometimes it can mean that respect for the gods which issues in a careful carrying out of all the ritual which the worship of the gods demands. That is to say, sometimes it can be a word of correct ritual rather than of moral quality. There is an inscription in which the town of Priene is praised for its ‘reverence for things divine‘, that is for the care of the ritual of the temples of the gods. Payments to the temples are said to be ex eusebeias, in consequence of piety. This is to some extent the lower and the ritual meaning of the word. (ii) Sometimes the word can mean loyalty, but that loyalty is always to a royal figure. In the papyri there is a letter in which the Emperor Claudius, after a visit to Britain, writes to thank a certain club for a golden crown, which they had presented to him, and which he regards as a token of their eusebeia, their loyalty. Nero invites the Greeks to meet him at Corinth in order that he may requite them for their good will and eusebeia, loyalty, to him. So then eusebeia can express a man’s loyalty to his king. (iii) But the word goes higher than that. To Sophocles eusebeia was the greatest of all the virtues. Heracles advises Philoctetes ‘to have respect for what is due to heaven’ (eusebein). He goes on to say that everything else stands second to this in the counsels of Zeus; that eusebeia goes beyond death with a man, and is the virtue which can never perish (Sophocles, Philoctetes 1440-1444). To him eusebeia was the foundation stone of all virtue. Maybe the best of all definitions of eusebeia is in the passage of Xenophon’s Memorabilia (4.8.11) in which he pays his final tribute to the memory of Socrates: ‘For myself I have described him as he was; so religious (eusebēs) that he did nothing without counsel from the gods; so just that he did no injury, however small, to any man, but conferred the greatest benefits on all who dealt with him; so selfcontrolled that he never chose the pleasanter rather than the better course. So wise that he was unerring in his judgment of the better and the worse, and needed no counsellor, but relied on himself for his knowledge of them; masterly in expounding and defining such things; no less masterly in putting others to the test, and convincing them of error and exhorting them to follow virtue and gentleness. To me then he seemed to be all that a truly good and happy man must be.’ That is the description of what the Greek regarded as eusebeia, true religion, and none can say that it is not a noble conception. From the Greek point of view, we may note one final fact. The Greeks used eusebeia to translate the equally noble Latin word pietas. Pietas was the spirit of devotion to goodness, to honour, to honesty and to duty. Warde Fowler has written: ‘The quality known to the Romans as pietas rises, in spite of trial and danger, superior to the enticements of individual passion and selfish ease. Aeneas’s pietas became a sense of duty to the will of the gods, as well as to his father, his son, his people; and this duty never leaves him.’ All the nobility of pagan ethics at their best was in this word eusebeia before the Christian faith annexed it and made it even greater. Now we must turn to the biblical use of eusebeia. In the Septuagint eusebeia is not common; but there are two occurrences of it which are very illuminating. In Isa. 11.2 eusebeia is used for the fear of the Lord, which is one of the gifts of the Spirit; and in Prov. 1.7 it is used for that fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom. Here again we see that basically eusebeia is the right attitude to God, the attitude of awe, of reverence, of worship and of obedience. But there is one book written between the Old and New Testaments which is dominated through and through by the idea of eusebeia; that is Fourth Maccabees. That book was written sometime in the first century B.C. It was written in a time of trouble for the Jews, and it was written by a Pharisee who above all things loved the Law. He saw that the one necessity of life was to master the passions, and the one way to master the passions was to obey the Law; and to him that mastery and that obedience were eusebeia. Those who with their whole heart give heed to piety (eusebeia) alone are able to overcome the passions of the flesh, in the faith that like our patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we are not dead to God, but live to God. For is it actually possible that anyone who philosophizes piously (eusebōs) according to the complete rule of philosophy (i.e. the Law), who believes also in God, and who knows that it is blessedness to endure any affliction on behalf of virtue, will not get mastery over his passions by his piety (eusebeia)? (IV Mac. 7.18-22). The writer of that book says that the Jewish philosophy, that is, the Law, ‘instructs us in godliness (eusebeia) so that we may worship the only living God in a manner befitting his majesty’ (IV Mac. 5.24). Still again we have this basic conception that eusebeia essentially means to give God the place he ought to possess in our minds, in our hearts and in our lives. Now we turn to the NT itself. Eusebeia occurs once in Acts. In Acts 3.12 Peter and John protest that they have not healed the lame man at the Temple gate by their own power or eusebeia (AV, holiness; Moffatt and RSV, piety). Eusebeia occurs ten times in the Pastorals. In I Tim. 2.2 it is the aim of the Christian life that we should live in all godliness (Moffatt, piety) and honesty. In I Tim. 3.16 it is said: Great is the mystery of eusebeia (AV, godliness; Moffatt: Great is the divine truth of our religion; RSV: Great is the mystery of our religion). In I Tim 4.7 the Christian is bidden to exercise himself unto godliness (RSV retains godliness; Moffatt translates: Train for the religious life). In I Tim. 4.8 eusebeia is said to be profitable for all things (AV and RSV, godliness; Moffatt, religion). In I Tim. 6.3 there is the doctrine which is according to eusebeia (AV and RSV, godliness; Moffatt. piety). In I Tim. 6.5, 6, those who seek to make money out of eusebeia are condemned, but it is pointed out that eusebeia with contentment is great gain (AV and RSV, godliness; Moffatt, religion). In I Tim. 6.11 the Christian is bidden to follow after eusebeia (AV and RSV, godliness; Moffatt, piety). II Tim. 3.5 speaks of those who have only an outward form of eusebeia (AV, godliness; Moffatt and RSV, religion). Titus 1.1 speaks of truth which is according to eusebeia (AV and RSV, godliness; Moffatt, the religious life). Outside the Pastorals eusebeia occurs four times in Second Peter. II Peter 1.3 speaks of life according to eusebeia (AV and RSV, godliness; Moffatt, piety). II Peter 1.6, 7 bids the Christian to add eusebeia to patience, and brotherly love to eusebeia (AV and RSV, godliness; Moffatt, piety). In II Peter 3.11 there is the phrase, All holy conversation and eusebeia (AV and RSV, godliness; Moffatt, What holy and pious men you ought to be). Before we can make a pattern of the meaning of eusebeia we must look at the use of its kindred words in the NT. But we can already see that eusebeia means true godliness, true piety. We can see that in fact eusebeia is the word for true religion. There is therefore no word whose meaning it is more necessary fully to understand. In the NT the adjective eusebēs occurs four times. In Acts 10.2 Cornelius is eusebēs and one who fears the Lord (AV and RSV, devout; Moffatt, religious). In Acts 10.7 we read that Cornelius sent a soldier who was eusebēs as his messenger to Peter (AV and RSV, devout; Moffatt, religiously minded). In II Peter 2.9 it is said that God delivers those who are eusebēs out of temptation (AV and RSV, godly; Moffatt, pious folk). This word does not occur often but once again we see that the basic idea is a right and reverent attitude to God. The adverb eusebōs occurs twice. In II Tim. 3.12 the warning is given that all who live eusebōs will be persecuted (AV, godly). The AV uses godly both as an adjective and as an adverb. (As an adverb, as here, more correctly, but unpronounceably, it would be godlily. RSV, all who live a godly life; Moffatt, all who live the religious life.) Titus 2.12 uses the same phrase, to live eusebōs (AV, to Uve godly; RSV, to live godly lives; Moffatt, to live a life of piety). The verb eusebein occurs twice. In Acts 17.23 Paul uses it when he speaks to the Athenians of that which they ignorantly worship. In I Tim. 5.4 the children of widows are told that they must show piety at home, by paying their debt to their parents. The RSV translates this: Let them first learn their religious duty to their own family. Moffatt translates it: Let them learn that the first duty of religion is to their own household. When we come to make the Christian pattern of true religion we shall see that this saying must be given a very prominent place in it. To complete this study we must take in two kindred words. In the NT the word theosebeia occurs twice. The difference between eusebeia and theosebeia is this. It is the seb-part of the word which means reverence or worship. Eu is the Greek word for well; therefore, eusebeia is worship, reverence well and rightly given. Eusebeia stresses the rightness of the reverence, its freedom from superstitions and imperfections and improprieties. Theos is the Greek word for God; therefore, theosebeia means literally the worship of God. Theosebeia is therefore the wider word, but in effect the two words mean almost the same, except that eusebeia emphasizes the rightness of the worship. The one instance of theosebeia is in I Tim. 2.10 where advice is given to women who profess theosebeia (AV, professing godliness; RSV, who profess religion; Moffatt, who make a religious profession). In the NT the adjective theosebes occurs once, in John 9.31. God hears the prayers of the man who is theosebēs (AV and RSV, a worshipper of God; Moffatt, anyone who is devout). We have now studied in full the occurrences of these great words in the NT. We have seen that the basic meaning which lies behind them is the right attitude to God and to the holiness, the majesty and the love of God. It now remains to work out what that right attitude is. (i) Eusebeia, true religion, comes through the divine power of Jesus Christ (II Peter 1.3). Without the vision of Jesus, without the help of Jesus, without the presence of Jesus true religion is impossible. I Tim. 3.16 speaks, as the AV has it, about ‘the mystery of godliness’. In the NT and in the ancient world a mystery was not something which was mysterious in the sense of being hard to understand. A mystery was something which was unintelligible to the uninitiated, but crystal clear to those who had been initiated and who had learned to understand. A mystery was a divine secret, unintelligible to the outsider, but open and precious to the true worshipper. So Jesus brought to men the secret of true religion. In him men both see God and learn how to worship God. (ii) But although eusebeia, true religion, is the gift of the power of Jesus Christ, it is none the less something which a man must struggle and battle to attain. We must train ourselves to religion (I Tim. 4.7). We must follow after religion (I Tim. 6.11). The first word that Paul uses (gumnazein) is an athlete’s word; and the second passage comes exactly and immediately before he bids Timothy fight the good fight; it is the soldier’s word. The Christian is at once the athlete and the soldier. As the athlete trains himself for the contest so the Christian must train himself to be the follower of Christ. As the soldier must battle towards final victory, so the Christian must dauntlessly and tirelessly face the struggle of goodness. (iii) This gift and this struggle combined bring three things, (a) Eusebeia brings trouble. The man who will live for Christ must expect to receive persecution (II Tim. 3.12). To be different from the world, to have a different set of standards and a different set of aims, is always a perilous thing. It is not peace but glory that Christ offers us. (b) Eusebeia brings power. It was holiness and power combined that the Jerusalem crowds saw in Peter and John (Acts 3.12). Christ never sends a man a task without also sending him the power to do it. In a world of collapse the Christian alone has the power to stand foursquare against the assaults of all that time can do. (c) Eusebeia brings God. For the true worshipper of God the way is ever open to God (John 9.31). In every time of trial the Christian can retire to the presence of God to emerge with a power that is not his own power. The Christian has continual access to and contact with the power of the Eternal. (iv) Eusebeia is the mark of the Christian life. The aim of the Christian, and the duty of the Christian, is to live with godliness and honesty (I Tim. 2.2). ‘A saint’, as someone has said, ‘is someone who makes it easier to believe in God.’ Even within the world something of heaven’s grace and glory cling to the life of the Christian. He too brings God to men. (v) Eusebeia is the origin of all true theology and of all true thinking (I Tim. 6.3; Titus 1.1). One of the great neglected truths of the Christian life is that inspiration and revelation are morally conditioned. God can only tell a man what that man is capable of receiving and understanding. The closer a man lives to God, the more God can say to him. The great thinker must first of all be a good man. To learn about God we must first of all obey God. It may well be true that the man who says that he cannot understand the Christian faith does not want to understand it, and may even be afraid to understand it. (vi) Eusebeia must never be confounded with material prosperity. The man who sees in his religion, or who uses his religion as, the way to material success has a debased view of what religion is (I Tim. 6.5). But true religion is the way to the real profit and the real joy in this world and in the world to come (I Tim. 4.8). The essence of this matter lies in the basic truth that true happiness never results from the possession of things. It is not in things to give either satisfaction or peace. True happiness lies entirely in personal relationships. If a man has love he has everything. And the greatest of all personal relationships is the relationship with God. If that relationship is right, then life is true happiness. (vii) Eusebeia is the product of the life which is lived in the light of eternity. In II Peter 3.11, holy conversation and godliness are urged upon men, because Christ comes again. It may be that today, after the long slow centuries have passed, we have not so keen an expectation of the Second Coming as the early Church had. But, at the same time, it remains true for every man that no man knows when he must leave time to begin on eternity. And true religion is characteristic of the man whose life is such that he is ever in readiness for the summons of God. (viii) For all that, true eusebeia does not separate a man from his fellow men. To his eusebeia, as an essential part of it, he must add brotherly love (II Peter 1.6, 7). True religion looks both to God and to man. There is a religion which separates a man from his fellow men. It may make him, as it made the monks and the hermits, decide to leave the life of the world for the life of contemplation and meditation and prayer. But prayer and contemplation and meditation, great and essential as they are, are imperfect and truncated and even unchristian, if they do not result in action. It is true that there are times when a Christian must retire from the world, but he only retires that he may return better able to face the world, to help the world, and to live with his fellow men. The Christian does not live with God to avoid his fellow men, but rather to be able better to solve the problem of living together. (ix) Eusebeia, true religion, is not confined to the precincts of the church, and is not limited to the worship and the liturgy and the ritual of the church. True religion begins at home. Those who would be real servants of Christ and of his Church must remember that the first duty of religion is to their own household (I Tim. 5.4). If a man or a woman’s church work involves the neglect of his or her own family then it is irreligion, not religion. There can never be a Christian church which is not founded on the Christian home; and the most important religious works is not the work that is done in public, but the work that is done in the privacy of the home, and amidst what ought to be the circle of those most dear. Jesus said that where two or three are gathered together he is there in the midst of them (Matt. 18.20); and it has been suggested that the two or three are father, mother and child. Whether or not that be so, it is certainly true that true Christianity, like true charity, must begin at home, even if it is also true that it cannot stay there but must go out to the wider sphere of the Church and of the world. When the Christian thinkers took over the word eusebeia it was already a great word, but they filled it with a content which made it far greater than ever it could be on the lips of any pagan thinker.” (William Barclay, New Testament Words (The William Barclay Library), 106-116 (Kindle Edition): Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press)
Please notice some things with me from these facts.
First, religion is in and of itself a good thing. Indeed, it is often the word used in the Greek Old Testament for “the fear of the Lord” and as an indicator of the beginning of wisdom. This is a good thing, not a bad thing!
Second, true religion is that which is devoted to the Lord and as prescribed by His inspired Word. Indeed, essential to true religion is a standard of true religion. This source of true religion is the Word of God, what we know as Holy Scripture or the Bible.
2 Timothy 3:16-17-All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Third, true religion will consist of religious deeds and activities. According to the Word of God, these include religious acts that we practice when we assemble together as God’s people, and also acts of loving kindness towards our fellow man.
Colossians 3:16-17-Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. 17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
Romans 12:1-2-I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
My friends, true religion is not a bad thing.
False religion is what we must beware of!
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen.