Category: Bible Study

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Walking in Uprightness

Walking in honesty, humility, integrity, and righteousness puts us in God's favor.
Read: Proverbs 11:1–6

Imagine you are traveling across the country on a train. The train sways while the rumble of wheels along the track fills your ears. After the train attendant checks your ticket, you head to the observation car. While you walk, you check your balance, hands reaching for seat backs and handrails. You step one foot in front of the other, weighing each step in your mind, eyeing potential risks. Your caution pays off! You did not fall down or onto anyone else, and you reach a swivel seat and fall into its comfort to enjoy the scenery.

To walk in uprightness with God is an everyday choice in a world where the train sways beneath our feet. When stepping forward on God’s path, we choose how we act, with honesty or dishonesty, with pride or humility, with integrity or duplicity, with righteousness or unrighteousness—and each choice has a consequence.

When pairing the first attribute in these pairs with trust in God (Proverbs 3:5-6), we find it possible to step forward in faith; this combination fortifies our decisions to live like Christ. God uses honesty, for example, to build trust between people (Genesis 30:33) and humility to form community (Philippians 2:3–4). As well, he establishes a plan for us when we act in integrity (1 Kings 9:4–5) and produces strength in suffering when we act in righteousness (Job 17:9).

Best of all, walking in honesty, humility, integrity, and righteousness puts us in God’s favor. No, he does not stop the sway of the train, but he does reward us in many ways for our obedience. By trusting in him and aligning our steps with his way, we walk the path toward eternal life—and, in the meantime, we can fall into the comfort of God’s arms when the sway of the train threatens to knock us down.

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Happy and Full of the Holy Spirit

Cat sitting on a chair tucked under a table at a restaurant
Exterior of a restaurant with white-cloth-covered table and white metal chairs with aqua seats. Pink Bougainvillea climbs the wall.
Read: 3 John

Imagine you’re in Athens. You glance at the menu displayed outside the restaurant, and the host swoops in, gesturing toward tables waiting for occupants. The bond between you and the host has been set with the words “Please sit! We have Greek salad and souvlaki!”

Drawn in, you sit and a liter of water appears. The server asks what you like and recommends options. You order the souvlaki, a Greek specialty.

For dessert, the server recommends bougatsa, puff pastry baked with custard. Your stomach says it’s full, but when the server suggests sharing a piece with your dining partner, you order it because you will not have to eat it alone.

You enter the restaurant feeling welcome and leave feeling happy and full.

John, too, ensured that his followers entered the mission field feeling welcome and stayed in it feeling happy and full. In the case of 3 John, he forged a bond in Jesus Christ with his beloved friend Gaius by offering encouragement, advice, and warnings, all of which pointed to the gospel.

First, John offered encouragements that popped with exclamation points (vv. 3–4). He built up Gaisus’s self-esteem and stirred in him the desire to continue his gospel work of leading a team of traveling missionaries.

Second, John gave Gaius water for his spirit in the form of praise (vv. 5–7). Before offering his advice in verses 6 and 8, John mentions Gaius’s faithfulness to and love for his missionaries, building Gaius’s confidence in his mission.

Third, John warned Gaius of the opposition that sought to stop the spread of the gospel (vv. 9–10). He reassured Gaius of the importance of his mission with the promise of an ally.

Can you see why Gaius continued his work as a leader to missionaries? He stayed the course because John assured him his efforts were good, right, and viable.

In fact, John provided the example for Gaius to follow as a leader. John forged a bond in Jesus Christ to welcome a fellow believer into relationship and ensure he continued his gospel mission happy and full of the Holy Spirit.