Godly
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θεοσεβής is a compound adjective, God (theos) plus a reverence root, describing a person who fears, reveres, and worships God rightly, a God-fearer. " The healed man is not a trained theologian; he reasons from common conviction about piety and answered prayer to conclude that Jesus, whose healing power he has just experienced, cannot be the sinner the Pharisees claim.
Reader summary
Full entry for θεοσεβής (G2318) · Open the biblical lexicon
θεοσεβής is a compound adjective, God (theos) plus a reverence root, describing a person who fears, reveres, and worships God rightly, a God-fearer. " The healed man is not a trained theologian; he reasons from common conviction about piety and answered prayer to conclude that Jesus, whose healing power he has just experienced, cannot be the sinner the.
The BSB source-word alignment has 1 aligned row for this entry. Common renderings include worships [Him] (1).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at John 9:31. Its strongest book concentrations include John (1).
θεοσεβής is a compound adjective, God (theos) plus a reverence root, describing a person who fears, reveres, and worships God rightly, a God-fearer. Its only New Testament occurrence belongs not to the narrator or to Jesus but to the healed blind man of John 9, who uses it in his own theological argument against the Pharisees: "We know that God does not listen to sinners, but He does listen to the one who worships Him and does His will."
The healed man is not a trained theologian; he reasons from common conviction about piety and answered prayer to conclude that Jesus, whose healing power he has just experienced, cannot be the sinner the Pharisees claim. The word therefore carries real theological content, but it comes from a man defending his own experience under pressure, not from an authoritative doctrinal pronouncement by Jesus or John.
Teachers should credit the healed man's reasoning as sound as far as it goes while recognizing John places it in the mouth of a still-maturing disciple rather than treating it as the Gospel's final christological statement.
John 9:31 is spoken under real pressure. The healed man has already been questioned twice and is about to be thrown out of the synagogue for his answer. Scripture consistently affirms that God hears the prayers of those who seek him rightly (Ps 34:15; Prov 15:29), and the healed man's argument in John 9:31 applies that settled conviction to defend Jesus' legitimacy against the Pharisees' accusation.
We know that God does not listen to sinners, but He does listen to the one who worships Him and does His will.
John 9:31 records the healed blind man's own argument: 'We know that God does not listen to sinners, but He does listen to the one who worships Him and does His will.'
“That is remarkable indeed!” the man said. “You do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes.
The statement occurs in the middle of the healed man's escalating exchange with the Pharisees in John 9, and it functions as his own theological defense of Jesus rather than as narrator commentary.
He and all his household were devout and God-fearing. He gave generously to the people and prayed to God regularly.
Cornelius is called 'devout and God-fearing' using the same word family in Acts 10:2, showing the term's ordinary use for sincere reverence toward God outside this specific Johannine argument.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Greek word. Fear of God expressed through reverent devotion, emphasizing awe-based religious practice rather than mere piety
Fear of God expressed through reverent devotion, emphasizing awe-based religious practice rather than mere piety
(θεός, σέβομαι), [in LXX for אֱלֹהִים יָרֵא, Exo.18:21, al. ;] God-fearing, godly: Jhn.9:31.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
1 Greek text appearance shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
devout, pious
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
This word appears as a noun across 1 case and number pattern. The form changes show how the word functions in a sentence; they do not change the basic lexical meaning by themselves.
Verse guides are not available for this word yet, so verse references remain plain evidence markers.
θεοσεβής is built from these roots:
John 9:31 is spoken under real pressure. The healed man has already been questioned twice and is about to be thrown out of the synagogue for his answer. His logic is simple and, as far as it goes, sound: God does not answer the prayers of the defiantly sinful, so a healing this significant argues for Jesus' standing before God, not against it. John does not correct the man's reasoning; the chapter's final scene has Jesus seeking him out and receiving his worship.
Preachers can use this word to show ordinary believers reasoning faithfully from what they know of God's character to defend Christ under real social cost, even before their theology is fully formed. This word opens a teaching doorway on lay theological courage: the healed man reasons from ordinary conviction about God's character, that God hears the one who is θεοσεβής, to defend Jesus under real pressure, before his own understanding of Jesus is complete.
It equips teachers to affirm growing, honest reasoning in new believers rather than demanding polished doctrine before courage. It corrects readings that treat John 9:31 as Jesus' own theological claim about prayer and sin, when the verse is the healed man's argument, one John neither rebukes nor fully endorses as systematic doctrine. Frame θεοσεβής as the healed man's own descriptive term for sincere reverence toward God, used inside his developing defense of Jesus, not as a technical theological category John is teaching directly.
John.9.31
Frame θεοσεβής as the healed man's own descriptive term for sincere reverence toward God, used inside his developing defense of Jesus, not as a technical theological category John is teaching directly. Linguistically, θεοσεβής should be allowed to name god-fearing, reverent worshiper of god without carrying claims the cited passages do not make.
Scripture consistently affirms that God hears the prayers of those who seek him rightly (Ps 34:15; Prov 15:29), and the healed man's argument in John 9:31 applies that settled conviction to defend Jesus' legitimacy against the Pharisees' accusation.
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