1 Timothy 2:9-10

July 29, 2018

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

Download the bulletin.

Download the Kids’ Korner.

The sermon starts at 15:10 in the audio file.

Or, Emotional Idealism as a Menace to Self-Control

When we used to have regular small group meetings just for students, one of the questions that I regularly got asked when I visited, especially the guys’ groups, was some version of this: If you only had one thing you could say to these guys before you died, what would it be?

The apostle Paul gave an inspired one thing to Titus to tell the young men. In Titus 2 he told Titus to “teach what accords with sound doctrine” (verse 1) and then followed it with five verses about what characteristics various groups in the church should be expected and/or trained to exhibit. The older men get six, the older women get four or five (depending on how you count), the younger women get seven, and the younger men get one.

Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled.

The word translated self-controlled (a form of σωφρονέω) in Titus 2:6 could also be translated “sober-minded” (KJV) or “sensible” (NASB), but these meanings are not really so far apart. Titus was to get the young men to focus on building just one virtue into their lives.

Here is a good working definition: self-control is a mindful restraint of one’s impulses, emotions, and desires. This is from Webster and from the Greek dictionary. The New Oxford Dictionary: “the ability to control one’s emotions and desires or the expression of them in one’s behavior, especially in difficult situations.” Such a definition highlights a couple things.

Self-control comes from within. It is mindful. You use your brain; you think. It is not a state of mindlessness, as in a trance or as in someone else bossing you. Sometimes you don’t want to listen to “Current Your Mind,” you have to remember what “Previous Your Mind” decided, when Previous Your Mind was not so stressed out. It still happens on the inside.

Self-control focuses on within. It is from within that immaturities must be dealt with in order to develop maturity, not just conformity. It is from within that sinful attitudes and wants come, and they are the primary target. The very idea of self-control assumes that you will naturally respond or desire things that are not right or beneficial, and therefore you cannot simply listen to your inner self as if it’s inherently good, you must tell things to, and be the boss of, your inner self.

It would be unmerited to say that a lack of self-control among young men is a modern problem. The fact that Paul isolates this one virtue for younger men almost two-thousand years ago indicates that it has been a problem for millenniums, not just for millennials. When we consider the overall emphasis of the book of Proverbs, written so that young men would get wisdom, I think we can safely say that young men have been idiots for generations.

But look in Titus 2 again. Being self-controlled is urged for the older men as well (verse 2), and it is also part of the training program for young women (verse 5). Since it is the older women who are to train the younger women, we expect that the older women must “likewise” along with the older men have this virtue and know how to exercise it in order to explain and model it for the younger women. Self-control is for everyone.

It is for everyone that is filled with the Spirit (see Galatians 5:23). It is a different Greek word there (ἐγκράτεια), but again, self-control refers to disciplined and defensive forces that protect the inner train from being pulled off the tracks. This is urged and illustrated for all Christians who must run the race of obedient living. It is the point in 1 Corinthians 9 and 10.

Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. (1 Corinthians[...]