By Trevin Wax, TGC. (photo: Jeremy McKnight/Unsplash)
In the apostle Paul’s letter to Titus, we find long lists of character traits and expectations for church leaders, older men, older women, and younger women—qualities like “sound in faith,” “reverent in behavior,” “pure,” “kind,” and “not slanderers.” But when Paul gets to young men? Just one command.
Encourage them to be self-controlled in everything. (Titus 2:6–7)
No list. No elaboration. That one’ll do.
Why this emphasis? Perhaps it’s because self-control is a foundational virtue, especially for young men. This trait rises to the top. Without self-control, you won’t get far in the Christian life.
Priority of Self-Control
This isn’t just a theme in Titus. Paul, when speaking before Governor Felix, sums up the gospel as involving “righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come” (Acts 24:25). Self-control makes it into a gospel presentation! It’s also a fruit of the Spirit, coming at the end of Paul’s list in Galatians 5 but no less essential than the love that starts that list.
Hungarian linguist Zoltán Dörnyei draws a connection between self-control and love. Love is tied to self-control, he says, because self-control is like a spiritual muscle, a foundational virtue that underpins other virtuous behaviors. You can’t become a loving person without self-control, because caring for someone else will always cost you something. True love is hard work because it requires you to push against the inertia of laziness, of just going with the flow. Love requires you to structure your life around willing the good of another. You will not become a person who makes the costly, selfless decisions required by love unless you can master and overcome the selfish impulses most likely to hold you back.