…be self-controlled… (1 Peter 1:13b, NIV)
If success in golf comes from narrowing your mistakes, then the understanding of this truth provides us not only with an avenue for figuring out what we need to practice but also gives us a perspective that guides our responses to bad shots.
You see, if you begin with the understanding that every shot before the last putt on each green means you’ve made a mistake, you will shortly recognize that your day will be literally mistake-filled, a series of relative imperfections. From that viewpoint, you’ll find yourself less angry about the shot you just missed and more energetic about the one you will next hit. You will have discovered a way to manage your emotions on the golf course.
In the apostle’s trio of instructions delivered in 1 Peter 1:13 (yesterday we looked at preparing our minds for action), he offered as his second directive the need to exercise self-control.
Because this idea is presented in various apostolic letters of the New Testament, this is one of those places where we help ourselves by considering the Greek background that accompanies the word self-control as it is employed by the Bible translators, especially since there is more than one Greek word in play here!
In a commonly known passage where Paul taught the Galatians about the fruit of the Spirit, he ended that list of the Spirit’s outworking in our lives with self-control. In this case, Paul chose the Greek word egkrateia, which emphasizes temperance, or the mastering of sensual desires, like the cravings of the taste buds or the sexual organs. In other words, urges do not rule over self-controlled men and women of Christ.
In another well-known passage, Paul wrote to Timothy that rather than a spirit of fear, we have received from God “a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline” (that last word being rendered as self-control or a sound mind by other translators). In this case, Paul used the Greek word sōphonismos, which means a soundness of mind that leads to temperance. That is, we should, as self-controlled followers of Jesus, think before we act.
But Peter chose neither of those words when he told his readers to “be self-controlled.” Instead, he selected nēphō, a word that means one is calm and collected in spirit, a condition caused by a far-seeing perspective. This choice of words provided a beautiful juxtaposition to the opening instruction of 1 Peter 1:13. In that case, Peter said we must prepare our minds for action; now he was writing that in the midst of that action, we must remember what we thought about beforehand; we must keep a handle on perspective.
In every case, we can see why God would inspire the apostles to enlist us in the practice of self-control. In response to his gracious love for us, we want to reflect Christ in the things we say and do, and we do this best when we think deeply and widely about the way he would have us live out even the smallest moments of our lives.
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Jeff Hopper
March 1, 2012
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