"Self-control is a gift of the Holy Spirit" Wednesday of Lent 2 — March 19, 2025
19. March 2025
Lent 2 Midweek
2 Peter 1:2-11 - Self-Control
Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2 Pe 1:10–11)
This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.
We again visit the little sermon from 2 Peter. As a reminder, Peter takes pains to speak first of the sufficiency of Christ’s saving gifts for His people. “His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.” Then, built on that foundation, Peter continues with the virtues that necessarily flow from the gifts of Christ. “But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue…” Faith in Christ's power to save and sanctify is the foundation, and the virtues of the Christian’s life follow. Those who lack these virtues show a sorry kind of blindness and barrenness.
Peter describes this given-to life in a series of virtues beginning with faith and ending with love. Faith in Christ is the foundation from which all the Christian virtues flow, and love is the culmination and “greatest” result of faith (1 Cor 13:13). All God-pleasing virtue is, therefore, a gift of the Holy Spirit. All this lays the groundwork for Peter to speak of the sanctified life established and founded upon God’s grace in Christ.
Tonight, we focus on the virtue of self-control, ἐγκράτεια. We need to work through these terms so we know what the Apostolic Church is called to be and do. In English, this virtue is a compound of self and control. In Greek, it is a compound of “en” which in this case means “over” and “krateia,” meaning “power” or “lordship.” Self-control is broadly speaking to have power or lordship over oneself or over something. It begins with believing that the Spirit gives you control. And with this control, you are given to exercise again Adam’s dominion not only on things external but internal (mind and spirit) as well.
Socrates considered self-control one of the cardinal virtues. Aristotle devoted a whole section on ἐγκράτεια in his work, still read in classical Lutheran schools, the Nicomachean Ethics. Ethics is the science of the good for human life, with a focus on the aim or end of all our actions. For example, he says, “The [uncontrolled] man, knowing that what he does is bad, does it as a result of passion, while the [self-controlled] man, knowing that his appetites are bad, refuses on account of his rational principle to follow them.”
The Stoics agree that self-control is about controlling the passions or lusts of the flesh. They placed self-control as subordinate to temperance (that is, sobriety in a broad sense.) They imagined the ideal free and independent man, under no control but who freely controls all things and who in self-restraint, maintains his freedom in the face of excessive bodily pleasures that would deprive him of it. For the ancients, self-control was about restraint from the pleasures of the body, food, drink, and sexual relations.
But when we come to the Scriptures, ἐγκράτεια, self-control, is not used in the LXX or the Gospels. All said it is used a handful of times in the Epistles. So we’ll have to let Scripture interpret Scripture to determine how best to understand what Peter meant when he said, “And for this very reason, by applying every effort, supply excellence in your faith and knowledge in your excellence, self-control in your knowledge…”
Paul uses self-control in the classic sense when he describes the necessity for preachers and teachers to be temperate and restrained in bodily pleasures to avoid disqualifying their preaching. “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (1 Co 9:24–27).
In Galatians 5, Paul sets self-control as the opposite “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these” (Galatians 5:19-21). These are the classic passions, which the Apostle calls “works of the flesh.” Self-control is given as a work of the Holy Spirit, given not by Law but as a free gift from Jesus. As so he says, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another” (Ga 5:24–26).
Most specifically, Paul also uses self-control to put sexual urges where they belong, that is, in marriage. He writes, “To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion” (1 Co 7:8–9). Those whom the Spirit gives to live chaste and decent lives as single may remain single, but those who cannot use God’s gift of marriage for self-control of the passion of lust.
The last significant example is Paul’s letter to Titus, instructing him what sort of men are qualified to serve as pastors, deacons, and other leaders of the church. He writes these strong qualifications because many of those appointed in Crete were “insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers” (Tt 1:10). The Apostle instructs Titus to: “put what remained into order, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you— if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it (Tt 1:5–9).
Again, to be self-controlled means restraint of passion. As one author writes, “What are passions? At the most basic level, they are our immediate and impulsive desires. Paul links them closely to our bodies: “Let not sin reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions” (Rom. 6:12). Peter does too: “I urge you to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul” (1 Pet. 2:11). Later, Peter puts them side-by-side with things like sensuality, sexual immorality, drunkenness, and lawless idolatry (1 Pet. 4:3). They deceive us (Eph. 4:22), lead us astray (2 Tim. 3:6), and enslave us (Titus 3:3). They have a direction; they want to take us somewhere. If we follow them, then we are indulging or gratifying our passions. We are being conformed to our passions.” (Rigney, Leadership, p. 33).
He continues, “These passions were meant to be guided and governed by our minds which were meant to be guided and governed by God: God over mind, mind over passions. But in our sinfulness, everything gets turned upside down. We conform ourselves to our passions. Wherever our passions want to go, our minds follow. We are enslaved to our passions, led astray by our passions, drunk on our passions” (Rigney, Leadership, p. 34). When considering our passions, “the works of the flesh,” we are called to exercise full and complete self-control, as well as being sober-minded. But who has done this except Christ?
The Scriptures set an impossibly high standard for us to keep, but not beyond what God gives. That’s where Aristotle and Stoics fell short and ultimately failed. They identified the need for self-control to restrain the passions. But they lacked a confession of the eternal and omnipotent God, who created all people. Or God the Son who redeemed all people, always keeping His passions in check for the preaching of the conviction of the Law and forgiveness of sins in His shed blood. Most notably, as we saw from Galatians 5, the ancients did not know or confess that self-control is a gift of the Holy Spirit, working in the hearts and minds of believers whom He has regenerated in Baptism and renewed by His breath.
That’s what makes Peter’s call to the Christian for self-control different. We regard our lives as determined and directed by God’s Word. There is no place for self-mastery apart from God. In the same way, as you cannot escape your creatureliness, you cannot escape your passions apart from the Spirit working through Christ’s Word. Everything has breath and life receives it as gifts from the hand of the Creator. The gift of salvation in Christ crucified gives the full and complete remission of sins, regeneration, and new obedience. If you lack self-control, restraint, or temperance, pray God the Holy Spirit gives you this gift He promised. And in praying, act with wisdom and confidence to restrain the flesh with its passions and desires.
Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2 Pe 1:10–11)
This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.
Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School - Sherman Center
Random Lake, Wisconsin
