To engage in gospel ministry is to be given over to death for Christ’s sake, so that others would know the life Christ offers. Paul’s love for the Corinthians is so great he will even live a life that looks like dying. He’ll be afflicted, persecuted, and hurt for them. By every measure, his life looked in danger. He was bleeding out life for them – giving his minutes, hours and years for them. He was giving up comfort and home and security for them. He was giving himself up for them … much like Jesus did. In a world that teaches us to love ourselves – where the self is sacred and must be protected as priority – the Apostle Paul gives up that ‘safety mindset’ for his love of Jesus and others. And not only does he forgo his own security. 

‘Caution: slippery when wet’
Our society is risk-averse. With our endless road signs, laws and regulations, we’ve cultivated a society that champions safety and prioritises the elimination of risk. Our Western world is safety obsessed.
How have we got here? Surely, our love of money is a part of the picture. We don’t want to pay out for an ‘oversight’, and so we love the fine print. Our faith is in the fine print. Human hubris and the unrealistic belief that there is a world in which we can truly control every outcome and risk also forms a part of the picture. It has led to urbanisation and infrastructure. Increasingly, the average human experience is ‘life in the city’ – where our buildings, streets and city lights allow us the illusion of safety. ‘If you live within our city walls, and follow our laws, you will flourish and thrive’ is the catch cry.
Most of all, however, our safety obsession must stem from our fear of our own mortality. Death is our common enemy and so let’s give ourselves a fighting chance to keep it at bay as long as possible. We do this partly by denying death’s power and keeping it at the peripheries of the human experience: in our hospitals and out of our conversations. ‘Fifty is the new thirty’ is the lie that ‘death has no power’, wrapped up in billions of dollars of cosmetic branding. We fear death and its portents: sickness and age. So we adopt a ‘safety mindset’ to protect ourselves.
Perhaps there are other reasons for how we got here. Nevertheless, safety has become a virtue and aspiration. We use the ‘safe’ adjective endlessly: safe schools, safe house, safe spaces, safe ministry. We cannot conceive of a world in which there is ever an argument against safety. My question is whether this is a good and biblical thing?
Please be assured, this isn’t an argument for recklessness! A society with no laws and regulations for the general good is a place of chaos.
Read More
Related Posts:

The Bible urges us to exercise control over our minds and bodies. We should be deliberate and intentional, and maintain control rather than being controlled and led astray by our passions and desires. What do you and I need to do to get control over that which we currently don’t control?

“The fruit of the Spirit is self-control.” We’ve arrived at the final fruit of the Spirit in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. It’s been a joy and privilege to walk through this list of important character traits in the Christian life with you. The most important bedrock principle in this entire series has been that each one of these attributes is a fruit of the Spirit. It is the Spirit who works in us each of these attributes, and he does so in increasing measure as part of his work of sanctification.
If, as a next step, you’re interested in working through a good book on the Spirit’s sanctifying work, may I recommend my wife Marny’s short but substantive study, Sanctification as Set Apart and Growing in Christ. As you read this book, you will develop a deeper appreciation for our holy God and the way in which he works holiness in us. That said, let’s now tackle the final fruit of the Spirit, which most English Bibles render as “self-control.”
An Interesting Observation
When I recently taught a life group lesson on this passage, I was in for a surprise: The word used for “self-control” in Galatians 5:23 is not the more common term for self-control in the New Testament, sōphrosynē, which Paul uses when writing to Timothy and Titus with reference to women (1 Tim. 2:9, 15; Titus 2:5) as well as older (1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 2:2) and younger men (Titus 2:6; cf. 2 Tim. 1:7), but the rare word egkrateia, which occurs in the New Testament only four times.
Apart from Galatians 5:23, egkrateia occurs twice in the virtue list in 2 Peter 1:6 (“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love”; note the reference to the Spirit at 1:4) and in Acts 24:25, where Paul speaks to the Roman governor Felix about “righteousness, self-control, and the coming judgment.”
Exercising Self-Control
This observation raises a set of important interpretive questions: Why did Paul not use the more common word for “self-control” in Galatians 5:23 but instead employed the rare word egkrateia? And what is the difference in meaning between those two Greek words, both of which English translations render as “self-control”?
The verb form, “to exercise self-control” (egkrateō), is used in two important passages in 1 Corinthians. In 7:9, Paul writes about men, “But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.” In 7:5, he says a couple should not refrain from sex so Satan won’t tempt them due to their lack of self-control.
And in 9:25, Paul writes, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? … Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. …
Read More

Related Posts:

.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{align-content:start;}:where(.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap) > .wp-block-kadence-column{justify-content:start;}.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{column-gap:var(–global-kb-gap-md, 2rem);row-gap:var(–global-kb-gap-md, 2rem);padding-top:var(–global-kb-spacing-sm, 1.5rem);padding-bottom:var(–global-kb-spacing-sm, 1.5rem);grid-template-columns:minmax(0, 1fr);}.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd{background-color:#dddddd;}.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-layout-overlay{opacity:0.30;}@media all and (max-width: 1024px){.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{grid-template-columns:minmax(0, 1fr);}}@media all and (max-width: 767px){.kb-row-layout-id223392_4ab238-bd > .kt-row-column-wrap{grid-template-columns:minmax(0, 1fr);}}
.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col,.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{border-top-left-radius:0px;border-top-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-left-radius:0px;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{column-gap:var(–global-kb-gap-sm, 1rem);}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col > .aligncenter{width:100%;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{opacity:0.3;}.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18{position:relative;}@media all and (max-width: 1024px){.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}}@media all and (max-width: 767px){.kadence-column223392_96a96c-18 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}}

Subscribe to Free “Top 10 Stories” Email
Get the top 10 stories from The Aquila Report in your inbox every Tuesday morning.

Clearly, people are suffering. In a culture shaped by a “critical theory mood,” claims of suffering can be thought of as a desirable way of elevating a person’s moral status. It is also not a coincidence that this suffering has accompanied a culturewide loss of a sense of meaning. A 2021 Lifeway Research study found that nearly 60% of American adults wonder about how they can find more meaning and purpose in their lives on at least a monthly basis. Rates of depression, suicidal ideation, and suicide are up across all demographics. 

Much has been documented about the growing mental health crisis among American teenagers. Young people, however, are not the only ones struggling. Middle-aged women, particularly white women over the age of 45, account for nearly 60% of all Americans who have been taking antidepressants for more than five years. 
To be sure, with this kind of statistic, it is not clear the role that medical and pharmaceutical industries, which are incentivized to medicalize mental health struggles, play. There are also cultural factors at work. Affluent people, white people, and women are on average more likely to seek help for mental health issues than African American or Hispanic women, men, or people in poverty.  
It is good that more attention is now given to the mentally and emotionally hurting and that these struggles are no longer as stigmatized. But we also have reached a point where it’s almost fashionable to be diagnosed with a mental health condition. This is especially true for women, and progressive women in particular.  
It is not unusual for people to include a mental health diagnosis in their social media profiles. Regardless of how well-founded these diagnoses are, the fact that so many (especially women and young people) embrace them as part of their identity is a troubling sign of dysfunction.  
Clearly, people are suffering. In a culture shaped by a “critical theory mood,” claims of suffering can be thought of as a desirable way of elevating a person’s moral status. 
Read More
Related Posts: