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. …
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By engaging in God-centered preaching and pastoral ministry, we will redirect people’s natural inclination to focus on self and lead them to turn their eyes upward to contemplate and worship a holy, loving, and righteous God. 

Pastoral ministry is exceedingly demanding and requires us to tackle a large number of tasks, such as preaching, administration, counseling, and many more. Preaching, in particular, is an enormous challenge and serious responsibility, as pastors must weigh what, when, and how to preach, among many other questions that confront them in their ministry. In the present series, I will discuss ten major doctrines that every pastor should address, starting with the doctrine of God. How does the doctrine of God inform a pastor’s ministry?
Why God Matters
It is hard to think of a doctrine that matters more than the doctrine of God. A. W. Tozer said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” God is the Alpha and Omega. He is the eternal, infinite, self-sufficient God, one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit. God is the Creator, revealed in the Old Testament as Israel’s covenant God who redeemed his people from bondage in Egypt and gave them the law at Sinai. He is the “I am” who is without rivals; there is no other God (Exod 3:14; Isa 45:5).
All creation is oriented toward God. He is the sovereign ruler of the universe and worthy of all glory and praise. Thus our preaching, like our praying, should be theocentric rather than anthropocentric. As Jesus taught his followers to pray, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:9–10; cf. Luke 11:2). Jesus’ followers should “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added” to them (Matt 6:33).
7 Truths to Teach about God
Developing a theocentric focus in our preaching is crucial for providing a proper theological framework for our congregation. Starting with God will be vital in helping the people in our church think rightly about God and relate rightly to God. While the following list is far from exhaustive, here are seven suggestions regarding how pastors can help their congregation think more about God and think about God in light of biblical revelation.
1. Consider not merely God’s works, but also his being.
Counteracting our natural tendency to view God from our self-centered human perspective, pastors should consciously seek to redirect and reorient people’s thoughts to God’s person and character, even apart from any of his works. God is an awesome person, a beautiful, majestic being. We cannot fully comprehend our eternal God, but we can pause in wonder at such a glorious, mysterious, infinite being. That’s certainly the right place to start, and to return to often.
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Peace is, first of all, a reconciled relationship with God through Christ, and second, a life lived in continual dependence on God in the power of the Spirit. In the spirit of Paul’s words to the Galatians, we can lead our people in living in an orbit of grace, freedom, and loving service: “You were called to freedom, brothers. … through love serve one another” (5:13).

Our world is full of strife yet desperate for peace. There are volatile international conflicts. There are student protests, political dissensions, and challenges in our churches and families. Is there any way out? “But the fruit of the Spirit is … peace” (Gal. 5:22).
Strife in Galatia
Slightly earlier in the Galatian letter, Paul exhorts, “But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit …” (5:15).
The apostle pens the entire letter in the context of strife and division. He starts out, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel” (1:6) and twice calls down a curse on his opponents (1:8, 9).
He even recounts a sharp conflict with Peter, whom he “opposed … to his face, because he stood condemned,” having briefly followed that other gospel (2:11).
Paul, for his part, asserts that he lives “by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” and does not “nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose” (2:20–21).
Any effort at self-justification—any human striving and moral living apart from the enabling grace of God and the power of the Spirit—will miserably fail. Such a misguided disposition can lead only to strife and division.
The fruit of the Spirit, on the other hand, is peace.
Peace Comes Only through the Gospel
As pastors, we have the privilege of extolling the radical and liberating message of the gospel. Without any contribution on our part, Jesus died on the cross for our sins so that God can justify us—declare us righteous—on the basis of what Jesus, the Son of God, did for us.
The answer to all global, local, and internal conflict lies only in the gospel.
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Paul urges women to learn in quietness and submission, while in verse 12 he states that he doesn’t permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man. The infinitives “to teach” (didaskein) and “to have/exercise authority” (authentein) contrast what Paul doesn’t permit women to do with what he does want them to do: learn and be “in full submission.” Teaching, as we’ve seen, is the domain of elders who must be “able to teach” (3:2; cf. 5:17; Titus 1:9). The exercise of authority, likewise, is the domain of elders who “rule well” (5:17; cf. 3:4–5). “Quietness,” of course, doesn’t mean women must never speak in church, just that they should willingly submit to male teachers and elders in the church (cf. 1 Pet. 3:4). 

God’s Word calls qualified men to teach and pastor God’s flock. In discussions of this topic, 1 Timothy 2–3 are central to explaining why Paul did not permit a woman to teach or have authority in the church and why the pastoral office is grounded in creation and not culture. If anyone needs to see the most recent scholarship on the debate, the third edition of Women in the Church: An Interpretation and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9–15 is a good place to begin.
For today, I will provide a brief introduction to 1 Timothy 2–3, a passage that clearly affirms male eldership in the household of God.
Paul’s first letter to Timothy contains vital and abiding instructions for the church and its leadership. Paul writes to his apostolic delegate, Timothy, toward the end of Paul’s life and ministry in order to leave a legacy and pass on the pattern of church leadership to his foremost disciple. These instructions are not limited to first-century Ephesus (where Timothy was at the time) but abiding principles grounded in God’s creation order (Paul writes similar instructions to Titus, who is on the island of Crete).
The Church as God’s Household
Underlying Paul’s instructions is the metaphor of the church as God’s household. While in some of his other letters Paul uses the metaphor of a body with many members and Christ at the head, here (as well as in Titus) Paul conceives of the church in terms of an ancient household. It is well-attested historical fact that in both first-century Jewish and Greco-Roman households, the father (paterfamilias) was the head. Similarly, Paul stipulates that male elders be responsible for God’s household, the church.
In the ancient world, households consisted not only of the nuclear family (parents and children) but also included relatives (such as widows) and even household servants. The head of the household had the important task of caring for all the members of his extended household and of ensuring that their needs were met. Likewise, male elders were to care for the needs of all church members.
Proper Conduct in God’s Household (1 Tim. 3:14–15)
The most relevant instructions regarding church leadership in 1 Timothy are found in chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 2 opens with the words, “First of all, then, I urge that ….” (ESV). Here we have the beginning of a set of instructions Paul gives to Timothy for ordering the life of the church, particularly its leadership. The unit concludes with the words, “I am writing these things to you so that … you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:14–15).
So here we see that chapters 2–3 are built on the metaphor of the church as God’s household. We also see that Paul thought of these instructions as general directives on “how one ought to behave” in God’s household, which he solemnly calls “the church of the living God” and, in yet another metaphor, “a pillar and buttress of the truth.” For this reason we can be sure that the instructions on church leadership in chapters 2–3 contain abiding—rather than merely culturally relative—instructions for the church.
Male Elders (1 Tim. 3:1–7; 5:17)
In 1 Timothy 3:1, Paul introduces the “trustworthy saying” that, “if anyone aspires to the office of overseer (episkopē), he desires a noble task.” He stipulates that an overseer (episkopos) be “above reproach” and a faithful husband and adds several other qualifications (vv. 2–3). He adds an analogy between the natural and God’s spiritual household: “He must manage (proistēmi) his own household well … for if someone does not know how to manage (proistēmi) his own household, how will he care for God’s church?” (3:4–5).
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We, as Jesus’s followers, may be perceived even by those in our own families as “having lost our minds.” Why follow a Jewish carpenter who was crucified two millennia ago? Why forego a comfortable life, forsake the American dream, and choose deprivation and suffering for his cause? By the world’s standards, we’re out of our minds.

Jesus entered a house, and the crowd gathered again so that they were not even able to eat. When his family heard this, they set out to restrain him, because they said, “He’s out of his mind.” (Mark 3:20–22 CSB)
The Professor and the Madman
In his bestselling novel, Simon Winchester tells the harrowing tale of The Professor and the Madman. The professor, James Murray, served as the longtime editor of the Oxford English Dictionary. The “madman,” William Chester Minor, was a prolific contributor to the work. Minor, a medical doctor who had fought in the Civil War but was plagued by a severe mental illness. He had murdered an innocent man in a case of mistaken identity that led to Minor’s incarceration.
Confined to a lunatic asylum, Minor found meaning in immersing himself in linguistic research, sending copious notes to Murray. For the longest time, Murray was unaware of the background of the lexicographic prodigy. The mystery man preferred to remain in obscurity until Murray eventually tracked him down. To his amazement, he discovered that Minor was, quite literally, out of his mind. As the fascinating story of the professor and the madman illustrates, at times the line between erudition and lunacy can be fine indeed.
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