"Whoever has no rule over his own spirit
Is like a city broken down, without walls."
Proverbs 25:28
Abuse, debt, pornography, adultery, homosexuality, obesity, procrastination, alcoholism, drug addiction--if we want to talk about epidemics, these vices are at epidemic levels. American household debt reached $13.21 trillion in 2018. One site shows that about 40 million Americans regularly visit porn sites, and 35% of all internet downloads are pornography related. The World Health Organization states that world obesity has nearly tripled since 1975. One study shows that the average worker spends 2 hours recovering from distractions. These statistics illustrate that people are lacking in a virtue that was considered a necessary one in Classical and Christian thought: enkrateia.
Enkrateia means self-rule or self-control, and I'm convinced it is one the great needs of our day. The opposite of enkrateia is akrasia (weak-willed). Xenophon likened one not educated in enkrateia to an animal caught in a trap because of his own appetites (Memorabilia 2.1.4). The proverb quoted above suggests something even worse: the akrasiatic man is a defenseless city. To Xenophon, enkrateia was more than just a virtue; it was a foundational one. It was that which was necessary to all other virtues. Training began with subduing the appetites, that is, moderating food, drink, and other pleasures, but its goal was for one to be able to "act as one judges best in the face of competing motivation" (Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, s.v. akrasia). It was necessary to begin this way because a man had to learn to master his desires lest they master him.
Enkrateia was necessary for one destined to rule the state. If a man didn't have self-mastery, how could he rule over a city or country? This concept seems foreign to the political ideology of our day, but the Founding Fathers of the US knew that self-mastery was necessary to the freedom of a republic. John Adams said, "The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a great Measure, than they have it now. They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty."
The Apostle Paul listed enkrateia as a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). It comes last after a list that begins with love, meaning that, though it is an important virtue, there was something even more foundational: the work of the Holy Spirit. The English Reformer William Perkins wrote, "There are no true virtues and good affections without the grace of regeneration" (Works 2:382). It is only by faith and regeneration that the heart is oriented to love God and neighbor and from that flows the virtue of self-control. Thus, we must, as Paul says, "walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16). Scripture teaches, then, that without the grace of regeneration a man will always be subjected to one inordinate desire or another. He will be ruled by the flesh, as the Scriptures call sinful desire, and not rule over it.
David Hume, however, taught that this was just the way things were, and many today seem to side with him. "Reason is, and ought only to be," he wrote, "the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them" (Treatise on Human Nature II.3.3). Hume did not know the power of the Holy Spirit nor the power of a regenerated mind and will, and thus he surrendered reason to flesh. Let's be clear. Christians capitulate the power of the Spirit to the flesh when they allow for things such as "Side A or Side B" Gay Christianity, teach in some way that good works are not necessary for the Christian life, say that the desire itself is not sinful but only the action, give abusers a pass in the church, or claim that a great fall into sin, rather than disqualifying one for ministry, makes them all the more qualified for it. Is this not to be like Proverbs says, "a city broken down, without walls"? Akrasiatic Christianity is a defenseless Christianity that will soon be overrun.
But let us remember that the attack does not come from without but from within. For, as Christ said, "from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man" (Mark 7:21-23). However, we were not called to have our minds ruled by the flesh but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds that we might offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, for this is our reasonable service (Rom. 12:1-2). George Lawson wrote in his Exposition of Proverbs, "Let us hold in with a strong and steady hand our disorderly passions, otherwise, they will make us wild beasts, of a more furious kind than wolves and leopards; because our rational powers will be forced into their service, and tend to no other purpose, but to make us more fell and destructive enemies to mankind" (p. 709).
We must reject an akrasiatic or weak-willed Christianity. God calls us to enkrateia. We must become masters over the flesh. While we were unregenerate, sinful passions ruled in our members to our death, but now we have "died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter" (Rom. 7:6). To quote again from George Lawson, "It is a happy thing when the body is subject to the mind, and the mind deeply penetrated with an habitual sense of the authority of God. That we may be placed in this delightful state, we must give up ourselves to the Lord, and pray for the accomplishment of these promises, 'I will put my spirit within you, and I will cause you to walk in my statutes;' 'The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the calf'" (p.709). It is the Spirit who is able to accomplish in us what the mere letter of the law could not do because we were once weak-willed; therefore, let us learn to judge what is good and right according to the Word of God in the face of competing sinful motivations until we come to that day of perfection in Christ Jesus, when akrasia will no longer be a part of us, but we will be able to wholly master ourselves as we have been wholly mastered by the one who loves us and gave his life for us.
Stay tuned for a follow-up post on how to develop enkrateia.
Enkrateia means self-rule or self-control, and I'm convinced it is one the great needs of our day. The opposite of enkrateia is akrasia (weak-willed). Xenophon likened one not educated in enkrateia to an animal caught in a trap because of his own appetites (Memorabilia 2.1.4). The proverb quoted above suggests something even worse: the akrasiatic man is a defenseless city. To Xenophon, enkrateia was more than just a virtue; it was a foundational one. It was that which was necessary to all other virtues. Training began with subduing the appetites, that is, moderating food, drink, and other pleasures, but its goal was for one to be able to "act as one judges best in the face of competing motivation" (Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, s.v. akrasia). It was necessary to begin this way because a man had to learn to master his desires lest they master him.
Enkrateia was necessary for one destined to rule the state. If a man didn't have self-mastery, how could he rule over a city or country? This concept seems foreign to the political ideology of our day, but the Founding Fathers of the US knew that self-mastery was necessary to the freedom of a republic. John Adams said, "The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a great Measure, than they have it now. They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty."
The Apostle Paul listed enkrateia as a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). It comes last after a list that begins with love, meaning that, though it is an important virtue, there was something even more foundational: the work of the Holy Spirit. The English Reformer William Perkins wrote, "There are no true virtues and good affections without the grace of regeneration" (Works 2:382). It is only by faith and regeneration that the heart is oriented to love God and neighbor and from that flows the virtue of self-control. Thus, we must, as Paul says, "walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16). Scripture teaches, then, that without the grace of regeneration a man will always be subjected to one inordinate desire or another. He will be ruled by the flesh, as the Scriptures call sinful desire, and not rule over it.
David Hume, however, taught that this was just the way things were, and many today seem to side with him. "Reason is, and ought only to be," he wrote, "the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them" (Treatise on Human Nature II.3.3). Hume did not know the power of the Holy Spirit nor the power of a regenerated mind and will, and thus he surrendered reason to flesh. Let's be clear. Christians capitulate the power of the Spirit to the flesh when they allow for things such as "Side A or Side B" Gay Christianity, teach in some way that good works are not necessary for the Christian life, say that the desire itself is not sinful but only the action, give abusers a pass in the church, or claim that a great fall into sin, rather than disqualifying one for ministry, makes them all the more qualified for it. Is this not to be like Proverbs says, "a city broken down, without walls"? Akrasiatic Christianity is a defenseless Christianity that will soon be overrun.
But let us remember that the attack does not come from without but from within. For, as Christ said, "from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man" (Mark 7:21-23). However, we were not called to have our minds ruled by the flesh but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds that we might offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, for this is our reasonable service (Rom. 12:1-2). George Lawson wrote in his Exposition of Proverbs, "Let us hold in with a strong and steady hand our disorderly passions, otherwise, they will make us wild beasts, of a more furious kind than wolves and leopards; because our rational powers will be forced into their service, and tend to no other purpose, but to make us more fell and destructive enemies to mankind" (p. 709).
We must reject an akrasiatic or weak-willed Christianity. God calls us to enkrateia. We must become masters over the flesh. While we were unregenerate, sinful passions ruled in our members to our death, but now we have "died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter" (Rom. 7:6). To quote again from George Lawson, "It is a happy thing when the body is subject to the mind, and the mind deeply penetrated with an habitual sense of the authority of God. That we may be placed in this delightful state, we must give up ourselves to the Lord, and pray for the accomplishment of these promises, 'I will put my spirit within you, and I will cause you to walk in my statutes;' 'The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the calf'" (p.709). It is the Spirit who is able to accomplish in us what the mere letter of the law could not do because we were once weak-willed; therefore, let us learn to judge what is good and right according to the Word of God in the face of competing sinful motivations until we come to that day of perfection in Christ Jesus, when akrasia will no longer be a part of us, but we will be able to wholly master ourselves as we have been wholly mastered by the one who loves us and gave his life for us.
Stay tuned for a follow-up post on how to develop enkrateia.
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