Or, Embodied Doctrine for Young Men
Scripture: Titus 2:6
Date: August 4, 2024
Speaker: Sean Higgins
There is no little enjoyment in observing the lists of virtues for every other group in Titus 2 and noticing that younger men are limited to one. It’s not even a unique one; it’s already been included for older men and younger women, with the assumption that older women are teaching it by example themselves. Is it so obvious that younger men are so lacking it? Is it that we need to lower our expectations for younger men; guys, we’re just asking for this one thing. Is it an attention issue; like we’ve only got one bullet, so make it count?
True, young men are notorious for their huhs, for their limited affections span, for their lack of directed diligence. I don’t doubt that Paul urges this virtue because it is often a weakness, but I also think that Paul urges this virtue because it is powerful. With a little bit of self-control a man can rule a nation.
It is only one short verse, addressing only one virtue. But there are enough implications here for a lifetime, let alone for everyone who needs self-control (which, turns out, is everyone).
Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. (Titus 2:6 ESV)
Often verses 7-8 are taken with verse 6. There is spillover, because Titus was a younger man. But Titus himself is the object after verse 6, and that has application for those who would be leaders in the church more particularly than the broader group of younger men. Titus, like all of us, needed self-control, and there are a few specifics for how his self-control should demonstrate itself.
But otherwise, verse 6 is the whole lesson for younger men.
It is a new sentence, with a new verb, and the imperative is a bit stronger than in verse 1. More than “speak” (NASB) or even “teach” (ESV), this is urge. Get up next to them and call for the behavior.
Younger men are all those who are not older men. While I suppose two-year-old sons are not yet younger men technically, they are future younger men, so get your boys started on this path.
And then the virtue: self-control. There’s not really much need for a definition, is there? Control = be the boss, self = the one in the mirror. The Greek dictionary (BAGD) I use most frequently defines it as “to be able to think in a sound or sane manner; to keep one’s head.” I defined it in verse 2 as both 1) minimal reactivity to others and 2) maximum responsibility for self. It’s making good choices compared to making bad choices, and it’s making good choices compared to someone making choices for you.
The commentaries I’m reading this time through Titus didn’t have much to add. Fine, I get spending your word count on meatier matters. And yet, as I tried to show when addressing younger women, that the household relations and household work is part of her unmatched value, so with younger men, self-control has less to do with giving things up and more for how to get the right sort of glory.
This is how to be a choice man.
Self-control is not passively sitting in the chair—unless it’s the right time to keep your rear there. It is not risk-avoidant, it can imagine victory through danger. Self-control is necessary for (successfully) walking tight-ropes and climbing mountains. Self-control is what keeps a relational match from becoming a family or community wildfire. Self-control is what keeps a man from self-destruction, and what enables him to protect, and bless, a city.
What sphere of life is not bettered by self-control? Great dancing is not spastic, it’s great self-control made to look effortless. Finances, food and fitness, school assignments, home/bedroom maintenance, marriage and marriage bed and generational fruitfulness, getting and keeping a job, all are better when you’re not out of your mind.
You’ve probably heard little mantras like these:
And those are good, and true. But why?
Because control is an inescapable concept, not whether but which. It’s not whether there will be control, but who or what will control. So the opposite of self-control is not really being out of control. The opposite of self-control is something-else control. And when someone/thing else is in control, that makes you a slave. It is either self-control/freedom or bondage.
The credit card maxer is slave to the banker and his high interest. The fat man is slave to his stomach. The porn watcher is a slave to his loneliness and lust and laziness. The angry man is a slave to his pride; he’s so defensive because he’s bound to some false idea (about his own importance) that he can’t accept when others don’t agree.
A man without self-control leaves the gate open, and then no wonder so many people keep getting his goat.
A man without self-control has a sorry arsenal of responses. Reactivity is the ultimate getting pushed around; your buttons are big and visible, your handles sticking out. Mad or sad, this is still being controlled by others. You are letting them decide how your day will go, they are pulling your strings. Without self-control a man is not a man, he’s merely a puppet.
A man with self-control is a choice man, making his own choices.
It’s why Solomon wrote:
A man without self-control
is like a city broken into and left without walls.
(Proverbs 25:28 ESV)
There’s no defense. Remember King David’s lack of self-control, and what it cost.
A lack of self-control includes the inability to transfer/tether energy to some bigger purpose. It’s the ultimate vanity and chasing after the wind like a dog chases after a ball…he can’t help it, but the only thing it gets him is tired.
We are not urging younger men to self-control because they are idiots, but because they are made for strength. And strength directed toward building, and even toward necessary fighting, is glory.
Good sense makes one slow to anger,
and it is his glory to overlook an offense.
(Proverbs 19:11 ESV)
Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty,
and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.
(Proverbs 16:32 ESV)
So John Milton wrote, “He who reigns within himself and rules passions, desires, and fears is more than a king.” (Paradise Regained, Book II, lines 463-472)
Self-control is the gateway to all sorts of blessings, fruitfulness, harvest, wisdom, platform, power, and freedom. Self control is not being isolated or infectious, it means you know how to be a partner not a parasite or a poison.
Voices that urge self-control for young men from the secular/pragmatic podcasts and YouTube channels do resonate among Christian young men better than many silent voices from church elders. Somehow, we’ve made self-control seem weak, or like a punishment. This ought not to be so.
Dads can help their younger sons, by modeling, of course, and by giving jobs and chores and tests and then debriefs. Look for sprouts of self-control to water, to praise and encourage and promote. Look for weeds of laziness and excuse making and auto-reactivity to pull up and put on the burn pile.
What you allow for yourself is the house rule, no matter what you say.
Are some people more naturally self-controlled? Even if they were, does that change your need, and opportunity, for choice?
Are there difficult people in your life? Is that made better by your immediate irritation? Are bad situations made better by your unwillingness to work on your attitude? When you can’t control what others do and decide for you, do you also let them determine your attitude about it?
Self-control has application for any habit, to develop or quit. Every dollar, spent with purpose or squandered. All the minutes, bedtime and screen time and snooze button. For diet and exercise. Sex-drive (and your eyes). Mouth (jokes, edification). Response to loneliness, response to loss. Resisting self-pity like the devil, getting enough perspective to consider your self as the problem. Taking feedback or fighting it in defensiveness. Be predictable even when the situation isn’t.
Start, or start by stopping, something. Write it out, follow the plan, set a reminder, tell a friend, pray.
Be a choice man in a culture of men “led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures” (Titus 3:3).
Whether or not we have young men with self-control determines whether or not we live in community/civilization or Crazytown.
We want choice men leading our institutions, heading up houses, running to the front lines and sitting in the commander’s chair. Take charge, stay the course. Choose, by God’s grace, to “renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age” (Titus 2:12).
Self-control, in body and mind and soul, has promise in godliness for this life and the life to come. Christian Self-control is the way to true liberty and real glory. It belongs with the fruit of God’s Spirit, and so keep in step with the Spirit. Don’t underestimate the fruit God will grow in your life through faithful self-control.
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20–21 ESV)