Is It Sophron?

Encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children, to be self-controlled. —Titus 2:4–5

The word for self-controlled in Titus is the Greek word sophron. It comes from two other Greek words—soos, meaning “sound” or “saved,” and phren, meaning “outlook” or “mind.” When we put the two together, it means to have a “sound” or a “saved” mind.

I’ve come to see this as one of the most practical and vital aspects of my personal walk with the Lord. My reactions to everyday or unexpected circumstances can often be explained by asking one basic question: “Is it sophron?”

Are my words, actions, or reactions excessive, compulsive, or unstable? That’s a dead giveaway that, at least in that moment, I’m not sophron. I lack the self-control that flows out of having a “sound mind.”

And that’s true for us all. When we consider some of the foolish choices we’ve made, most of them were when we were basing our actions on faulty thinking or simply reacting without any thought at all. In other words, when we weren’t operating from a sound mind. When we weren’t sophron.

------------------

Adorned: Living Out the Beauty of the Gospel Together

©2017 Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth

Scripture taken from The CSB