SINCE the early 1900s when the Temperance Movement began in America, temperance has been commonly associated with abstinence from alcohol. The demon drink was ruining the lives of ordinary folk in increasing numbers. As a reaction many 'signed the pledge' committing themselves never to touch another drop. American wives and mothers discovered then, as many governments forced to introduce legislation have since discovered—alcohol is a killer.
Alcohol is a killer. But so is anything we might crave and let get the better of us. So many of our bodily needs and pleasures are potential killers if we let them get control of us. Things which are good and healthy in moderation, within God's guidelines, can be lethal when taken to excess: eating, drinking, exercise, sex, even sleep and cleanliness, and anything else to which we might become addicted like drugs, gambling, money, television—any pleasure or excitement over which we lose control.
I don't mean that you will necessarily be killed directly by lack of temperance in any of these areas: sleep and television, for instance. What I'm talking about here is the ultimately more serious harm to our spiritual prospects that intemperance and addiction cause. Our spiritual will and commitment is sapped when we surrender control of our life to any bodily or psychological need or pleasure. And that can be fatal.
To be temperate is to have control. Most people would think of it as self-control. But the temperance that is a part of the fruit of the Spirit is not gained through self-control but through God-control. Just as the reliance we get from Biblical meekness is not self-reliance but God-reliance, so the control we get from temperance is obtained from God and not through our own efforts. Our own wills are weak things at best and need to be aligned to some higher force if we are ever going to achieve anything. Temperance comes through delight and meditation in the Word of God. Take the Word to heart and it has a transforming power beyond anything else in this world.
As I've already mentioned, a number of the aspects of the fruit of the Spirit give the impression of being undesirable, wishy-washy characteristics. Gentleness, kindness and meekness fall into this category. But when we delved behind the words to the true spiritual meaning, we found they were not weaknesses but strengths. This is very much the case with temperance. Temperance is holding back our natural inclinations, not running to the same excesses that may be perfectly acceptable to unbelievers. Ironically they will probably see temperance not as a fruit of the Spirit but as a lack of spirit! Temperance to many people means being over-conservative, unadventurous.
A typical reaction of non-Christians to the changed lifestyle of newly-baptised believers is to think they've lost so much of what makes life interesting and exciting. The new Christian's old friends, family and acquaintances often can't understand the changes that have come about in the person they thought they knew. The Apostle Peter summed up the situation well for us in his first letter: "For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles—when we walked in licentiousness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you" (1 Pet.4:3.4 NKJV). Isn't it marvellous!—as soon as you stop your evil ways, your running to excess, evil is spoken of you!
Well, it's not really so surprising. All the while you were as godless as most other people nobody really noticed how you behaved: you blended in with everybody else. As soon as you change your lifestyle you become a target for criticism. "Who does he think he is? What's wrong with a good drinking party anyway? What's the matter with whooping it up a bit? How deadly dull he's become since he got religion. If that's what Christianity does to you, then no thank you! He takes himself far too seriously. Surely you can be a believer and still have a good time?"
Actually the answer to that last question is a resounding YES! You can believe the Gospel and still have a good time—but not always the same good time. And if you think you can you're seriously kidding yourself. What commonly passes for a good time is often a bad time. It's usually running to excess. If you want to run to the same excesses as unbelievers, enjoying almost everything that takes your fancy to whatever degree you like, then you can kiss good-bye to any serious notions you have about being a believer. I might just as easily call myself a fisherman, though I don't own a rod and line and never go fishing! I could talk about it a lot, read about it, even meet up with real fishermen, but I still wouldn't qualify, however much I insisted.
If you want to be a believer you must learn a measure of temperance. It sounds painfully inhibiting. In fact it sounds so off-putting that it's a major block to people becoming believers. The fact that it's for their own immediate and eternal good doesn't influence people much either.
A caring Heavenly Father wants to lead us in the right direction, away from all the things which will ruin our lives now, and which will cause Him, in the long run, to disown us. From God's fatherly point of view the human race must seem eternally stuck in adolescence—and that goes for some believers too. Where He is concerned we may be spending our whole lives as difficult teenagers, never reaching maturity. Most of the world does. It's a rare teenager who quickly grasps the fact that what his or her parents suggest might actually be a good thing. After all, why shouldn't they do anything they want and not consider the consequences? It has been said that teenagers want all the benefits of adulthood with none of the responsibilities. I fear the same is sometimes true of believers who expect all the benefits from their Heavenly Father of Christian maturity, but will take on few, if any, of the responsibilities. Mostly it's a temperance problem.
Temperance is hard for teenagers. And it's hard for spiritual adolescents of all ages. The problem, as every believer knows, is that we don't trade our body for a new one with different desires at the moment of baptism. We might imagine it's going to be like that, but we soon learn differently. We still have the same old rebellious nature—but now we have the problem of trying to control it far more than we did! And to do this we need the knowledge, wisdom and understanding that can come only from personal delight and meditation in the Word of a Father who really does know best. Our lives are the richer for it, and our future prospects improved beyond measure.
The Greek word for temperance is egkrateia (pronounced en-krateia). It is a compound of two words en and kratos, and taken literally means in strength. It means to have power over oneself. And, let's face it, that takes a lot of strength! We tend to give in to our inborn desires because the lure from within is so strong. We have to be even stronger, and perhaps even a little devious with ourselves, if we are to overcome it. "He who rules his spirit [is better] than he who takes a city" (Prov.16:32). A man may conquer many things and achieve much in his life without ever succeeding in his greatest challenge—himself.
In the Acts of the Apostles we meet a man who had done well for himself. He'd risen from being a slave to become Procurator of Judea. But "The most excellent Governor Felix", for such was his title and name according to the protocol of the times, failed abysmally as a person. While Felix was in his exalted office as Procurator, the Apostle Paul was sent to him by a Roman officer, Claudius Lysias, for the benefit of his judgement. Felix was to help decide what to do with this Jewish academic turned Christian whom the Jews so passionately wanted out of the way.
Paul was taken before Felix to plead his cause. Initially Paul's defence made no impression on the man. Felix kept him a prisoner, though, in the hope of receiving a bribe to free him. What a nice man! But at one of their meetings, "Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come" and "Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee" (Acts 24:25). As well as having some nerve, Paul must have hit a nerve! Felix said, in effect, "I've had enough of this! Don't call me, I'll call you!" The last things he wanted to hear about were temperance and judgement—judgement being the consequence of not being temperate.
Tacitus, the Roman historian, records that Felix indulged in all kinds of cruelty and lust, exercising his royal powers with the disposition of the slave he once was. Adultery and murder were but two of the excesses of his character. He was known for extreme ruthlessness. No doubt he obtained his position of power through his vicious nature. Such people don't mind who they tread on along the road to power. Sadly such people can be useful to those with greater power. A 'hatchet man' is often useful to those who want to distance themselves from unsavoury deeds. A Felix would certainly have his uses in the Roman political world.
What is odd is that the Roman captain, Claudius Lysias, who appears in the record of the Acts to be such a decent sort, should send Paul to such a monster as Felix. For the benefit of his judgement, no less! One is left to think that either there was, after all, some mischief in the man, or, and perhaps worse, he was simply following standard procedures—just doing his job. How much mischief is sometimes perpetrated under the slogan of "Just doing my job"!
But Paul survived his meetings with Felix. What a testimony that is to the extraordinary nature of the Apostle Paul, that he could deliver a sermon on righteousness, temperance and judgement to such a monster and get away with it! Felix's name means 'happy', but he wasn't very happy when Paul left him that day. Paul unsettled his arrogant self-confidence, found an unexpected soft spot in a granite heart.
Ultimately, at least as far as we can tell from the history books, there was no change in Felix, even though he saw Paul a number of times over the next two years. I would think it likely that Paul was forbidden to speak on certain subjects when they met. Felix's interest remained not in his own reformation but in how much money he might extort for his release from Paul's friends or supposedly wealthy family. Knowing that Paul was a scholar from Tarsus ("no mean city"—Acts 21:39), Felix doubtless conjectured a well-to-do family.
The tragedy with regard to temperance, as demonstrated by Felix, is that those who most need to hear about it are those least likely to listen—the eternal teenagers who don't need to be told how to run their lives, thank you very much! But just because we're not as bad as Felix doesn't mean we don't have a problem with temperance. Even though we may not be guilty of adultery and murder, we can still be guilty of the spiritual equivalents. According to Jesus: "Whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart" (Matt.5:28), and "Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause" is in danger of the same judgement as a murderer (Matt.5:21,22). Intemperate thinking puts us in as much danger as intemperate action. Because what we are governs what we do. Often the only difference between the mental and physical adulterer is lack of opportunity, or lack of courage.
Where Felix was concerned, Paul's chief criticism must have been levelled at the governor's adulterous lifestyle. It can be no accident that on the occasion Paul exhorted Felix about temperance and judgement we are particularly told that Felix's wife Drusilla was present (Acts 24:24,25). This Drusilla, a Jewess, had been wife to Aziz, king of Amesa, and had been persuaded away from him by Felix. The implications are strong that Paul's remonstrations about temperance and judgement were aimed directly at Felix and Drusilla's adulterous relationship. A temperate man or woman would have enough control over themselves to leave another's spouse alone, however attractive the spouse might be.
Biblical temperance is very much about control of the sexual drive. On every occasion when temperance (egkrateia) and intemperance (akrasia) are used in Scripture in a context which clearly identifies what we are to be temperate about, it is unmistakably the sexual appetite that is meant.
This makes the subject a little delicate. Believers generally don't like to talk about the sexual drive too openly or too often. And I can understand people not wanting to dwell on it or go into specifics. As Paul said, regarding some forms of immoral behaviour, "It is a shame even to speak of those things" (Eph.5:12). Discussion itself can be intemperate!
But that's no reason to duck the issue entirely. The Scriptures certainly don't. They have a lot to say about sexual matters. And we cannot properly discuss Biblical temperance without reference to the subject.
Temperance is all about being strong in the control of our natural tendencies, and the sexual drive is sometimes the strongest natural tendency we have to deal with. We can't be head in the sand about it. And I'm not talking only about the young, or about men only. This applies to men and women across the age range. The sexual urge can be strong and persistent and sometimes chronic, even addictive, for anyone.
What was once sniggered at in school sex education classes is hardly enough to set us on the straight and narrow for life. Our western society has dropped many of the sexual barriers since the 'swinging sixties' and things which are Biblically sin are no longer socially sin. The exercise of temperance is now rated prudish and old-hat. And you don't have to be a prophet to see that it will get worse. The trend is towards more 'open' marriages. I don't have to bore you with statistics. You must know from your own experience of society how far it has gone down the road of immorality—a road which now has a new sign up, saying 'sexual freedom'. I have children at school and I can't help noticing how many of their classmates lack both parents at home, or no longer have their original parents.
Okay, one has to accept that awful and insurmountable problems sometimes devastate a relationship, and one must feel truly sorry for all concerned. They need our understanding, not censure. But the sheer numbers involved nowadays indicate a lack of commitment more than an increase in truly serious problems. "If it isn't working, don't hang around and work at it—get out." Or if someone is strongly attracted to someone outside their rather ordinary marriage (or their "common law" marriage) then, "How can it be wrong when it feels so right?" It's a protest worthy of Felix. How, indeed, can it be wrong? Do they really want to know? Do they really want to be spoken to of righteousness, temperance and judgement to come? I doubt it.
Society may 'progress' as far as it likes (and doubtless will) away from the Biblical guidelines of a caring God, but those guidelines will never change to accommodate society. We must be highly suspicious of all attempts to re-interpret the guidelines. God cares too much to encourage us in destructive behaviour. I don't know who gave the 'permissive society' its permission, but it certainly wasn't God!
But, as I said earlier, we don't have to be living a visibly immoral life to be censured as adulterers by Biblical standards. Christ said that to look lustfully at a woman was adultery too. The same applies to women looking at men. To entertain the idea of adultery is also a defilement. And it can lead to the act. It's difficult to believe that anybody who commits adultery or fornication does it right out of the blue, having never entertained or savoured the idea beforehand. What appears to be a sudden lapse cannot be really, except in the rarest of cases (David and Bathsheba). This is why Christ strikes at the root of the problem. The heart/mind is where it all begins. Christ isn't going over the top when he draws a parallel between the seriousness of the thought and the deed. He was in earnest; he always is.
So how do believers deal with the problem in themselves? How many can put up their hands and say they've never turned their head to glance at a pretty girl or handsome male? Even among the married? To be honest, I think you'd be unusual if you never did. There's no harm in an admiring glance at someone who catches your eye—Christ wasn't concerned with that. It's looking lustfully that he warned against: dwelling persistently upon, entertaining and savouring immoral thoughts. Perhaps many believers have learned to control it after their years in the Truth. But how many are entirely free? And, it must be asked, how many go through continual horrors of recrimination and self-hatred because of giving in to the weakness of intemperance?
The Truth's literature is mostly either silent or indirect on the subject. Which must leave the afflicted feeling isolated. It isn't done to talk about such problems. Who can you turn to, anyway? Who would you trust? That's an indictment of a lot of us, I suppose, but I am only guessing. I'd like to believe that so little is known about such problems among believers because we are sufficiently discreet, rather than that we are afraid to confide. But I wonder. In almost thirty years in the Truth only three people have ever mentioned the problem to me. It's a fair guess there are more, knowing human nature.
Letters to George and Jenny (H.A.Whittaker) approaches the problem fairly straightforwardly. But it's aimed particularly at the young. We have to look further afield for a reasonable general appraisal of the subject. Merlin Carothers is an American author who writes mostly on the subject of praise, but he also produced an interesting little book called What's on Your Mind? In it he cites his own battle with the problem, and refers to it as "our most consuming temptation". His theology is occasionally adrift, but his observations and experiences of human nature are worthy of attention. It may surprise some to learn how almost universal he discovered intemperance to be.
Working as a U.S. army chaplain at one time in his life, Carothers was at the side of many men who believed they were dying. When asked what sins they wanted to confess, "their first thoughts were frequently about men they had been forced to kill in their roles as soldiers. Their next requests were usually about immoral acts or thoughts." In dealing with his fellow Christians he says that "thousands of men have told me that their most consuming and overpowering temptation is immoral thinking."
Carothers speaks of Satan's involvement at times, but he does occasionally concede that Satan appears to be working from within us. And though he mentions the power of the Holy Spirit as a force to lead us out of temptation, his ultimate solution is not that. At least not directly.
Interestingly, the only workable solution to the problem of indulging immoral thoughts and behaviour that Carothers could find is to focus on a collection of appropriate Bible statements. He produces a list of them at the back of his book. The conclusion he reached was that the only personally attested answer to the problem was, in effect, delight and meditation in the Word of God. The verses he picked are culled from Genesis to Revelation. "The ultimate solution:" he says, "God's written word."
Merlin Carothers' answer is to use tempting circumstances as triggers for instant Bible help. It's a kind of spiritual Judo in which you use your opponent's strength against him. His solution, in fact, brings together two ideas we've covered already in this book.
1 When dealing with goodness we explored the concept of using to our advantage the self-talk that goes on in our heads all the while. When we delight and meditate in the Word our inner dialogue is considerably affected for the better. It becomes more of a dialogue with God. His thoughts lodge in our mind to be touched off by our own thoughts.
2 In another chapter, I introduced the idea of allowing so-called bad happenings to work for our good. They can be triggers to remind us of God's presence and help. So, when you knock over your cup of coffee, say, or somebody knocks it over you, instead of bemoaning your lot and acting foolishly, you are instantly reminded of God's providence. It may seem like a trivial prompt, but, let's face it, most of our days are spent in fairly ordinary, low-key activities. If you don't find God in those ordinary moments, when are you going to find Him! If you wait for earth-shattering events you might wait an earth-shatteringly long time—and forget God in the meantime.
Bring triggers 1 and 2 together and you have the perfect double-handed device for promoting temperance in yourself. Keep in mind some appropriate pieces from your delight and meditation in the Word and consciously associate them with tempting thoughts and situations. This way the right Biblical counsel is always triggered at the right moment.
Whether you act on it is up to you. But at least you will have given yourself a fighting chance: a strong pull from the right direction to counter the pull you experience from your basic drives. It's a method that can help in all situations where temptation is strong. It may seem like a trivial way to deal with a big problem, but it has been shown to be successful. Because our problems appear complex we may be inclined to search for, and expect a complex solution, when all the while the answer is simple. We may even reject a simple answer because it doesn't seem worthy of our problem! The smart approach is quite simply, if it works, use it.
While we're on the subject of triggers, here's another one that will help. If you believe that you're stuck with a certain pattern of thought or behaviour, try this little test. Answer the following question seriously. Someone is holding a gun to your head saying, "If you carry on thinking like that, or doing that, I'll pull this trigger." If that was a real situation for you, would you be able to stop? If you believe you would still continue then you really do have a problem! Ninety-nine point nine nine per cent of people would find sufficient motivation to stop faced with a trigger like that. Which surely proves that, in the final analysis, you are making a choice. You may not think you have a choice, that your impulses are too strong, but, in reality, you are doing what most appeals to you, not what you cannot help doing. What you lack is sufficient motivation to be temperate. That level of motivation is thankfully available from the Word of God rather than the barrel of a gun.
But even when presented with clear-cut solutions, our problems can still appear insurmountable. And when some Smart Alec tells you the answer is straightforward and you still fail, it can make you all the more miserable. It helps to talk about problems with temperance if you can, especially if the problem is shaming you into a poor spiritual life and low expectations of a future reward. As with most difficulties in spiritual life, we all need help and understanding, not censure and rejection.
I wonder how many believers secretly suspect they won't be in the Kingdom of God because they are short on temperance. Would those same people consider a shortage of joy a bar to the Kingdom? Or longsuffering? I'm not saying we necessarily downgrade lust on the league table of sins, but that we keep it in perspective.
There may be a case for saying that the consequences of lust can be more serious than other sins. Paul makes the case when he says, "Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body" (1 Cor.6:18). Paul does appear to be elevating sexual sin above other sins. The reason for this is surely because fornication in those days often involved a harlot who worked in one of the pagan temples. Idol worship involved certain sexual rites. A believer is joined to God; his body is a "temple of the holy Spirit"—the Spirit Word resides in him. He should not defile that temple by joining it to the harlot servant of a pagan god.
Such idol worship, complete with sexual rituals, is not a problem these days, certainly not in my part of the world. But the principle Paul laid down still applies: that sexual sin is viewed by God as more of a defilement than other sin.
But, even so, neither lust nor its consequences qualify as an unforgivable sin. There is nothing in Galatians 5 to suggest that temperance is any more important and more to be sought than any other aspect of the fruit of the Spirit. Can the lack of it therefore be any more serious than the lack of any other?
A believer who lacks temperance is in no greater danger of losing his or her reward than one who lacks any other aspect of the fruit. This doesn't make their position any happier, of course, but it does put things in perspective—especially for those who might fail in meekness when dealing with one who has failed in temperance. Anyone who is failing in temperance must remember that every believer who goes before Christ at his return will lack the fruit of the Spirit in some way, in both quality and quantity. This isn't an excuse for you to give up trying, but a reminder that you'll never have all eight aspects of love in full—not in this life. But if you 'hunger and thirst' after them you 'shall be filled' in the next. Nil desperandum should be inscribed upon your shield of faith.
Of all the verses in which egkrateia appears, the most useful from the point of view of establishing the meaning of the word are 1 Corinthians 7:9 and 1 Corinthians 9:25. These verses show the word in a helpful context and not simply as part of a list of qualities, such as "a bishop must be... sober, just, holy, temperate" (Titus 1:7,8). Lists are not helpful when it comes to working out what individual words mean; we have to find a better context. Those two verses in 1 Corinthians provide exactly what we need. And being so close together in the same epistle, we have the added help of a link between them.
In the verses just prior to 1 Corinthians 7:9, Paul writes about how much easier he believes it is to serve God if one remains unmarried. He cites his own example. It left him free to dedicate himself wholly to the work of the Truth, getting the first century churches established. Then he continues, "I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn" (1 Cor 7:8,9).
"Where is the word temperate in that?" you might well ask. It isn't. But the word egkratiea (the temperance of the fruit of the Spirit) is there. On this occasion, though, the word has been translated contain. "If they cannot contain..." If they cannot practise temperance, let them marry. Or as Moffatt's more racy version has it, "Better marry than be aflame with passion." So we are back with temperance as a restraining of the sexual drive. Paul says that the unmarried and widows, if they have a suitable partner in the offing (otherwise the advice doesn't apply), are better off marrying than suffering the distractions of a consuming passion.
Paul had no mandate to say that because he could cope with the single life therefore every other believer should do the same. In fact experience tells us that Paul is the exception rather than the rule. A bishop has to be temperate (Titus 1:8) but he can still be "the husband of one wife" (Titus 1:6). Paul was extraordinarily temperate—super-temperate!—but he could not, and would not, make his celibacy the rule for everyone. It's not for everyone. In fact, it's not for most.
While we're on the subject of celibacy, if we go back a few verses from "if they cannot contain..." to verse five of 1 Corinthians 7, we find Paul writing about periods of temporary celibacy. The verse is relevant to our train of thought because it contains the Greek word akrasia (intemperance) which is the direct opposite of egkrateia. "Defraud ye not one another, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency." That last word is the one. The sense is more clear in the NKJV: "and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control."
What Paul is getting at is that these times of temporary celibacy have to be worked out and agreed upon by both partners, not by one partner imposing his or her requirements on the other, and they should not be for too long either. It's dangerous if one partner enforces a longer time apart than the other can cope with. Self-control (egkrateia) can easily degenerate to lack of self-control (akrasia) when one or both partners tries to play the hero against a strong basic drive. It's okay for some, but it isn't okay for everyone.
Now let's have a look at another helpful verse containing egkrateia: 1 Cor 9:25. The verse contains one of Paul's sporting analogies: "Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible."
Top class athletes of Paul's day (and our own) had to be temperate in all things to keep themselves in tip-top condition for races and other events. They had to practise self-control over diet, the amount of training they did, and the sort of amusements they allowed themselves. Paul felt the same way about the race for eternal life. If he did not keep himself temperate in all things, if he did not keep his "body in subjection" (a telling phrase in the light of what we've learned about temperance), he felt sure he would end up a castaway regarding the faith. Actually 'castaway' is rather a soft word; it hardly conveys Paul's thought. The Greek word he used is better translated reprobate. Every other use of that word reprobate in the New Testament is connected with immoral behaviour. Obviously what Paul feared for himself and for all his fellow believers was a lapse into immoral ways from failing to treat the race for eternal life with as much seriousness and dedication as the athletes treated their races. Corinth in Paul's day was a degenerate place, and so is the world we live in now. If we don't practise temperance, keep our bodies in subjection, we will fall into immoral ways.
Perhaps you think I'm being too specific about temperance, relating it exclusively to our need to overcome a tendency to think and act immorally? But I believe, and hopefully have demonstrated, that this is what it is mostly about. Although, as I said at the outset of this chapter, temperance is a quality we can apply profitably to many areas of life. Drinking alcohol, amassing money, or spending it, eating—these are all activities over which for a better physical and spiritual lifestyle we are better off exercising some self-control. The Scriptures tell us God's will for us in these and other things. Temperance, or sometimes abstin-ence, is either recommended or commanded. It's necessary to keep these things in mind, and not be excessive in our habits. But where the fruit of the Spirit in concerned I believe it can be demonstrated that temperance is not general in its application but specific. It relates to the sexual drive.
The fact that Paul said "temperate in all things" doesn't change my view of the specific nature of temperance as a fruit of the Spirit—for reasons I'll give in a moment.
A phrase that is often heard, and which is not found in Scripture, is "moderation in all things". It's thought, I'm sure, to be the equivalent of saying 'temperate in all things', though Scripturally moderation and temperance are very different.
I'm very careful these days about using the phrase "moderation in all things"—ever since some Smart Alec told me that this was an excess of moderation! In a sense he was right. And the Scriptures never tell us to be either moderate or temperate in all things. Think about it: it would be unworkable.
So what are we to make of Paul's advice that we be 'temperate in all things' like the Corinthian athletes? If you look at the context you'll see that the word all is not the universal all. We've looked at this problem with all before. Scripturally it doesn't always mean absolutely everything. As always, the context must be taken into account.
In Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 9 the context is clearly confined to bodily excesses. Being temperate in all things equates to "keeping under [subduing] my body." The Corinthian athletes limited their diets and social lives to keep in peak fitness. They were temperate in all things related to their bodies, but they weren't temperate in other things. Neither should we be. In their desire to be the first over the finishing line, and in their love of their sport they were anything but temperate!
We are to be self-controlled when it comes to our bodily needs and inclinations, but in other concerns there's no restriction. We can soar as high as our heart will take us. "Love the Lord with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind..." (Matt. 22:37). No restrictions there. There's no limit to how much we can try to love God and serve Him. All means all in that verse. There are many good things about which we should not be temperate. The phrase 'temperate in all things' cannot be taken at face value—it has to be qualified. It concerns bodily needs and urges—and where these things are concerned, temperance is required.
Let's go back to the point I made about temperance and moderation being different. In English there's hardly any difference. They are close synonyms. But in the Greek from which the New Testament was translated temperance means the sort of self-control we are to exercise over our bodies, and moderation means flexibility in our dealings with other people.
Paul's advice to "Let your moderation be known unto all men" (Phil.4:5) is not a recommendation to be temperate, self-controlled, but to be tolerant and flexible towards others. And by that he didn't mean, of course, flexible in doctrine, or in ways which would make you appear to condone outrageous behaviour. There are times when we need to moderate our approach. We can sometimes be too rigid in our treatment and expectations of one another in matters of no great consequence. We do better to let our moderation be known to all. Which, to make the point one last time, has nothing to do with the temperance we must exercise over our bodies.
Every man and woman who strives for spiritual mastery must work at having self-control in this area of bodily needs and desires. This is temperance, the final aspect of the fruit of the Spirit. Last and definitely not least of the parts of love. The order of the aspects is probably irrelevant. That the aspects of the fruit appear in a sequence suggesting order is just one of the inadequacies of living within the constraints of time. We see things consecutively, experience things one after another, so a list always appears as a series of items, when in fact, in the case of the fruit of the Spirit, the items should all appear at the same moment on the page to avoid the misleading appearance of an order of merit. Now there's an interesting challenge for the printer.
All the parts of love have equal merit. They are all equally desirable if we truly want to be like Christ and have agape for ourselves. Christ self-evidently had this quality of temperance along with all the other parts of the fruit of the Spirit. He had it to the point of remaining unmarried like Paul in order to give himself wholly to the things of God.
What I find a little perplexing, though, is the question of God and temperance. How could God have temperance? God is love, therefore He possesses all the qualities of agape. But it's difficult to comprehend how God has temperance when He does not have a physical body, and could not be prompted to do wrong. What are we to make of it?
When we looked at the meekness of God in the previous chapter, we considered how God contained His mighty strength. How little of His awesome power is actually manifested in the universe. He exhibits the controlled strength of meekness to perfection, as one would expect.
It seems to me that the temperance of God must work alongside His meekness. The two are complementary aspects of His character. Because He is meek He is not given to showy demonstrations of power just to let everyone know what He can do. Because He is temperate He is not given to the uncontrolled use of His power. In fact God is extremely sparing in the use of His phenomenal abilities. The Bible tells us—even as our own lives tell us—that God is far more likely to use seemingly natural means to bring about His purpose than supernatural means. Considering His abilities He does have an astonishing level of self-control.
The lessons for us? To encourage meekness in ourselves and thereby prevent unseemly showiness. To encourage temperance in ourselves and thereby conserve our bodily energies for less sensational (at present), though ultimately more pleasing experiences.