temperancefruit

When most of us hear the word temperance mentioned the first thing that pops into our minds are the temperance movements that characterized the moves toward the prohibition of alcohol that have taken place at various times in our national history. Considering this, it’s important to define what temperance is.

The word in the original Greek language of the New Testament means self-restraint as to one’s desires. (JFB Bible Commentary, Volume 3, p. 394) This definition of temperance opens the door for a much broader view than one that radically concerns itself with the use of alcohol and we do injustice to the term by limiting our definition to this usage. Temperance concerns all that we consume, use, and enjoy in the physical realm. Temperance has to do with “meat and drink, and other enjoyments of life, so as not to be excessive or immoderate in the use of them.

Gluttony, pride, and greed seem to be the defining trademarks of modern society. We desire, want, and insist to need more than we require to walk gently upon the earth and through life.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught,
24.   No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.
25.   Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?
26. Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
27. Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ?
28.   And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.
29. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.
30. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31. So do not worry, saying, `What shall we eat?' or `What shall we drink?' or `What shall we wear?'
32. For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
33. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:24-33)

At the outset of his ministry, Jesus cautioned against seeking after externals. His emphasis was on developing the interior qualities that represent the relational aspects related to life in the kingdom of God. Christ directs us toward communion with God and away from consumerism in the world. The Apostle Paul tells us, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17)

In his book, The Lessons of Saint Francis, John Michael Talbot writes, “Like the branches of an unpruned tree, our attachment to possessions and wealth often chokes our lives, enslaves our souls, and hinders both human community and union with God. Saint Francis prescribed simplicity as an antidote to our often unquenchable yearning for more and ever more.” (p. 20)

In 1845, writer and naturalist Henry David Thoreau turned his back on the hustle and bustle of Concord, Massachusetts, built a simple cabin in the woods near Walden Pond, and spent two years, two months, and two days there, concentrating only on what he called “the essential facts of life.” “Our life is frittered away by detail,” he wrote in his classic work, Walden.

We work to have more and enjoy life less. Talbot writes, “Something is clearly out of balance when millions of people are wracked by stress and medicated against despair. It’s difficult for North Americans who have grown up on a steady diet of capitalism, consumer culture, and advertising to distinguish between things they really need and things they merely want. In fact, one of the primary purposes of advertising is to blur this important distinction, magnetically attracting us to a nearby shopping mall where we buy bags of things that advertisers promise will make us happy and make our lives complete.” (Lessons p.24)

Allowing the fruit of temperance to bloom and flourish in our lives, by practicing simplicity and pruning the tangled branches of our lives, will do two things at once. First, we will cut back the areas of our lives that have grown wildly out of control and threaten to kill us or drive us crazy. And second, we will channel our future growth toward a simpler approach to living that will leave us less subject to future headaches and heartaches.

Temperance concerns itself with the whole of life and lends itself as a vehicle that carries us into a realm of gentle, non-offensiveness toward others and toward the natural elements and gifts found in creation. As an aspect of the fruit of the Spirit, temperance helps us distinguish between our needs and wants, between genuine necessity and greed.

Immoderation, unrestrained desire, can lead us into a lot of deep water that’s difficult to swim out of. Our desire for newer cars, bigger houses, fancier clothes, and flashier toys most often launches us so deep into debt that our lives are spent making interest payments on things that are just that – things that corrode and decay, things that the moths delight in devouring. One of our most precious gifts, a commodity that we call “time”, is so hocked that we have little of it to enjoy and to invest in deep and meaningful relationships with family and friends or in personal communion with the Lord. Our desires and credit procured goods become the god’s in our lives, deceitful and deceptive demigod’s that are unrelenting in their demands upon us.

Living a temperate life is a great challenge in our world today. So much emphasis is placed on prosperity in the church world that choosing a gentler path is most often viewed contemptuously. Although most of us will never choose a vow of poverty or a monastic communal lifestyle, we can gain a world of insight from Saint Francis and others who follow in his steps. Saint Francis wrote, “If we had any possessions we should be forced to have arms to protect them, since possessions are a cause of disputes and strife, and in many ways we should be hindered from loving God and our neighbor. Therefore, in this life, we wish to have no temporal possessions.” Regarding the early Franciscans, Thomas of Celano wrote, “Because they had nothing, they feared in no way to lose anything.”

Talbot writes, “Like the pruning of a tree, the practice of simplicity requires that things be cut away, sometimes with pain. But in the long run, this is a practice that enables us to live life with more joy, peace, and happiness.

Many of us are so busy that we accomplish little of any real value. We are so consumed by our many possessions that we never experience what it means to have much. Many of us spend less time with our families, or with God, than did primitive hunter-gatherers who lived lives of subsistence and daily survival.

Simplicity is God’s great antidote to a culture of money and madness. And properly understood and lived out, simplicity is God’s pruning shear, which cuts back the tangled branches of our lives, enabling us to begin living freely, sharing generously, and loving deeply.” (Lessons p.34)

We have but one life to live and we live out the days of our lives in a diversity of situations and circumstances. The world we live in conditions us to accept its dictates and to flow with the trends that are born in the seedbed of man’s ambitions and greed. Most often, we walk as a lamb to the slaughter and place our necks voluntarily into this world’s heavy yoke. God offers us an alternative. It’s not always an easy alternative at first. But it’s an alternative that grows easier as we follow the footprints left by the Lord and those who have discovered the simplicity found in following him.

                                     But the fruit of the Spirit is
                                                    love,
                                                    joy,
                                                  peace,
                                             longsuffering,
                                               gentleness,
                                                goodness,
                                                   faith,
                                               meekness,
                                              temperance:
                                    against such there is no law.

As Pharisees and Sadducees began coming to the river to be baptized by John the Baptist, he told them, “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” (Matthew 3:8) The outworking of genuine repentance is the infilling of the Holy Spirit who produces the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. This fruit, manifested by the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, is what the Lord desires to see. In John 15:8 he said, “This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law."
Galatians 5:22-23

The Fruit of Temperance

©David Kralik Ministries, Inc. 2004
Email: matthewfivesix@hotmail.com