Revive Our Hearts

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: It’s so easy to blame our unsteady emotions on external factors like our job or our kids, isn't it? Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants to gently challenge you.

Guest (Male): Why did you lash out at your child? Well, if he hadn't painted the living room furniture with butter or filled the dryer with water, I never would have done that. What are you saying? My three-year-old made me crazy? No, what happened is that your three-year-old acted in such a way that it brought to the surface and revealed the fact that you were not thinking soundly.

Dana Gresh: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Adorned, for April 21, 2026. I'm Dana Gresh.

As women, it can feel impossible to control our minds and emotions. We're so prone to let crazy feelings rule us. And yet, Titus 2 tells us it really is possible to be self-controlled. And get this: not only is it possible, it's commanded for our own good. God invites you to live as a self-controlled, stable, sensible woman. Do you want that? Me too. Today, Nancy's going to help us catch a vision for what it looks like practically, and she's going to do that by looking at one Greek word: sophron. Intrigued? Let’s dive in.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: You may remember an article that came out, I think it may have been the cover of a Time Magazine issue in 1995, about the EQ factor. EQ stands for emotional quotient. This article was suggesting that emotional intelligence might be even more important than IQ. It was based on a research project that was done by a researcher at Stanford, who took four-year-old children, one at a time, into a room, and he showed these children a marshmallow.

He said to them, "You can have this marshmallow right now. But if you wait while I run an errand and don't eat it till I get back, then when I get back, you can have two marshmallows." Then the researcher put the marshmallow on the table, left the room for about 20 minutes, and they watched through a window that you could just see in one way, and watched what the children did in that 20 minutes while the researcher was gone.

About a third of the children could not wait. They grabbed the marshmallow as soon as the man left the room. Those were called the impulsive children. Then another third lasted a few minutes, they really tried and you could see them struggling, but they finally gave in and ate the marshmallow. And then there was the final third that waited until the man got back, and they were finally rewarded with two marshmallows. That group was called the impulse-controlled four-year-olds. They were able to delay their gratification and wait to have the marshmallow. I've often wondered what I would have done at the age of four. I can tell you at my age what I would do: Give me that marshmallow!

Then 14 years later, age 18, those children were tested again, and the results were astonishing. On the whole, the kids who were able to hold out for the second marshmallow, the impulse-controlled kids, had grown up to be better-adjusted, more popular, adventurous, confident, and dependable teenagers. The children who gave into temptation early on, that's the impulsive ones, were more likely to be lonely, easily frustrated, and stubborn.

They buckled under stress and shied away from challenges. And when some of the students in the two groups took the Scholastic Aptitude Test, the SAT, the kids who had held out longer scored an average of 210 points higher. So whether a four-year-old would eat a marshmallow or wait for 20 minutes at the age of four was a more accurate determinant of how they would do on their SATs 14 years later than their IQ.

It was amazing, this one test, the difference between the third of the kids who were impulsive and the third of the kids who were impulse-controlled. Now, as I read about that, I thought of this whole issue of self-control, which we come to in our study of Titus 2 today. It's a crucial concept for every believer at every season of life, and it's repeated more often than any other quality or characteristic in the book of Titus.

Six times in the book of Titus, we have reference to this concept of self-control, which we come to now as something that older women are to teach younger women: to be self-controlled. But it's not just women. In chapter one, we saw that this quality of self-control, impulse control, is to characterize elders, spiritual leaders in the church.

Chapter one, verses seven through nine, describes some of the qualities that must be true of elders in the church, pastors, and spiritual leaders. It says, "For an overseer, as God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain." All those are qualities that describe someone who does not have self-control.

"But he must be hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it." You see two different ways of living there, and the person who is not self-controlled is not spiritually qualified to lead the flock of God.

But it's not just for spiritual leaders. We looked at chapter two of Titus, verse two, where it talks about older men. It says that they are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. They're to be an example of self-control. And then chapter two, verse six, speaks to younger men and says, "Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled."

In fact, that's the only characteristic that is mentioned in relation to younger men. And then chapter two, verse 12, this is something that is to characterize all believers. Verse 11 of chapter two says, "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness"—that’s a lack of self-control—"and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works."

So we've seen that elders, older men, younger men, all believers are to have this quality of self-control. Now we come to the passage, Titus chapter two, verses four and five, that we've been focusing on in relation to older women and younger women. Verse four tells us that the older women are to train the younger women. Train—sophronitzo—they are to train these women to be self-controlled, to be sensible, to cause them to be of a sound mind, to bring them to their senses. That's involved in the word training, even though you don't see the word self-control there; it refers to self-control.

What are they to train them to do? To love their husbands and their children, and then verse five, to be self-controlled. Now, in this passage, the Apostle Paul is speaking to older women and to younger women. What's he saying to older women? You need to model self-control. You can't lead others where you've not been yourself. You can't disciple someone past your own spiritual maturity. But not only are you to model this, but you are to be intentional about training the younger women to be self-controlled.

And then what's he saying to the younger women? You're supposed to cultivate self-control, and you're supposed to do it while you're young. How many of you wish that you had learned more self-control when you were younger and feel like there may be some battles you wouldn't have today if you had got more of that when you were younger? I've thought that a number of times as I've wrestled with this concept in Titus 2 here. And so I would say now, as a woman who's getting older, to you younger women: be serious about cultivating these qualities before habits are so formed in your life—bad habits—that are hard to break.

Now, I want to give you in this session a little bit of a Greek lesson. I am not a Greek scholar; I've actually never had a Greek class, but there are some wonderful tools on the internet and with other resources that are available. I want to teach you a word and try and give you a concept of this whole issue of self-control. The word here that's translated self-controlled in the English Standard Version is the Greek word sophron. Sophron. It's spelled S-O-P-H-R-O-N, sophron.

In the ESV or the New International Version, it's translated self-controlled. If you have a King James or a New King James Bible, that word is translated discreet, to be discreet. If you have a New American Standard, it's translated sensible. Self-controlled, discreet, sensible. The King James Version translates this same Greek word, sophron, three different ways just in the book of Titus. In one place it translates it sober, in another place it translates it temperate, and here it translates sophron discreet.

So you say, why are there so many different English translations of this same Greek word? And there's some other translations you'll come across with other related words: sober-minded, of sound mind. I've been struggling with this as I've been studying it and I said, this is very confusing. Why are there so many different words? What does this word really mean? Well, I think the reason there are so many different translations is that sophron is a word that has a lot of meaning that's hard to capture in one English word.

English words give shades of the meaning, but not the whole meaning. So I want us to look at some of the different aspects of the meaning of sophron. First of all, this word is not the same Greek word that's used for self-control when we talk about the fruit of the spirit in Galatians chapter five. But I've been meditating on this whole concept of sophron, self-controlled as we see it in Titus chapter two. I've been thinking a lot about it over the last couple weeks as I've been preparing for this series, just mulling it over and pondering and asking the Lord to give me insight and understanding.

Just even over the last couple of days, I feel like the Lord has been opening my eyes and my heart to a new level of understanding that's been very challenging and convicting to me as it relates to needs in my own life about sophron. Sophron, self-control, has to do with a mindset. A sophron state of mind is what will enable us to live a life that is self-controlled in our behavior. But it starts with a mindset, a sound mind. It's a sophron state of mind that enables us to curb our fleshly desires.

A sophron state of mind will result in our practicing self-control in every area of our lives: our tongue, our behavior, our habits, sexual self-control. All of this will flow out of a sophron mind. Why does the Apostle Paul talk about this six times in the book of Titus, which is only three short chapters? It is crucial. And the Lord has been speaking to my own life, as I mentioned, and I'm starting to realize that many of my personal struggles and failures in the Christian life are related to my need to be more sophron.

So I want to just share with you some out of my own journey in this word and try and help you to get an understanding of it. The word sophron comes from two words. The first word, so, from sozo, which means to save, or from soos, which means sound, and the word phren, which means mind. It means having a saved mind or a sound mind. It's a person who acts like their mind has been saved. They have a sound mind. They're in their right mind, spiritually speaking.

I mentioned earlier in this series that the last part of sophron, the word phren, is actually the modern Greek word for brakes on your car. The car brakes. Have you ever been in a car when the brakes went out? I just think about it; it must be very, very scary, especially if you're going fast on a freeway and a truck pulls in front of you and you have no brakes, or if you're going down a steep mountain incline and your brakes go out. You want to know that your brakes are working if you're going to be out there in your car and feel safe.

And if they're not, you're going to be in big trouble. And as I think about that, a lot of women are in trouble today, big trouble, because their brakes don't work. I mean the brakes on their thoughts, the brakes on their tongues, the brakes on their attitudes and their moods. A person who is sophron knows how to put on the brakes, knows how to stop, knows how to say no and when to say no. A person who is sophron curbs his desires and impulses.

He's self-controlled, he's self-disciplined. It's that exercise of self-restraint that governs all passions and desires, says one Bible study resource. It governs your passions and desires. A person who has proper thinking is sophron, and that person has developed the ability to govern and discipline himself, his mind, his passions, his affections, and his behavior. He voluntarily places limitations on his freedom. I'm reading from another Bible study guide here. It's the ability to have self-government, to apply the brakes to your life, to your passions, to your instincts, to your mind, your behavior, and your affections.

And therefore, there's the ability to resist temptations, to resist the pull and the allure of the world by having a sophron, a sound mind. Other commentators describe this word as being sensible; in fact, that's how the New American Standard Bible translates the word sophron. Sensible. Someone who shows good sense or sound judgment. You talk about a sensible young woman; she's sophron, she's wise.

Another commentator says it's that habitual self-government, that habitual inner self-government with its constant reign on all the passions and desires. It's learning how to put the brakes on. According to William Barclay, sophron describes someone with the mind which has everything under control, that cleansing, saving strength of mind which has learned to govern every instinct and passion until each has its proper place and no more.

The kids who were able to look at the marshmallow on the table and delay eating it, delay that enjoyment, to wait for the guy to get back, the ones who could restrain and control those impulses, had a sophron mind—not in a redeemed sense, but they were exercising self-government, self-control, able to say no, able to wait, able to get their desires fulfilled later. There are so many, many women in our culture and in our churches today, and many times true of ourselves, who are making foolish and destructive choices and are justifying those choices.

I hear some of the most cockamamie things justified and defended even by some Christian women. I mean, leaving their husbands, leaving their kids, some really crazy things that women get into today. And I think if you would trace it back, you could say it was because they were not sophron in little things. They didn't have a sound mind, they weren't self-governed, they didn't put the brakes on. You see, most women don't just get out of bed one morning and say, "I think I'll go out and have an affair with a guy at work today."

There was a series of compromises where they were not thinking soundly, they were not acting soundly, they were not putting on the brakes. And after, in situation after situation, they had an opportunity where they could eat the marshmallow or wait, say yes or say no, and they ate the marshmallow. They said, "I'm going to do this. It's just a marshmallow. It's not a big deal. It's just a little thing. It's just saying hi. It's just not being careful. It's not an affair."

They weren't sophron, sound-minded in the little things. They made seemingly little compromises, and then they end up in these disastrous circumstances and situations. I've often said about my own thinking when it comes to emotions and your state of mind, if you give wrong thinking an inch, it will take a mile. And I think there's not one of us as women who couldn't really be insane if we let our minds go off in unhealthy and unsound directions.

That's why we need to be sophron. Sophron is what keeps you sane and stable and functioning and functional and wise and sensible. It's having a sound mind. If you don't have a sophron mind, a sound mind, a self-controlled mind, then eventually you'll find yourself acting out and fulfilling things that you thought you would never do, saying things you thought you would never say, acting in ways you thought you would never act. And it doesn't help to just look at the behavior; you have to trace it back and say, what was in my thinking that wasn't sound? Where did I not put on the brakes in my mind?

Now, sophron is crucial to the other characteristics that are in this whole curriculum we're looking at in Titus chapter two. Women are to love their husbands and love their children; they're to be pure, working at home, kind, submissive to their own husbands, and right in the middle of that, you have self-controlled, sophron. If you don't have a sound mind, you won't be able to do these other things. You won't be able to love your husband when he's not being lovable.

Your mind will take you down a road that will say, "I deserve a break. I need to speak a piece of my mind. I deserve to be selfish after the way he treated me." You see how an unsound mind will keep you from being able to love your husband when it's tested? If you don't have a sound mind, you will not be able to love those three preschool kids when you're going on fumes and very little sleep at night, or those three teenagers who are challenging the sanity of your mind.

You've got to have that sound mind, that self-controlled thinking. If you don't, you won't be able to be pure. A lack of a sound mind and discretion will result in a lack of moral chasteness. You won't be chaste if you don't have a sound mind. If you don't have a sound mind, it will affect your motivation and your ability to fulfill your basic responsibilities in the home.

And how many of us have looked around sometimes at the mess and the disorder and the chaos in our homes and thought, "I just cannot handle this"? And mentally we check out, or emotionally we check out, or physically we check out because we didn't have a sound mind. And you look at the—you know, you've got kids—when does it ever end? The laundry, the cleaning, the picking up, the cooking—I mean just one after another after another mess upon mess upon mess. And if you don't have a sound mind, you're going to go crazy.

You're not going to have the motivation or the ability to be working at home, to be managing your home well, as Titus says that we must. If you don't have a sound mind, you're not going to be able to be kind to people who are not kind to you. If you don't have a sound mind, you will certainly not be able to be submissive to your husband. If you're not self-controlled, if your thinking is not rooted in the Word and the ways of God.

So sophron has primarily to do with a state of mind, a mindset, a mental attitude, but it affects everything about the way that we live. It's a sensible, sound mindset, and it results in sensible, sound behavior. Do you ever look at somebody who's doing something really out of character or inappropriate and think, why did so-and-so do that? Or maybe you look at yourself and you think, why did I do that?

Why did I buy that thing impulsively that I don't need, and I can't afford, and I don't have room for? Why did I say that? Why did those words come out of my mouth? Why did I respond to that initiative from that man at work in a way that was flirtatious? Why did I do that? Why did I eat that? I was already stuffed. Why did I eat that? Well, the reason we do those things and the reason that person you're looking at is doing those things is because they don't have a sound mind. They aren't thinking straight.

Irrational behavior, compulsive behavior, impulsive behavior, unstable behavior, fleshly behavior—all these things that get acted out are evidence of a mind that is not sound. Because as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. That's why the battle begins in the mind, and that's why God says you must have a sound mind, you must think straight. An unstable mind will result in unstable behavior. A sound mind will result in sound behavior. A disciplined mind will result in disciplined, godly behavior.

And remember where we started with this whole series? In the matter of sound doctrine. That's really the starting place for a sound mind. And that's why Paul says in Titus chapter one that elders are to teach their congregations to know sound doctrine. And then Paul says in chapter two, verse one, "Now you are to teach things that accord with sound doctrine. You are to teach things that fit with sound doctrine." If you have sound doctrine, that will produce sound thinking, a sound mind. And if you have a sound mind, that will produce sound, wise, godly living.

And as I've been studying this, I've found myself wondering how much of our behavior that is irrational, or erratic, or out of control, or inappropriate—things we say and do that are compulsive or impulsive or that we look at and say, why did I do that? Why do other people do that? I think sometimes we focus too much on trying to change or stop the behavior when the Apostle Paul here is saying, no, you need to go back and find out what kind of thinking produced that kind of behavior.

Why did you lash out at your husband? "Well, it's because he did..." No, it's not because he did whatever. It's because you didn't have a sound mind. Why did you lash out at your child? "Well, if he hadn't painted the living room furniture with butter or filled the dryer with water, I never would have done that." What are you saying? My three-year-old made me crazy? No, what happened is that your three-year-old acted in such a way that it brought to the surface and revealed the fact that you were not thinking soundly.

You didn't have a sound mind. So if we want to change the behavior, if we want to deal with these addictions, if we want to deal with these out-of-control impulses and urges and drives and desires and lusts of the flesh, what we've got to do is go back and check our thinking and make sure that our thinking is sound and that our thinking is rooted in sound doctrine, the ways and the words of God.

That's why it's so important that you fill your mind and your heart with the Word of God, with the Scripture, that you meditate on it day and night, that you're getting indoctrinated with the Word of God, which will then shape and mold and transform and renew your mind. And out of that will become behavior and speech and habits and patterns in your life that will be wise and sound and godly.

Dana Gresh: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth will be right back to pray. All of us need to ask the Lord to give us the type of sound mind she's been talking about. Today's teaching was derived from Nancy's book, Adorned: Living Out the Beauty of the Gospel Together. One listener wrote to tell us about the impact this resource has had on her. She said, "I am so grateful for the ministry of Revive Our Hearts. The book Adorned specifically has really left an imprint on my mind about being a sophron woman.

And though it's still a challenge to overcome my natural tendency toward pride and fear, I'm thankful the Holy Spirit prompts my heart to be humble, to put myself last, and to speak words of grace and encouragement to others. My relationships at the office have changed as well. I've really come to understand that the people around me are much more important than the tasks and projects I need to get done. I'm so blessed to have a closer relationship with my coworkers because of the changes in how I relate to others in my office.

It's still a faith walk each day, but I'm confident God will continue to do good things in and through me." Praise the Lord for using Revive Our Hearts to help this sweet listener become a sophron woman, one whose mind and emotions are stable in the Lord. I love the way this self-control has transformed her relationships at work. What a sweet testimony. Maybe you need to slow down and examine your own mind, to take an inventory of where you're steadfast and stable, but also where you're weak and wavering.

To help you do that, we've created a special online assessment tool. It asks you a series of questions that help you reflect on where improvement is needed, what's going well, things like that. You'll find a link to the Sophron Self-Evaluation Tool in the transcript of this program at ReviveOurHearts.com or on the Revive Our Hearts app. And if anxiety is weighing you down, let me point you to the book by Blair Lin.

She talked about it yesterday on Revive Our Hearts. It's titled Made to Tremble, and listen to the subtitle: How Anxiety Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to My Faith. Wow. Blair shares about how she walked through her anxiety with God. Now she rejoices in her affliction, for it has taught her to tremble in a new way, in awe of God. We'll send you a copy of Made to Tremble by Blair Lin as a thank you for your donation of any size to Revive Our Hearts.

You can give by heading to ReviveOurHearts.com or by calling us at 1-800-569-5959. Tomorrow, we're joining three beloved guests to discuss leading our children to love the Word. What could be more important than this? It's huge. Whether you're a parent, a grandparent, or you serve in children's ministry, I hope you'll join us for that on Revive Our Hearts. Now let’s pray with Nancy.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Lord, we want to be women who have sound minds. There are so many women in this world today who are not thinking straight, who are thinking foolishly, and the results of that are being seen in the fact that they're living foolishly. And how many marriages and homes are being devastated and torn apart because of women who are not thinking and living straight.

And I'm not saying that men don't have any part of that, but Lord, we as women have to take a lot of responsibility and say a lot of the uproar and the chaos in our homes is often because we're not thinking soundly. So I pray that over these next few sessions, you would help us to grasp what it is to have a sound mind, and you'd show us how to get it, and that you really would transform our minds. Thank you that we have the mind of Christ.

You've given us a spirit not of fear, but of love and a sound mind. And so, Lord, I pray that you'd renew us inside and out. May our lives and our thinking be rooted in sound doctrine, and may our families and those around us see the result. I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Dana Gresh: This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.