Doesn’t Always Mean What We Think It Means (9)

On at least six occasions, both Peter and Paul encourage Christians to be sober.

I use the word “encourage”, but they actually command it; we should not view sober Christianity as optional. Nevertheless, there is no high-handedness about the instruction: in Paul’s case at least, it’s “Let us be sober.” All believers from apostles to babes in Christ need to adopt this attitude, whatever it might involve. Paul too was striving to achieve that which he commanded.

Of course, to be sober we need to have a scriptural idea what sobriety involves.

12. Sober

Negatives and Positives

If you look up synonyms for “sober” in English, you’ll find several with the correct biblical associations. You’ll also find others without them. “Calm”, “steady” and “level-headed”, for example, are much more on-point than “sedate”, “low key”, “quiet”, “solemn”, “somber” or even “dull”, which all suggest a deficiency of energy, color, activity and enthusiasm rather than any positive quality. In common usage, “sober” is the opposite of “inebriated”, but that tells you little useful beyond a rough-and-ready approximation of a person’s blood alcohol level. A man who is “sober” only in this limited sense may be moving through the world without discernment, intentionality, alacrity or any meaningful objective at all. So long as he is not under the influence of alcohol, we call him sober. That’s an insufficient understanding of the biblical concept.

Likewise, the average English speaker may associate behaving soberly with pretensions to gravity, piety, reserve or even superiority, none of which connections are present in the Greek. When we use the word, it’s not always a compliment. We may even mean that the person in question is deliberately humorless or otherwise unappealing.

Waiting for the Upward Call

In fact, the Greek word most commonly translated “sober” is nēphō, which only appears six times in the entire New Testament. Strong’s describes it as “of uncertain affinity”, meaning we have to define it from its usage, which is most frequently associated with the return of Christ. Twice in 1 Thessalonians 5 (and we know what that book is all about), Paul writes, “Let us be sober.” Why? Because we are children of the day. Which day? The day of Christ’s return to earth to rule the world in righteousness. Being sober is the opposite of being asleep and missing what’s going on around you and, more importantly, what’s about to happen to you. Peter too uses the word in the context of Christ’s return. He writes, “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Again, he says, “The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.”

Putting all this together, we should conclude the critical aspect of biblical sobriety is watchfulness, and specifically the awareness of our Lord’s imminent return. That’s important, and we don’t get it explicitly from the English, where “sober” is an adjective. In Greek, it’s a verb, a positive quality that needs to be adopted as opposed to a nullification of personality or life. When Peter tells his readers to be sober-minded, it’s a call to staying alert in view of the devil’s destructive potential: he “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour”.

Staying On Mission

So then, a sober Christian need not be joyless, ascetic or dull. What he needs to be is always on mission. This is evident in the way the Lord and his apostles used humor. From gentle deadpan (“Fear not, you are of more value than many sparrows”) to scathing sarcasm (“I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves”) to exaggeration (“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle”), there is plenty of humor in the New Testament, but it’s always in service of a spiritual point. The chuckles these lines produce were never an end in themselves, but in aid of getting truth across more memorably.

A second Greek word translated “sober” is sōphroneō, again used by both Peter and Paul. Literally, it means “right-minded” or “sane”. Both Matthew and Luke use it to describe Legion after the Lord Jesus delivered him from demonic possession. When Paul tells Titus to exhort the young men to be “sober minded”, he is not telling them to avoid something as obviously evil as demon possession, but to act consistently with the state of the world as we know it to be, in which we are at war with the powers of darkness. This is not a time for tomfoolery or insensibility.

Again, it’s mission-awareness the apostle is trying to cultivate, rather than proceeding through life passively, deludedly or in the absence of purpose. “Be deliberate”, he is saying. “Keep your guard up and live in hope.”