19 Bible Verses About Self-Control



  • O substantivo grego egkrateia, self-control, appears in Acts 24:25, Galatians 5:23 and 2 Peter 1:6, and it closes Paul’s list of the fruit of the Spirit.
  • In Genesis 4:7 the Lord tells the angry Cain that sin “desires to have you, but you must rule over it”; in the next verse Cain kills Abel.
  • Proverbs 16:32 ranks self-control above capturing a city, and Proverbs 25:28 compares a person without it to a city whose walls are broken through.
  • In 2 Timothy 1:7 the King James Version reads “sound mind” and the NIV “self-discipline” for the Greek sophronismos.
  • In 1 Corinthians 9:25-27 Paul takes the athlete’s strict training as the model for his own discipline.

The Bible treats self-control as a fruit of the Spirit and as the rule a person keeps over anger, speech and appetite. Paul lists it with the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23, the Lord tells the angry Cain that he “must rule over” sin (Genesis 4:7), and Proverbs 16:32 ranks self-control above taking a city. The Greek noun usually translated self-control is egkrateia, the mastery of one’s desires. It appears in Paul’s list of the fruit of the…

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