Get It While You Can
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, Titus 2:11-12 NASB
Worldly desires – Do you find it disturbing that Paul’s view of ungodliness (asebḗ) is paralleled with kosmikós epithymías? Reading it in translation might reduce your trepidation, because in translation it appears to be nothing more (or less) than all those typically terrible moral sins we hate. But the translation tones down the implication. Consider this:
These desires (epithymías) are kosmikós. Oh, not just of this world. Apparently these desires (should we say “temptations”) extend to the entire cosmos. Yes, of course, kosmikó can be just about our world, but I’m inclined to think that Paul had a bigger picture in mind. After all, he’s the one who wrote that the entire “cosmos” is groaning over its present situation, waiting for redemption. It seems to me that the desire for power, the greed for status, and the impulse for self-direction have been around for a very long time, not just among human beings. That should be frightening. These great disruptive forces have ancient, spiritual origins. We are caught in a total rebellion—and we’ll likely be washed away with the outcome.
Of course, Paul adds epithymías for emphasis. Once more we see the attachment of the preposition ĕpi (remember epiphaínō from verse 11?). Intensity! This is thymós with enthusiasm. What is thymós? “thýō denotes violent movement (of air, water, the ground, or living creatures). From the sense ‘to boil up’ comes ‘to smoke’ and then ‘to sacrifice.’ thymós means what is moved or moves, i.e., vital force, and it may then denote such varied things as desire, impulse, spirit, anger, sensibility, disposition, and thought.”[1] Violent impulse, in the apostolic writings, especially about food and sex. The unleashed yetzer ha’ra, wanting what it wants, taking what it can. The moral motto of the yetzer ha’ra is simple: the man with the biggest gun wins. And now we realize that this motto has been in operation since before the foundation of the world. It’s had plenty of time to become the refined, seductive siren of the modern age. It all looks so good because the yetzer ha’ra has had millennia to practice disguise. No wonder we can’t see it coming.
Paul tells his audience that it will need plenty of instruction in order to turn away from kosmikós epithymías, cosmos-wrecking seduction. I’m guessing that you know why. This stuff is in our blood. It’s so natural. Often we don’t even think about the cosmic consequences. And we have dozens of our well-honed excuses not to change. The one that bothers me the most is the private excuse. “Well, it’s not hurting anyone else. It’s just my private business.” Kosmikós! Nothing is private. Everything has cosmic consequences.
If that doesn’t scare you, then your yetzer ha’ra has had plenty of practice.
Topical Index: kosmikós epithymías, worldly desires, yetzer ha’ra, Titus 2:11-12
[1] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (p. 339). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.
