“Soberly” in the original language is an interesting combination of two Greek words: “sodzo,” meaning to save, and “phren,” meaning the mind. Literally, the Apostle Paul is telling Titus to live with a “saved mind.”
So often, the concept of sobriety is linked with the English word “somber,” and we ascribe to it a gloominess which was completely foreign to the Apostle Paul’s thinking. The following verse reminds us that we are “looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). But He is not returning for a depressed, grim church. He is coming back for a vital, joyful, industrious bride who prepared herself with the understanding that the hour demands prudence and her Lord desires a bride in full possession of her emotional and intellectual faculties.
We are called to live as examples of God’s redemptive work in the midst of a perverse and dying generation. Our sobriety, or saved minds, points the way to salvation for others who desperately need what Jesus has done in us.
