We have been going as a church through a series of messages called Knowing and Overcoming Sin, focusing week by week on the categories of sin traditionally known as the seven deadly sins. Today we come to anger, or wrath. There are a variety of words in the Bible used to denote this emotion. A number of these words have very interesting and picturesque roots and associations. Today, rather than give you a definition in English, we will build up the meaning by looking at some of these words in the Hebrew and Greek.
One of the most used Old Testament words is ‘af, which literally means “nose.” The association is due to the fact that when someone is enraged, his nostrils flare wide open and his breathing rate is much faster than normal. A related word is za’af, which literally means to foam at the nose or mouth. Another word is chaymah, which literally means a cup of poison that burns as it goes down. A related word is charon, which literally means “burning.” Often some of these words are paired together, as in charon ‘af, which means, much like we say it, to burn with anger. Cha-as is another word, which means to be offended and yet another is evrah, which means literally to pour out. Another word is katsaf, which means literally to break, as in the idea of holding back anger until it breaks out and bursts forth. One last Old Testament word is rogez, which carries with it the idea of tumult, turmoil, trembling. It is also used to describe a horse going wild as well as thunder.
In the New Testament, there are two main words used to describe anger or wrath. One word is orge, from which we get argue, and at its root is the word argao which is used to describe plants swelling with juice or seeds, like overripe fruit. The idea of pressure, about to burst at the seams, is closely connected to orge. A related word in the New Testament is par-orgismos, which describes anger with all that goes along with it – indignation, exasperation – things like this. The other main word is thumos, or thymos, and our word thermos is closely related to it. At its root is the word thuo which is used to describe rushing along, getting hot, breathing violently. For thumos, a key idea is that of heat, much like we say someone is “boiling” mad or “hot” tempered.
I find it fascinating that there are so many words for anger in these languages, just as there are many words in English. Generally speaking, the more words there are for something in a language, the more the culture thinks about the concept behind the words. Clearly anger is a big deal in the Bible.
As we have gone through this series, we have looked at the effects of the various sins on our society. Because there are so many effects of anger, I have had to pick and choose. We could talk about how many wars (but not all) have anger at their core – ethnic conflicts, for example, certainly fit into this category. We could talk about discrimination, about persecution, about murder – and many more. I have instead chosen some categories that are more easily quantifiable especially looking at our present culture in the United States.
Perhaps one of the most obvious results of anger is domestic violence – physical violence against members of your immediate family. The most common type of domestic violence is that of husbands against their wives, although violence against children and even violence by wives against their husbands are also widespread. Here are some statistics on domestic violence in America: 3 out of 4 people personally know someone who has been a victim of domestic violence. 40% of adults say they have experienced some form of the following: being cursed (30%), being pushed, slapped, choked, or hit (20%), being humiliated in public (20%), having other family members physically threatened (10%). Another study showed that 20% of teenagers who have been in a serious relationship have been hit, slapped, or pushed by a boyfriend or girlfriend. Yet another study concluded that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 9 men experience physical domestic violence during their lives. Around the world, the statistic for women is 1 in 3. Women in the U.S. who are victims of domestic violence experience 2 million significant injuries per year. Clearly, domestic violence is an epidemic problem in the US and throughout the world.
Another example of a “fruit” of anger is children bullying other children, particularly in schools. The percentage of children who report being bullied on at least a weekly basis is 6% of 12th graders, 12% of 11th, 10th, 9th, and 8th graders, 14% of 7th graders, and 18% of 6th graders. That last number is more than one in every six children. This is bullying at least once a week! Another piece of data I found shocking is that despite all the increased surveillance in schools and harsh penalties if you are caught, nationwide, 10% of 6th-12th grade boys in school report carrying a weapon to school at least once in the last 30 days.
One of the fruits of anger is divorce. You often hear of celebrities saying that their most recent divorce is “amicable,” even friendly, but this is not the reality. Divorce is usually what happens when the anger and frustration have gone on so long that its continuance is unbearable. I recently saw an article about a surgeon who in 2001 donated one of his kidneys to his ailing wife. He is now suing for divorce, citing as a reason the fact that she had an affair, and as part of the settlement he is actually demanding a return of the kidney, or, alternatively, $1.5 million in compensation for the kidney. This is in addition to the usual division of property and sharing of custody of their children. This man doesn’t realize how his anger is driving him into total foolishness. He has appeared on TV with his lawyers. If you saw this story on TV, would you want this man to operate on you? If you were one of his children, how would you feel? This is one of the results of unchecked anger – it drives us to do things that go from foolish to much worse than that. Anyway, here are the statistics on divorce in America: Roughly 41% of first marriages, 60% of second marriages, and 74% of third marriages end in divorce. Some studies place the numbers, all of which use projections into the future based on current trends, even higher, as high as 50% of first marriages. Now anger is certainly not the only cause of divorce – infidelity is often a cause (and that is part of the “deadly” sin of lust), and money problems are also often a cause (and that can be due to greed, due to sloth, or both), and drugs and alcohol are also often a cause (and that would fall under gluttony)
.
By the way, just to be clear, I am not saying that all divorce is sin. The Bible clearly gives situations in which divorce is a completely permissible outcome. What I am saying is that divorce wouldn’t happen unless at least one of the two parties was involved in sin, usually one or more of the “deadly” sins I have just mentioned. And nearly always, anger fans the flames of discontent to the point that divorce is actually carried out.
Here are some more data on divorce as it pertains to children. 40% of children in America today are being raised without fathers. Teenagers whose parents have divorced are 3 times as likely to need psychological help as those living in homes with both parents. Children of divorce are twice as likely to drop out of school as those from intact homes. This is a shocking statistic when you think about the fact that the dropout rate nationwide is around 30%. Children of divorce are three times more likely to have a baby out of wedlock as those from intact homes. They are five times more likely to be in poverty, and they are an amazing 12 times more likely to be incarcerated. In terms of data on problems children have, all the data shows that the death of a parent is less damaging than a divorce.
The Bible has far more to say on anger than we can go through today, so I am picking and choosing some passages that have struck me as I have been studying it this week. To start with, from Eph.4 we have this:
"In your anger do not sin": Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. – Eph. 4:26-27
There is so much here in these little verses! By the way, the word for anger here is based on orge, the “swelling up with juice.” One clear concept is that not all anger is sin. We know this from the fact that God can be angry; indeed, there are more verses about God’s anger in response to sin than there are of any other reference to sin in the Bible. Clearly, Jesus was angry on multiple occasions, for example when he overturned the tables in the Temple. There were times Moses was angry, and God did not condemn him at all. (There may be another time too, but that’s another story.) Many of the Old Testament prophets expressed anger.
David often expressed anger in the psalms. (David also had some problems with anger, but again, that’s another story.) I want to read one psalm to you in its entirety, because I think we can go overboard on the idea of never expressing anger.
Psychologists believe this can be very unhealthy – for example, anger is part of the natural sequence of stages of grief, and if you block it, you may get “stuck” in the middle of the grieving process. Anyway, here is Psalm 109:
O God, whom I praise, do not remain silent, for wicked and deceitful men have opened their mouths against me; they have spoken against me with lying tongues. With words of hatred they surround me; they attack me without cause. In return for my friendship they accuse me, but I am a man of prayer.
They repay me evil for good, and hatred for my friendship. Appoint an evil man to oppose him; let an accuser stand at his right hand. When he is tried, let him be found guilty, and may his prayers condemn him. May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership.
May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes. May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor. May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.May his descendants be cut off, their names blotted out from the next generation. May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord; may the sin of his mother never be blotted out. May their sins always remain before the Lord, that He may cut off the memory of them from the earth.
For he never thought of doing a kindness, but hounded to death the poor and the needy and the brokenhearted. He loved to pronounce a curse—may it come on him; he found no pleasure in blessing—may it be far from him. He wore cursing as his garment; it entered into his body like water, into his bones like oil.
May it be like a cloak wrapped about him, like a belt tied forever around him. May this be the Lord's payment to my accusers, to those who speak evil of me. But You, O Sovereign Lord, deal well with me for Your name's sake; out of the goodness of Your love, deliver me. For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
I fade away like an evening shadow; I am shaken off like a locust. My knees give way from fasting; my body is thin and gaunt. I am an object of scorn to my accusers; when they see me, they shake their heads. Help me, O Lord my God; save me in accordance with Your love. Let them know that it is Your hand, that You, O Lord, have done it.
They may curse, but You will bless; when they attack they will be put to shame, but Your servant will rejoice. My accusers will be clothed with disgrace and wrapped in shame as in a cloak. With my mouth I will greatly extol the Lord; in the great throng I will praise Him. For He stands at the right hand of the needy one, to save His life from those who condemn him. – Psalm 109:1-30
Now you might say, “Wow; that was harsh.” And you might say, “What about the New Testament? I thought we are to bless our enemies, and forgive them.” Well, that is true – ultimately, that is what we should do, but in his anger here, I do not believe that David sinned. He simply expressed himself fully and honestly to God. And by the end, his focus was more on God and
His love and goodness than it was on seeing that his accusers were punished. This is healthy. Staying focused on wanting revenge would become sin. “Do not let the sun go down on your anger,” it says in Eph. 4. “Do not give the devil a foothold.”
What happens if you do stay angry? Then the devil does indeed get a foothold. You will be more and more tempted to act on your anger and sin. Eventually the swelling fruit of anger will burst, and you will either lash out or you will begin to succumb to bitterness, to backbiting, to venting your frustration out on others who have nothing to do with the problem, and perhaps to depression, a common fruit of unresolved anger.
But if we aren’t supposed to suppress it, how are we supposed to be done with it, as it says, by nightfall? By the way, when I was first married, I tried to uphold this verse when I got into arguments with my wife. I wouldn’t let either of us go to sleep, and we would keep arguing until we were both so tired that we didn’t even know what we were talking about. It was well-intentioned, and perhaps fairly effective, although it made us both somewhat dysfunctional the next day. Perhaps I should have read the verse more carefully – it said not to let the sun go down on your anger; it didn’t say not to let it rise again on your anger! But anyway, how do you do this? Consider this next verse, also from Eph. 4, just a few verses later than the previous one:
Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. – Eph. 4:31-32
By the way, the words for rage and anger are thumos and orge, the “swelling” anger and the “heat” anger. The Greek for “get rid of” is perhaps more literally “put away.” For some reason, I picture putting away toys or games when it is time to work.
But is “putting away” the same thing as suppressing? I don’t think so, because of the very next verse. It’s about what you do, not just what you don’t do. Put away the anger and its fruit, because it is time to choose to be others-focused, showing kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. And the verse also gives you the power to do this: it says, “just as in Christ God forgave you.”
I believe the more you reflect on those words, the more you understand the depths and the daily things God forgives you for, and the more you reflect on how this forgiveness is only “in Christ,” through His willing sacrifice for us, the more our anger just tends to melt away.
To feel the flash of anger when someone does something against us is natural, and normal. But to stay focused and centered on our grievance requires energy. Staying mad is tiring! It requires a continual focus on self. “How could he do this to me!” Can it be addictive? You bet, just as a video game console can be addictive. Staying mad keeps us fueled with an adrenalin rush. That is one reason doctors say that over time it is also destructive to our bodies.
We need to put down and put away our grievance. Like David, we can tell God all about it and be honest about how we feel. Indeed, we should do this. God should be our closest friend. We should tell Him everything that matters to us. But after this, we put it away and take up kindness, compassion, and forgiveness in the power of Christ.
Most of you are very familiar with the “love” chapter of the Bible, I Cor. 13:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. – I Cor. 13:4-7
To me, it almost seems like anger is the opposite of love. When angry, one wants to keep a record of wrongs, one is happy with payback, with evil things happening to the object of our anger. When angry, one doesn’t want to protect, refuses to trust, and certainly doesn’t hope for the good of the other. Anger doesn’t just keep us from following one aspect of the way of love; it just about knocks down the entire description.
If we are really following the way of love, which is the way of God, because God is love, anger should be at most temporary blips on our way. And the more we are consumed with Christ and His love, the less room there is for harboring anger and resentment. To put in another way, from a teaching a few weeks ago, when we are filled with the Spirit, there is no room for anything else.
My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger (orge) does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. – James 1:19-22
That first sentence is probably very condemning for most of us who are parents. It is so easy to get angry at our children and to use it to force a temporary change in behavior! But “man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” It’s hard to be much clearer than that.
And neither does anger directed towards others or even towards ourselves bring about a righteous life in us. If we want to grow in righteousness, we need to become doers of God’s Word. We need to put into practice what we learn, taking little steps every day.
But also notice the beginning of the passage: Not only are we to not let the sun go down on our anger, as it said in one other passage, not only are we to put away anger, as it said in another, but we are to be slow to anger. You know, at least in America, many would say that Christians have earned quite the reputation for being quick to anger. Some of that reputation is unavoidable if we are to take stands defending the defenseless and standing against evil. And many people seem to be unable to distinguish between opposition to something and anger. One can be opposed without being angry. But some of our reputation is due to the fact that we often are quick to anger, quick to take offense. It is one thing to experience something like David, where people were trying to kill him. It is another to get angry over the daily inconveniences that are in fact the fault of someone not doing what they should have done, but still, are minor issues in the grand scheme of things. Inappropriate anger not only destroys our ability to witness to Christ, it can even make us become stumbling blocks to others! People should admire us for our slowness to anger, not fear us because we are ready to “launch” at any second.
Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. – Romans 12:17-19
This for me is one of those verses where at first I think, “Great! God sees all and will take care of everything.” but then I think, “Wait… God’s wrath? That’s more than I would wish on anyone.” For me, this verse is a powerful one for defusing my anger, not because I rejoice that God will avenge, but because I grow in compassion for those who hurt me. They are just like me – sinners in desperate need of God’s grace and forgiveness. And in that weird way that God works, if they have become my enemy, or more precisely, if I have become theirs, there is no one better suited for reaching them with the gospel then me, because in forgiving them, I becoming a living picture of the forgiveness that is found in Christ. May we all be used by God in this way!
Finally, one last verse. This is not directly about anger, but I believe it has something profound to say about how we deal with anger.
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. – I Peter 1:6-7
The “this” is the resurrection of Jesus, and the salvation that we know we have because of this. What does this have to do with anger? Well, trials, as often as not, have the potential to make us very angry. They come to refine and strengthen and prove our faith. This means that God allows things in our lives, things that can make us angry, to build our faith. The battle over succumbing to anger is really a battle about faith. May we trust God to use trials for our good, and may we be overcomers of anger by faith.
One of the most used Old Testament words is ‘af, which literally means “nose.” The association is due to the fact that when someone is enraged, his nostrils flare wide open and his breathing rate is much faster than normal. A related word is za’af, which literally means to foam at the nose or mouth. Another word is chaymah, which literally means a cup of poison that burns as it goes down. A related word is charon, which literally means “burning.” Often some of these words are paired together, as in charon ‘af, which means, much like we say it, to burn with anger. Cha-as is another word, which means to be offended and yet another is evrah, which means literally to pour out. Another word is katsaf, which means literally to break, as in the idea of holding back anger until it breaks out and bursts forth. One last Old Testament word is rogez, which carries with it the idea of tumult, turmoil, trembling. It is also used to describe a horse going wild as well as thunder.
In the New Testament, there are two main words used to describe anger or wrath. One word is orge, from which we get argue, and at its root is the word argao which is used to describe plants swelling with juice or seeds, like overripe fruit. The idea of pressure, about to burst at the seams, is closely connected to orge. A related word in the New Testament is par-orgismos, which describes anger with all that goes along with it – indignation, exasperation – things like this. The other main word is thumos, or thymos, and our word thermos is closely related to it. At its root is the word thuo which is used to describe rushing along, getting hot, breathing violently. For thumos, a key idea is that of heat, much like we say someone is “boiling” mad or “hot” tempered.
I find it fascinating that there are so many words for anger in these languages, just as there are many words in English. Generally speaking, the more words there are for something in a language, the more the culture thinks about the concept behind the words. Clearly anger is a big deal in the Bible.
As we have gone through this series, we have looked at the effects of the various sins on our society. Because there are so many effects of anger, I have had to pick and choose. We could talk about how many wars (but not all) have anger at their core – ethnic conflicts, for example, certainly fit into this category. We could talk about discrimination, about persecution, about murder – and many more. I have instead chosen some categories that are more easily quantifiable especially looking at our present culture in the United States.
Perhaps one of the most obvious results of anger is domestic violence – physical violence against members of your immediate family. The most common type of domestic violence is that of husbands against their wives, although violence against children and even violence by wives against their husbands are also widespread. Here are some statistics on domestic violence in America: 3 out of 4 people personally know someone who has been a victim of domestic violence. 40% of adults say they have experienced some form of the following: being cursed (30%), being pushed, slapped, choked, or hit (20%), being humiliated in public (20%), having other family members physically threatened (10%). Another study showed that 20% of teenagers who have been in a serious relationship have been hit, slapped, or pushed by a boyfriend or girlfriend. Yet another study concluded that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 9 men experience physical domestic violence during their lives. Around the world, the statistic for women is 1 in 3. Women in the U.S. who are victims of domestic violence experience 2 million significant injuries per year. Clearly, domestic violence is an epidemic problem in the US and throughout the world.
Another example of a “fruit” of anger is children bullying other children, particularly in schools. The percentage of children who report being bullied on at least a weekly basis is 6% of 12th graders, 12% of 11th, 10th, 9th, and 8th graders, 14% of 7th graders, and 18% of 6th graders. That last number is more than one in every six children. This is bullying at least once a week! Another piece of data I found shocking is that despite all the increased surveillance in schools and harsh penalties if you are caught, nationwide, 10% of 6th-12th grade boys in school report carrying a weapon to school at least once in the last 30 days.
One of the fruits of anger is divorce. You often hear of celebrities saying that their most recent divorce is “amicable,” even friendly, but this is not the reality. Divorce is usually what happens when the anger and frustration have gone on so long that its continuance is unbearable. I recently saw an article about a surgeon who in 2001 donated one of his kidneys to his ailing wife. He is now suing for divorce, citing as a reason the fact that she had an affair, and as part of the settlement he is actually demanding a return of the kidney, or, alternatively, $1.5 million in compensation for the kidney. This is in addition to the usual division of property and sharing of custody of their children. This man doesn’t realize how his anger is driving him into total foolishness. He has appeared on TV with his lawyers. If you saw this story on TV, would you want this man to operate on you? If you were one of his children, how would you feel? This is one of the results of unchecked anger – it drives us to do things that go from foolish to much worse than that. Anyway, here are the statistics on divorce in America: Roughly 41% of first marriages, 60% of second marriages, and 74% of third marriages end in divorce. Some studies place the numbers, all of which use projections into the future based on current trends, even higher, as high as 50% of first marriages. Now anger is certainly not the only cause of divorce – infidelity is often a cause (and that is part of the “deadly” sin of lust), and money problems are also often a cause (and that can be due to greed, due to sloth, or both), and drugs and alcohol are also often a cause (and that would fall under gluttony)
.
By the way, just to be clear, I am not saying that all divorce is sin. The Bible clearly gives situations in which divorce is a completely permissible outcome. What I am saying is that divorce wouldn’t happen unless at least one of the two parties was involved in sin, usually one or more of the “deadly” sins I have just mentioned. And nearly always, anger fans the flames of discontent to the point that divorce is actually carried out.
Here are some more data on divorce as it pertains to children. 40% of children in America today are being raised without fathers. Teenagers whose parents have divorced are 3 times as likely to need psychological help as those living in homes with both parents. Children of divorce are twice as likely to drop out of school as those from intact homes. This is a shocking statistic when you think about the fact that the dropout rate nationwide is around 30%. Children of divorce are three times more likely to have a baby out of wedlock as those from intact homes. They are five times more likely to be in poverty, and they are an amazing 12 times more likely to be incarcerated. In terms of data on problems children have, all the data shows that the death of a parent is less damaging than a divorce.
The Bible has far more to say on anger than we can go through today, so I am picking and choosing some passages that have struck me as I have been studying it this week. To start with, from Eph.4 we have this:
"In your anger do not sin": Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. – Eph. 4:26-27
There is so much here in these little verses! By the way, the word for anger here is based on orge, the “swelling up with juice.” One clear concept is that not all anger is sin. We know this from the fact that God can be angry; indeed, there are more verses about God’s anger in response to sin than there are of any other reference to sin in the Bible. Clearly, Jesus was angry on multiple occasions, for example when he overturned the tables in the Temple. There were times Moses was angry, and God did not condemn him at all. (There may be another time too, but that’s another story.) Many of the Old Testament prophets expressed anger.
David often expressed anger in the psalms. (David also had some problems with anger, but again, that’s another story.) I want to read one psalm to you in its entirety, because I think we can go overboard on the idea of never expressing anger.
Psychologists believe this can be very unhealthy – for example, anger is part of the natural sequence of stages of grief, and if you block it, you may get “stuck” in the middle of the grieving process. Anyway, here is Psalm 109:
O God, whom I praise, do not remain silent, for wicked and deceitful men have opened their mouths against me; they have spoken against me with lying tongues. With words of hatred they surround me; they attack me without cause. In return for my friendship they accuse me, but I am a man of prayer.
They repay me evil for good, and hatred for my friendship. Appoint an evil man to oppose him; let an accuser stand at his right hand. When he is tried, let him be found guilty, and may his prayers condemn him. May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership.
May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes. May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor. May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children.May his descendants be cut off, their names blotted out from the next generation. May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord; may the sin of his mother never be blotted out. May their sins always remain before the Lord, that He may cut off the memory of them from the earth.
For he never thought of doing a kindness, but hounded to death the poor and the needy and the brokenhearted. He loved to pronounce a curse—may it come on him; he found no pleasure in blessing—may it be far from him. He wore cursing as his garment; it entered into his body like water, into his bones like oil.
May it be like a cloak wrapped about him, like a belt tied forever around him. May this be the Lord's payment to my accusers, to those who speak evil of me. But You, O Sovereign Lord, deal well with me for Your name's sake; out of the goodness of Your love, deliver me. For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
I fade away like an evening shadow; I am shaken off like a locust. My knees give way from fasting; my body is thin and gaunt. I am an object of scorn to my accusers; when they see me, they shake their heads. Help me, O Lord my God; save me in accordance with Your love. Let them know that it is Your hand, that You, O Lord, have done it.
They may curse, but You will bless; when they attack they will be put to shame, but Your servant will rejoice. My accusers will be clothed with disgrace and wrapped in shame as in a cloak. With my mouth I will greatly extol the Lord; in the great throng I will praise Him. For He stands at the right hand of the needy one, to save His life from those who condemn him. – Psalm 109:1-30
Now you might say, “Wow; that was harsh.” And you might say, “What about the New Testament? I thought we are to bless our enemies, and forgive them.” Well, that is true – ultimately, that is what we should do, but in his anger here, I do not believe that David sinned. He simply expressed himself fully and honestly to God. And by the end, his focus was more on God and
His love and goodness than it was on seeing that his accusers were punished. This is healthy. Staying focused on wanting revenge would become sin. “Do not let the sun go down on your anger,” it says in Eph. 4. “Do not give the devil a foothold.”
What happens if you do stay angry? Then the devil does indeed get a foothold. You will be more and more tempted to act on your anger and sin. Eventually the swelling fruit of anger will burst, and you will either lash out or you will begin to succumb to bitterness, to backbiting, to venting your frustration out on others who have nothing to do with the problem, and perhaps to depression, a common fruit of unresolved anger.
But if we aren’t supposed to suppress it, how are we supposed to be done with it, as it says, by nightfall? By the way, when I was first married, I tried to uphold this verse when I got into arguments with my wife. I wouldn’t let either of us go to sleep, and we would keep arguing until we were both so tired that we didn’t even know what we were talking about. It was well-intentioned, and perhaps fairly effective, although it made us both somewhat dysfunctional the next day. Perhaps I should have read the verse more carefully – it said not to let the sun go down on your anger; it didn’t say not to let it rise again on your anger! But anyway, how do you do this? Consider this next verse, also from Eph. 4, just a few verses later than the previous one:
Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. – Eph. 4:31-32
By the way, the words for rage and anger are thumos and orge, the “swelling” anger and the “heat” anger. The Greek for “get rid of” is perhaps more literally “put away.” For some reason, I picture putting away toys or games when it is time to work.
But is “putting away” the same thing as suppressing? I don’t think so, because of the very next verse. It’s about what you do, not just what you don’t do. Put away the anger and its fruit, because it is time to choose to be others-focused, showing kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. And the verse also gives you the power to do this: it says, “just as in Christ God forgave you.”
I believe the more you reflect on those words, the more you understand the depths and the daily things God forgives you for, and the more you reflect on how this forgiveness is only “in Christ,” through His willing sacrifice for us, the more our anger just tends to melt away.
To feel the flash of anger when someone does something against us is natural, and normal. But to stay focused and centered on our grievance requires energy. Staying mad is tiring! It requires a continual focus on self. “How could he do this to me!” Can it be addictive? You bet, just as a video game console can be addictive. Staying mad keeps us fueled with an adrenalin rush. That is one reason doctors say that over time it is also destructive to our bodies.
We need to put down and put away our grievance. Like David, we can tell God all about it and be honest about how we feel. Indeed, we should do this. God should be our closest friend. We should tell Him everything that matters to us. But after this, we put it away and take up kindness, compassion, and forgiveness in the power of Christ.
Most of you are very familiar with the “love” chapter of the Bible, I Cor. 13:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. – I Cor. 13:4-7
To me, it almost seems like anger is the opposite of love. When angry, one wants to keep a record of wrongs, one is happy with payback, with evil things happening to the object of our anger. When angry, one doesn’t want to protect, refuses to trust, and certainly doesn’t hope for the good of the other. Anger doesn’t just keep us from following one aspect of the way of love; it just about knocks down the entire description.
If we are really following the way of love, which is the way of God, because God is love, anger should be at most temporary blips on our way. And the more we are consumed with Christ and His love, the less room there is for harboring anger and resentment. To put in another way, from a teaching a few weeks ago, when we are filled with the Spirit, there is no room for anything else.
My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger (orge) does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. – James 1:19-22
That first sentence is probably very condemning for most of us who are parents. It is so easy to get angry at our children and to use it to force a temporary change in behavior! But “man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.” It’s hard to be much clearer than that.
And neither does anger directed towards others or even towards ourselves bring about a righteous life in us. If we want to grow in righteousness, we need to become doers of God’s Word. We need to put into practice what we learn, taking little steps every day.
But also notice the beginning of the passage: Not only are we to not let the sun go down on our anger, as it said in one other passage, not only are we to put away anger, as it said in another, but we are to be slow to anger. You know, at least in America, many would say that Christians have earned quite the reputation for being quick to anger. Some of that reputation is unavoidable if we are to take stands defending the defenseless and standing against evil. And many people seem to be unable to distinguish between opposition to something and anger. One can be opposed without being angry. But some of our reputation is due to the fact that we often are quick to anger, quick to take offense. It is one thing to experience something like David, where people were trying to kill him. It is another to get angry over the daily inconveniences that are in fact the fault of someone not doing what they should have done, but still, are minor issues in the grand scheme of things. Inappropriate anger not only destroys our ability to witness to Christ, it can even make us become stumbling blocks to others! People should admire us for our slowness to anger, not fear us because we are ready to “launch” at any second.
Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. – Romans 12:17-19
This for me is one of those verses where at first I think, “Great! God sees all and will take care of everything.” but then I think, “Wait… God’s wrath? That’s more than I would wish on anyone.” For me, this verse is a powerful one for defusing my anger, not because I rejoice that God will avenge, but because I grow in compassion for those who hurt me. They are just like me – sinners in desperate need of God’s grace and forgiveness. And in that weird way that God works, if they have become my enemy, or more precisely, if I have become theirs, there is no one better suited for reaching them with the gospel then me, because in forgiving them, I becoming a living picture of the forgiveness that is found in Christ. May we all be used by God in this way!
Finally, one last verse. This is not directly about anger, but I believe it has something profound to say about how we deal with anger.
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. – I Peter 1:6-7
The “this” is the resurrection of Jesus, and the salvation that we know we have because of this. What does this have to do with anger? Well, trials, as often as not, have the potential to make us very angry. They come to refine and strengthen and prove our faith. This means that God allows things in our lives, things that can make us angry, to build our faith. The battle over succumbing to anger is really a battle about faith. May we trust God to use trials for our good, and may we be overcomers of anger by faith.
No comments:
Post a Comment