Review

  In Part I of this article,
we considered examples of righteous anger expressed by God, by the Man Christ
Jesus, and by other persons in the Bible. We then gave a number of examples of
people in the Bible who expressed sinful anger and looked at the main reasons
for this anger. We noticed that often this sinful anger was in response to
people who were simply carrying out the will of God.

Sinful Anger in Response to Sin

  There are also a few
examples in the Bible in which anger was directed at a person who had sinned.
For example:

  Esau was angry with Jacob
for stealing the blessing from their father Isaac (Gen. 27:23,41).

  Jacob was angry with his
wife Rachel because she was sinfully complaining (Gen. 30:1,2).

  Simeon and Levi were angry
with Shechem for raping their sister. Their anger was justified at the outset,
but it degenerated into sinful retaliation (Gen. 34:2,7,25,26).

  Moses was angry with the
children of Israel because they were sinfully complaining against God; Moses’
anger led to his sinful misrepresentation of the character of Jehovah before
the Israelites (Num. 20:1-12).

  If a person sins against me
and I respond in anger, does the fact that it is a response to sin
automatically make my anger righteous? Not necessarily. In each of these
examples there is evidence of wounded pride; the anger is not used to make a
godly appeal to the person to repent of his/her sin, but to attack and/or get
even with the sinner. Perhaps you firmly believe that you have a right before
God to become angry every time you perceive that someone has sinned against
you. There are several things wrong with this idea:

  1. Your perception may be
wrong; you may have misunderstood or misinterpreted the person’s words or
actions; thus your anger would be totally wrong.

  2. Your perception may be
correct, but if your anger is only for the purpose of punishing the person, it
is wrong, because you are to leave vengeance in the Lord’s hands (Rom. 12:19).

  3. God may sometimes want
you to “pass over a transgression” (Prov. 19:11). (We will discuss this in more
detail later.)

  4. You may be confusing sin
as defined in God’s Word with the fact that you personally have been
embarrassed or inconvenienced by another’s misfortune. For example, suppose
your young child graciously asks if he can help dry the dishes. After you come
out of your faint, you hand him a dish towel. He tries to be very careful, but
because of his small hands and lack of coordination, he drops one of your best
china plates. If you get angry at your child for something like this, it is you
who are sinning, and not the child!

Anger as a Means of

Controlling Others

  There is one more example
of anger in the Bible that we need to look at more closely. This is Peter’s
anger at the time of the crucifixion of Christ when people kept insisting that
they recognized him as a disciple of Jesus. The people were right and Peter was
lying to them. So why did he get angry? As a means of control, I suggest. The
situation was getting out of control, and he feared for his life. So he used
anger as a means of getting the people to back off. This is a very common use
of anger—for controlling other people and getting them to do what I want them
to do. I have seen it happen many times, and probably have done it myself.
There is absolutely no warrant for it, no Scriptural support for it:it is a
result of pride and selfishness through and through.

How Is Anger Expressed?

  How is anger manifested and
expressed? We most often think of people losing their temper, blowing up,
shouting, and so forth. But there are other ways. Here is an example from
Scripture:“Ahab spoke unto Naboth, saying, Give me your vineyard, that I may
have it for a garden of herbs…. And Naboth said to Ahab, The Lord forbid it
me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto you. And Ahab came
into his house heavy and displeased … and he lay down upon his bed and turned
away his face and would eat no bread” (1 Ki. 21:1-4). Ahab was angry because he
was not getting his own way even though he was king. He did not blow up in
anger; rather he went off and pouted, and perhaps became depressed. I remember
a brother making the observation that depression often results from suppressed
anger—not always, but often. Much of what people today call “stress” is due to
going on day after day with suppressed anger and holding grudges.

  Another way anger is
manifested is the silent treatment. Some people sort of realize that losing
one’s temper is wrong, so they express their anger by being silent, not
communicating with the ones who make them angry. I remember reading about two
sisters who lived together in the same house. They had a falling out, and lived
the last 20 years each keeping to her side of the house, and never once
speaking to the other. How awful! How stressful!

  Then there are those whose
motto is:“I don’t get angry; I just get even.” Surely that is wrong because
the Bible says, “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord” (Rom. 12:19,20).
But are not all these other forms of anger, including the silent treatment,
also a form of vengeance? A variation of this is using cutting or mocking
words. For example, I remember a high school teacher of mine who, when a
certain boy misbehaved in class, called him “Butterball.” If, in our anger, we
attack or make fun of the person (in this case, the physical appearance of the
person) rather than using the energy derived from our anger to attack and
resolve the problem (in this case, his misbehavior), then we are really taking
vengeance into our own hands.

  Finally, some people use
the gunny sack approach to expressing irritation and anger. Here’s how it
works. Consider a married couple:we will call them George and Sally. Sally
goes to brush her teeth and finds the tube of toothpaste squeezed in the
middle. She thinks to herself, “I just hate it when George squeezes the
tube in the middle,” and she drops it in the gunny sack—figuratively, not
literally. Then she goes to the bedroom and finds George’s pajamas strewn on
the floor. Again, she thinks bitter thoughts about George and … drops the
pajamas in her gunny sack. She goes down to the kitchen and the morning paper
lying on the table reminds her of how her husband never pays attention to her
at the breakfast table … and she drops the paper in her gunny sack. And so it
goes until Saturday when she catches George slicing bread on the kitchen counter
without using the bread board. She blows up, and out comes the gunny sack. She
berates him, not just about scarring the kitchen counter, but also about the
toothpaste and the pajamas and the newspaper. The verses “Let not the sun go
down upon your wrath” and “It is his glory to pass over a transgression” apply
here.

Biblical Instruction

Concerning Anger

  Let us now briefly explore
some Biblical instruction concerning anger. The first one we have considered
already:

  We are to be angry, but
without sinning. “Be angry and sin not:let not the sun go down upon your
wrath:neither give place to the devil” (Eph. 4:26,27). In other words, there
is a kind of anger that is not sinful. There are occasions in which we should
express righteous anger, following the example of Christ. But at the same time,
we must be very careful not to allow righteous anger to degenerate into sinful
anger. We are to keep short accounts with God and with other people; therefore
we should make sure that our anger has been resolved before the sun goes down.

  We are to stop our
sinful anger. “Cease from anger, and forsake wrath:fret not yourself in
any wise to do evil” (Psa. 37:8).“Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and
clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice” (Eph. 4:31;
also Col. 3:8; Gal. 5:19-21). We shall come back to the very important question
of how to deal with our problem of anger.

  We are to consider the
effects and consequences of our anger. “A wrathful man stirs up strife”
(Prov. 15:18). “Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous” (Prov. 27:4). “Whoever
is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment:
and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the
council:but whosoever shall say, You fool, shall be in danger of hell fire”
(Matt. 5:22). “Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest
any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled”
(Heb. 12:15). “For the wrath of man works not the righteousness of God” (Jas.
1:20). “If you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and
lie not against the truth” (Jas. 3:14).

  We are to be slow to
anger. “He who is slow to wrath is of great understanding” (Prov. 14:29).
“He who is slow to anger appeases strife” (Prov. 15:18). “He who is slow to
anger is better than the mighty; and he who rules his spirit than he who takes
a city” (Prov. 16:32).“Love suffers long [or is long-tempered] … is not
easily provoked” (1 Cor. 13:4,5). “I will therefore that men pray everywhere,
lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting” (1 Tim. 2:8). (Engaging in
public prayer while nursing an angry, bitter spirit in private is gross
hypocrisy.) “A bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not
self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker” (Tit. 1:7).
“Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak,
slow to wrath” (Jas. 1:19).

  We have the privilege of
passing over some transgressions. “The discretion of a man defers his anger;
and it is his glory to pass over a transgression” (Prov. 19:11). The deferring
of one’s anger here does not mean putting it in your gunny sack to bring out
later. Rather, I believe it means that we stop and consider and pray about the
matter to find out how God wants us to respond. The second part of the verse
says that God may sometimes want us to pass over a transgression. Husbands!
wives! before you lash out at your spouse for some trivial misdeed (like
squeezing the tube of toothpaste in the wrong place), pray! Ask God and ask
yourself if it is worth bringing conflict and disharmony into your marriage
over such a matter as this. Also ask God to remind you of the many times your
spouse has passed over your transgressions.

  The apostle Paul might have
whammed the Philippians for engaging in petty conflicts, but instead he gave
them—and us—the wonderful ministry of Chapter 2, verses 5-11 concerning the
humility and subsequent exaltation of Christ Jesus. And in the Old Testament,
Moses was out of touch with God’s thoughts when he expressed anger at the
people’s sin while God wanted to win the people’s hearts by an expression of
grace. For this inappropriate expression of anger toward the people’s sin,
Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land (Num. 20:1-12).

  “It is his glory to pass
over a transgression.” I would include under this verse the annoying habit of
some to “nit pick”—constantly correcting their children or spouse or even
parents with respect to grammar or pronunciation or details of a story they are
telling.

  How we are to deal with
other people’s anger. “A soft answer turns away wrath” (Prov. 15:1). If
your two-year-old is having a temper tantrum, try whispering in his/her ear.
“Wise men turn away wrath” (Prov. 29:8). “A gift in secret pacifies anger:and
a reward in the bosom strong wrath” (Prov. 21:14; see Gen. 43:11,12; Matt.
5:44).

  We are to avoid stirring
up anger in others. “Grievous words stir up anger” (Prov. 15:1). “Fathers,
provoke not your children to wrath:but bring them up in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). “Fathers, provoke not your children to
anger, lest they be discouraged” (Col. 3:21). If a member of our family has an
anger problem, the other members should be much in prayer and in the Word to
discover any behaviors on their part that may be helping to kindle the anger of
the other. This does not at all excuse one’s anger. “The devil made me do it”
or “my parents drove me to anger” does not cut it with God. But at the same
time, the more reasons and excuses we can remove from the path of angry
persons, the greater the possibility of helping those persons with their
problem of anger.

  (To be concluded.)