Listen to our discussion at: Today's Bible Study Discussion
Be Angry
And do not Sin
Eph. 4:26
“…do not let the sun go down on your wrath,
nor give place to the devil.”
Anger is a very real human
emotion, part of our complex character, of which the Bible says that we are, “fearfully and wonderfully made” Ps.139:14
Jesus experienced anger –
cleansing the temple, and engaging with the Pharisees – as well as sorrow,
grief, disappointment, joy, love and peace.
In our culture we seem to be
experiencing a pandemic of anger, and it’s unclear whether people even know why
they are angry.
Anger occurs when order is
violated
An early example is recorded
in Gen. 27:30-46
43 “…flee to my brother Laban…45 until your brother’s
anger turns away from you, and he forgets what you have done to him”
Since the fall, order has
been violated in every aspect of creation.
· Everything God created He declared was good
· Everything functioned according to His design
· Sin introduced a competing order
When we experience anger, we
may be responding to the disorder of the fall going on around us, or responding
with a fallen sense of order remaining within us.
The first is what we call,
“righteous indignation”. This is where we must be careful not to let our
anger escalate to sin. Eph. 4:26
The second is residual sin
nature which we must bring under the authority of the Word of God. II Cor. 10;5
Unbelievers do not have these
options. They are responding to the disorder caused by the fall, with a corrupt
and fallen sense of the way things should be.
It’s no wonder they
are angry.
And that their anger escalates to sin
Very much like sheep without
a shepherd; hmmmm!
As ambassadors for Christ, we
must ask the Holy Spirit for discernment
to determine righteous anger, and help in keeping it under the Lordship
of Christ.
The Eph. verse indicates that
anger that lingers is unhealthy because
it festers…like disease.
Also, we should be slow to
apply anger to personal offences because Jesus was never angered by personal
offences.
See Jas. 1:19,20
“slow to wrath” (or anger) allows space for prayer and
discernment.
“slow to speak” puts a lid on our primary vehicle for
expressing anger. “With it (the tongue) we bless our God and Father, and with
it we curse men, who have been made been made in the similitude of God…these
things ought not to be so.” Jas. 3:9,10
“’Vengeance is Mine, I will repay’, says the Lord”
Deut. 32:35; Rom. 12:19; Heb. 10:3
Three times, I think He’s trying to tell us something!
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