Archive for January, 2024
How to Be Angry Without Sinning – Part Three
Ephesians 4: 26, 27
Righteous indignation is a term for the feelings of Jesus when He cleansed the temple. It was a strong displeasure over unrighteousness. Indignation means you become incensed. When it is vented toward sin it is righteous indignation and that is good.
Jesus was moved by holy zeal. That is, He was zealous for the right thing to be done. That is the kind of anger we are to have. That is what the text means when it says, “Be angry and sin not.”
If all anger were wrong the text would read: “Don’t be angry.”
Anger as an expression to personal injury is wrong.
As an expression of abhorrence of wrong in loyalty to the Lord it is right.
If all anger were wrong the text would read: “Don’t be angry.”
Another illustration of Jesus’ anger occurred at the death of Lazarus. The story is recorded in John 11: 17 – 45. How did Jesus react to the death of someone He loved? “Jesus wept.” (11: 35) It’s the shortest verse of the Bible. The expression means He cried deeply. He didn’t just get misty eyed… Jesus wept.
In the face of death, Jesus didn’t only cry. He had a second reaction, He got angry. Yes, Jesus got mad. Jesus was “deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.” (11:33) “Deeply moved” translates the Greek word embrimaomai. (Embre-my-o-my)
NLT translates it: “a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled.”
The Greek word used in the account is a metaphor which was used to depict the fury of a warhorse about to charge into battle. The steed rears up on his hind legs, snorts through its nostrils, an expression for fury, paws the air, and charges into the conflict. To snort in spirit was the strongest Greek word for anger. It is the word used of Jesus. Face to face with evil, in this premature death of His good friend, He is outraged. Why? Jesus was angry and troubled at the destruction and power of the great enemy of humanity: death. Jesus would soon break the dominating power of death. Evil is not normal. As the Creator Jesus made the world good, beautiful, full of life, joy, and justice. Evil despoiled these.
About what was Jesus angry? Summarily His anger was at Satan for introducing evil into the world. He was angry over sin because it produced death. James 1:15 notes “…sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.”
As with Jesus, be angry with sin and don’t sin in doing it.
How to Be Angry Without Sinning – Part Two
Ephesians 4: 26, 27
Anger! You got it? Me, too. Jesus too. God the Father also. Qualify your anger and be sure it is of the Lord. There is a way you can be angry and not sin. There are two groupings of sin. Be sure yours is the right kind, and that you are not using the text for ventilating your emotions.
One, ventilation is a term used for improper anger, the losing of the temper, the blow-up kind.
The other indignation is a term for the feelings of Jesus in the temple. It is a strong displeasure over unrighteousness. Indignation means you become incensed. When it is vented toward sin it is righteous indignation and that is good. There is not enough anger expressed toward sin.
Aside from the spiritual aspect of wrong anger there is a physical side. Persons who live with an angry temperament do threaten their health. The “Dallas Times Herald” reported “A person’s hostility and anger toward others could lead to heart disease and premature death.”
Dr. Redford B. Williams of Duke University Medical Center concluded from his studies: “Individuals who harbor hostility and anger toward others are five times more likely to die from heart disease and six times more likely to die prematurely from other causes.”
Medical authorities also believe that anger increases hormone levels that may lead to hardening of the arteries.
However, Florida State University researcher, Jack Hokanson, asserts, “The myth that ventilating anger brings down tension is long gone” (Newsweek, 1993). How then can I be angry and NOT sin? The Jesus kind is indignation. Decide to be angry about things and not with people. Love people, but discern right from wrong. That is God-like. He loves the sinner, but hates the sin.
In this frame of reference, one of our primary sins is not having enough of the right anger. We have become tolerant of everything and reluctant to stand for right. Determine to be angry about the right things. Avoid simply being irritable and hyper-sensitive about personal matters. Deal with moral issues.
How then can I deal with anger?
“Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man do not go, Lest you learn his ways…” (Proverbs 22: 24, 25).
In light of the scientific insight shared, comply with Proverbs 29: 11, “A fool vents all his feelings, But a wise man holds them back.” A modern translation reads: “A fool gives vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.”
Now my anger. I was born a redhead with the reputation redheads have for temper. It wasn’t good. One day I decided God I have a temper. You gave it to me. Therefore, it can’t be bad. My use of it can be. I now dedicate it (myself) to you and ask that I might use it in a manner pleasing to you. That is my control valve. It can be yours.
How to Be Angry Without Sinning – Part One
Ephesians 4: 26, 27
Do you ever get angry? Do you even have an anger management problem? A biblical understanding of anger will be addressed in these six columns.
In answer to the first question I must answer guilty. Yes, like Jesus, I get angry. Like Jesus? Yes, more than once He is depicted as getting angry like His Father God. Consider:
The Scripture does not teach that God doesn’t get angry. It teaches He is slow to anger. Note:
Psalm 30:5 “His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life.”
Isaiah 12: 1 “In that day you will say: ‘O Lord, I will praise You; Though you were angry with me, Your anger is turned away and You comfort me.”
Micah 7: 18 “He does not retain His anger forever…”
Hosea 11: 9 “I will execute the fierceness of My anger…”
Nehemiah 9:17 “But You are God … slow to anger…”
Joel 2: 13 “Return to the Lord your God … For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger….”
Again I say, God does get angry and so should you. Don’t take that statement out of context nor apply it apart from the way it is now to be developed.
Jesus went into the temple and found they were not praying and worshiping, but buying and selling. He turned over the tables of the money changers and drove them out. Can you imagine Him doing this passively?
Don’t tune out after this statement. The Bible not only teaches us that God gets angry, it also encourages us to get angry. That demands some biblical interpretation. Without an understanding of this statement, improper license to get angry might be taken.
Our text says, “Be angry, and do not sin.” Literally, ” [A] Be sure to be angry, but [B] do not sin.
There is a clean anger. It is righteous indignation such as expressed by Jesus over evil. Failure to become angry over evil is a sign of unlikeness to Jesus. If the spirit of Jesus is in us we can’t stand by passively watching wrong being heaped upon wrong.
To gain a biblical understanding of this subject, consider two groups of anger. One is ventilation and the other indignation. One is good, the other isn’t. One is characteristic of Jesus and should be of us, the other isn’t a trait of our Lord and should not be of us.
One ventilation is a term used for improper anger, the losing of the temper, blow-up kind.
The other indignation is a term for the feelings of Jesus in the temple. It is a strong displeasure over unrighteousness. Indignation means you become incensed. When it is vented toward sin it is righteous indignation and that is good.
These two will be developed further in the next post.
Victory in Jesus – Part Six
“But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” I Corinthians 15: 57, 58
You, the real you, will never cease existing. Just because you exit your natural body at the moment of death does not mean you cease to exist. In truth that isn’t the termination of life. It is the end of life in the terrestrial body. It is the beginning of life in the celestial body.
The Greek term “steadfast” here means to be seated, settled, fixed. The idea here is that of steadiness. Paul uses this term in Colossians 1:23 to refer to the fixedness of a foundation: There he prays that the Colossians will “continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard.” The term “stable” refers to the laying of a foundation. You get that sense from the King James Version which translates the term “grounded.”
At that point it will be obvious your labor wasn’t in vain.
Victory in Jesus – Part Five
“But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” I Corinthians 15: 57, 58
This passage opens with “Therefore.” It translates the Greek conjunction “hooste,” meaning consequently. As a consequence of the victory that is ours there is an appropriate response. “Be steadfast, unmovable….” is a present participle, meaning we are to be constantly stable. We are to “continue to stand” and “always abound.” Keep on being steadfast and immovable. This gives no furloughs for fits of unfaithfulness.
This is a charge not to vacillate between obedience and disobedience. Consistency is the challenge.
We are to abound in “the work of the Lord.”
What is the work of the Lord? Is it lighting candles on an altar, or polishing brass in a cloistered chamber.
Our Lord allows us contact with other persons in order that we might serve them in His name. That is the work of the Lord. As Jesus came not to be ministered unto but to minister, so we must all perpetually be ministers to one another in His holy name. What God considers is how we behave toward others. How much of a loving spirit do we show?
Be assured, such labor is not in vain. The ultimate confirmation of this will come in our inevitable victory celebration called “the day of the manifestation of the sons of God.”
Our supreme victory is spoken of in I Corinthians 15 in the verses preceding our text. It is summed up in verse 40: “There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.”
While waiting for the celestial body, win the spiritual victories of which your terrestrial is capable.
We now have what is called a “terrestrial” body. That is, a body perfectly suited for life on planet earth. Outside the sphere of earth’s atmosphere it isn’t perfectly suited. Capsules or space suits have to be used to sustain life outside our natural realm.
In death the believer is given a new body, a “celestial” body. As our natural body is perfectly suited for life on this planet, so this new celestial body will be perfectly suited for life in Heaven.