Men's Traps - Anger

“For as the churning of milk produces butter

and as punching the nose produces blood,

so stirring up anger produces strife.” – Proverbs 30:33

“For human anger does not accomplish God’s righteousness.” - James 1:20

Anger: A strong feeling of displeasure or hostility. Related to the “flight, flight, or freeze” of the

sympathetic nervous system. Considered by psychologist’s as a core emotion. Related to (but not limited to) rage, offense, annoyed, malice, bitterness, and aggressiveness.

We live in a national culture that is saturated with anger and its variants. A secular religion about being ‘offended’ has risen in recent years that has esteemed and encouraged being angry. What isn’t getting talked about enough is just how opposed to God this national culture of anger is.

In one his most famous statements Jesus says:

  “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is

the first and greatest commandment.   The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All

the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” – Matthew 22:37-40

In fact, Jesus significantly raises the bar when he says:

“ But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you,” – Matthew 5:44

But what is meant by “love”? The language that Jesus words are recorded in, Greek, has multiple words for love depending on its application. Familial, sexual, affectionate, and unconditional all had different words. The word Jesus uses, ‘Agape’, is the word for unconditional love. Apostle Paul breaks the definition down in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

“ Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious. Love does not brag, it is not puffed up. It is not

rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered or resentful. It is not glad about injustice, but

rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

In short, loving people and being easily angered or offended is, by definition, incoherent. Also, it is not loving to be impatient or rude, both forms of early anger. So while our culture calls us to anger, Jesus calls us to agape love.

Love changes our focus from ourselves to others. Anger tends to be all about us. In fact, you can search the entire Bible regarding what it has to say about people and anger, is never has a single good thing to say. It bears out the truth of our opening verse James 1:20.

The Bible acknowledges that we are going to experience anger. It is wired into our flesh. So, it is what we do with that anger that matters. Ephesians 4:26 acknowledges this when it says “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on the cause of your anger.”. In other words, take control of your feelings and get the issue resolved before you go to bed. Implication: no keeping anger as a pet. Sometimes way easier said than done.

Another important question to ask ourselves about anger is: “What right do I have to it?” or “By what authority may I be angry?”. If we ask those questions honestly, peeling back layers, and put the answers up to the light of scripture, we will find we have no right and no authority to hold on to it. If we do hold onto it, we are growing a monster. We must hand it over to our Father in heaven as he tells us:

“Do not avenge yourselves, dear friends, but give place to God’s wrath, for it is written,

“Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” says the Lord” – Romans 12:19

God is the only one who has the right and authority to hand out judgement and vengeance. He is the one who and righteously act on our anger. When we take this on ourselves scripture says we are living in the flesh vs. the Spirit:

“Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry,

sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy,

drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who

do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,

patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is

no law.” – Galatians 5:19-23

Here is the nut of dealing with anger (or any other fruit of the flesh) – we must learn to walk in the Spirit of God so we bear the fruit of the Spirit. We have the Spirit of the living God in us if we call Jesus Lord and believe God raised him from the dead. It is by living by the Spirit that we can:

“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along

with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ

forgave you.” – Ephesians 4:31-32

Finally, if you want to go deeper on what the Bible says about anger and some really challenging

thinking on it, take a read of the book “Unoffendable” by Brant Hansen. It forced me to get honest with scripture on the topic of anger and repent of some wrong thinking on the topic.